It’s already been an eventful awards season for costume designer Charlotte Walter, winning a British Independent Film Award for her work on Misbehavior and garnering another nomination for Belfast (Focus Features). The latter film--written and directed by Kenneth Branagh--has already made a major mark on the awards show circuit, named one of the top ten films of the year by the National Board of Review, receiving a special prize from the American Film Institute, and winning the People’s Choice... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sidney Poitier, the groundbreaking actor and enduring inspiration who transformed how Black people were portrayed on screen and became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw, has died. He was 94. Poitier, winner of the best actor Oscar in 1964 for "Lilies of the Field," died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles, according to Latrae Rahming, the director communications for the Prime Minister of Bahamas. Few movie stars,... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Just two weeks before it was to be held in Park City, Utah, the Sundance Film Festival is canceling its in-person festival and reverting to an entirely virtual edition due to the current coronavirus surge. Festival organizers announced Wednesday that the festival will start as scheduled on Jan. 20 but will shift online. The festival had been planned as a hybrid, with screenings both in Park City and online. Last year's Sundance was also held virtually because of the pandemic. "This was a... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- When veteran TV producer Greg Berlanti was invited to adapt the novel "You" about a seductive charmer with a murderous streak, he immediately fixed on former "Supernatural" producer Sera Gamble as his collaborator. It may sound "horrible" but was the opposite, Berlanti explains. The book by Caroline Kepnes had "all the great things I love about Sera's writing. It's pulpy and addictive, but also highly intelligent and smart, and has something to say about our culture, our society,'" he said. "... Read More 

In Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi's films, reasonably straightforward set-ups — a divorce, a missing woman, a newly lent apartment — unspool such complex, cascading developments that it comes as no surprise that a found handbag stuffed with gold coins leads to countless fluctuations of fortune and anguish in his latest, "A Hero." In movies, we tend to reserve the term "magician" for more spectacle-driven filmmakers who spin visual-effects illusions. But Farhadi's mastery is at least equally... Read More 

NEW YORK -- The AICP National Board of Directors elected a new leadership slate at its 2021 year-end meeting. Lisa Mehling, owner/president of Chelsea, was elected chairperson and Tabitha Mason-Elliott, partner/head of production, at BARK BARK was elected vice chairperson. Additionally, Robert Fernandez, CEO of Moxie Pictures, was re-elected treasurer. Mehling previously held the post of vice chairperson, and is the first woman to be elected chairperson of the National Board. In addition to serving as vice... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- Director Peyton Wilson has signed with production company Tomorrow for commercial representation. Her brand work spans poignant campaigns for Verizon, HP, Ford, Cisco, Buick, Norton, Nokia and the U.S. Navy, among others. For The Nature Conservancy, Wilson shot its anthem film in the Sierras during one of the worst California wildfires in history, surmounting circumstances where certain areas couldn’t be reached due to the extreme weather. Ewan McGregor lent his voiceover talent to the project... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- Wondros Collective has added director Jeffrey DeChausse to its roster for commercial representation in the U.S. DeChausse is an award-winning creative who has directed and produced assorted commercials, documentaries and short films. His body of work spans such brands as Apple, Lexus, Toyota, Budweiser, New Balance, Honda, Microsoft, Levi’s and Jeep, among many others. Wondros sr. executive producer Danielle Peretz described DeChausse as “truly a multidimensional and multifaceted” writer/... Read More 

ATLANTA -- 22squared has brought Doreen Fox aboard as VP, group creative director. Fox will help lead creative for the company’s AdventHealth client as well as expand the creative team beyond Atlanta and Tampa. Fox will report to chief creative officer Matt O’Rourke and SVP, executive creative director Mindy Adams. Fox is a 22-year Ogilvy veteran where she most recently served as creative director. An award-winning creative director and native New Yorker, Fox joins 22squared with a pedigree of leading... Read More 

PARIS -- Publicis Groupe has entered into a deal to acquire Tremend, one of the fastest-growing and largest independent software engineering companies in Central and Eastern Europe. Financial terms were not disclosed and the transaction remains subject to customary approvals by the relevant competition authority. Tremend currently reaches 60 million of its clients’ end users with its technology and will serve as the newest global delivery center for Publicis Sapient, the digital transformation company... Read More 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Three bright and driven women with ground-breaking ideas made significant — if very different — marks on the embattled tech industry in 2021. Frances Haugen, Lina Khan and Elizabeth Holmes — a data scientist turned whistleblower, a legal scholar turned antitrust enforcer and a former Silicon Valley high-flyer turned criminal defendant — all figured heavily in a technology world where men have long dominated the spotlight. Think Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk... Read More 

"West Side Story's" Ariana DeBose, "Licorice Pizza's" Alana Haim and "Belfast's" Caitriona Balfe are among the actors who will receive the Santa Barbara International Film Festival's Virtuosos Award this year. Festival organizers plan to give out the honors at an in-person event in the coastal California town on March 5. The eight actors singled out for the award include newcomers, like Saniyya Sidney who plays Venus Williams in "King Richard" and "CODA's" Emilia Jones and Troy Kotsur, as well... Read More 

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Thousands of people have gathered in Las Vegas for a tech conference that's been scaled back because of COVID-19 pandemic precautions. The floors of the CES gadget show opened Wednesday with conference attendees required to wear masks and show proof of vaccination. "We know that this CES is going to be different," said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Technology Association, the event's organizer. He spoke during a ribbon-cutting ceremony to launch the show. The trade group hasn't... Read More 

Peter Bogdanovich, the ascot-wearing cinephile and director of 1970s black-and-white classics like "The Last Picture Show" and "Paper Moon," has died. He was 82. Bogdanovich died early Thursday morning at this home in Los Angeles, said his daughter, Antonia Bogdanovich. She said he died of natural causes Considered part of a generation of young "New Hollywood" directors, Bogdanovich was heralded as an auteur from the start, with the chilling lone shooter film "Targets" and soon after "The Last... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Betty White, whose saucy, up-for-anything charm made her a television mainstay for more than 60 years, whether as a man-crazy TV hostess on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" or the loopy housemate on "The Golden Girls," has died. She was 99. White's death was confirmed by her longtime agent Jeff Witjas in a phone call Friday with publicist Pam Golum. White would have turned 100 on Jan. 17, 2022. She launched her TV career in daytime talk shows when the medium was still in its infancy and endured well... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Hollywood closed out 2021 with more fireworks at the box office for "Spider-Man: No Way Home," which topped all films for the third straight week and already charts among the highest grossing films ever. But even with all the champagne popping for "No Way Home," the film industry heads into 2022 with plenty of reason for both optimism and concern after a year that saw overall ticket revenue double that of 2020, but still well off the pre-pandemic pace. Movie theaters began the year mostly... Read More 

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- The Society of Composers & Lyricists has unveiled the full slate of SCL Awards nominees. Vying for the Studio Film honor are composers Nicholas Britell for Don’t Look Up , Hans Zimmer for Dune , Germaine Franco for Encanto , Alexandre Desplat for The French Dispatch , and Jonny Greenwood for The Power of the Dog . Indie Film nominees are composers Kubilay Uner for American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally , Daniel Hart for The Green Knight , Rachel Portman for Julia , Alberto Iglesias for... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Grammy Awards were postponed Wednesday weeks before the planned Los Angeles ceremony over what organizers called "too many risks" from the omicron variant, signaling what could be the start of another year of pandemic upheaval for awards season. The attempt at a back-to-normal show had been scheduled for Jan. 31st at the newly renamed Crypto.com Arena with a live audience and performances, but no new date is on the books. The Recording Academy said it made the decision to postpone the... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Ryan Seacrest is still the king of New Year's Eve television, no matter what Andy Cohen may think. Seacrest, inheritor of ABC's 50-year-old "New Year's Rockin' Eve" from Dick Clark, reached 19.6 million viewers between 11:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. last weekend, the Nielsen company said. During the 15-minute interval where the ball dropped in New York's Times Square, his audience jumped to 24.2 million people. It was the show's biggest audience in four years, Nielsen said. A drunken Cohen, who was... Read More 

It's always a little suspect when too much is made of a big action movie being "female-fronted." Unfortunately, Hollywood has decided lately that in course correcting for decades of gender inequity in certain genres that it's not enough to just make an action-packed movie starring more than one woman: They must let the audience know that they know that this is A Girl Power Moment. And frankly, whether it's the lady Avengers assembling in "Infinity War," a montage of Girls Doing Sports and... Read More 

Renee Zhan of Blinkink directs this timely film for the Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, Austria, to draw attention to relics of the past--oil boilers, gas and coal furnaces--that many Austrians have lurking in their basements. Conceptualized by agency Jung Von Matt, the PSA introduces us to our young protagonist Tobias who is awakened at night by ominous sounds coming out of his house’s basement, a site that’s long been a place of physical and psychological darkness. Titled “What’s... Read More 

A PSA from U.K. charity Women’s Aid highlights how signs of coercive control can be hard to identify as part of an abusive relationship. Styled as a bright and brash TV quiz show called “Spot The Abuse” being held before a cheering studio audience, the two-minute public service film features three smiling female contestants--Jade from Bournemouth, Aisha from London and Kate from Hertfordshire--being asked questions about relationships by a game show host. The aim of the campaign is to educate... Read More 

Martin Werner directed this Interflora spot via Copenhagen-based production company Bacon for Denmark agency Pong. (Werner is repped in the U.S. by production house RESET.) Titled “Lonely Neighbor,” the commercial introduces us to an up-tight, seemingly mean spirited neighbor who softens over the holidays when a family reaches out to her. Read More 

Gatorade has teamed up with the NFL's Los Angeles Rams to debut “Born and Bred,” a short film about Rams receiver Robert Woods as he recalls growing up in Carson, Calif. and the biggest inspiration of his life and career in the NFL--his older sister Olivia Woods, who was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma at the age of 12. Following a five-year battle with this rare form of cancer, Olivia died in 2007. Robert was 15 years-old at the time of her passing. “My sister’s attitude and approach to life... Read More 

Titled “You Do Your Thing,” this Turbo Tax spot directed by Raine Allen-Miller of production house Somesuch for Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore., shows us a series of folks with different circumstances who qualify for certain tax breaks due to those circumstances. Whether you just started a nomadic lifestyle in a van or had a pandemic-induced career change, TurboTax live online experts can take care of tax issues related to those and all other circumstances, helping customers get the... Read More 

Harold Einstein of Dummy Films directed this spot, “Lost,” for Dole Fruit Bowls. The commercial is part of the “Hold My Fruit Bowl” campaign conceived by agency Erich & Kallman. In “Lost,” a group of young scouts gets lost in the woods as their troop leader is unable to find his bearings. A small boy hands the Dole Fruit Bowl he’s eating to a fellow scout and says, “hold my fruit bowl.” Next, the boy calls on a hawk for help. He has a friendly conversation with the bird in its own language... Read More 

Director Kimberly Stuckwisch, who recently joined Scheme Engine for her first U.S. commercial representation, has made her spot helming debut with this K-Pop inspired :60, “Whole Bag Kinda Night,” for SkinnyPop popcorn out of agency 360i. The commercial pays tribute to stay-at-home snacking, which has escalated during the pandemic, while positioning SkinnyPop as one of the hottest snacks on the market. Protagonists are four diverse women going gung-ho for the popcorn as choreography, music,... Read More 

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