Innholdsfortegnelse for 2/8/2023 i Variety

“80 for Brady” has plenty for LGBTQ moviegoers to be excited about. Not only does it star icons Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno and Sally Field as friends who take a trip to see Tom Brady play in the 2017 Super Bowl, but Billy Porter plays a halftime show choreographer in the Paramount Pictures comedy. Now I’ve learned there was even supposed to be a same-sex kiss. So what happened? Gus Kenworthy (1) says his cameo in the film originally included him “making out” with his on-screen boyfriend, played by “M3gan” actor Brian Jordan Alvarez (2), but the scene didn’t make it into the 98-minute movie. “They said they had to cut it for time, but I think they cut it for Middle America,” the Olympic skier told me at…

Slowly but surely, the Oscars are starting to reflect the best in international film, rather than simply celebrating the most impressive achievements in American (and occasionally English, Irish and Australian) production. That’s a good thing for world cinema — to be recognized at last by the historically Hollywood-centric awards show — but a tricky transition, as the Academy reinvents what the Oscars represent. For the past 50 years, the org has largely relegated non-English-language cinematic achievements to the “international feature” ghetto. But a recent push by Academy leadership to expand its membership in every conceivable direction — seeking diversity at home, gender parity where possible and greater representation of industry talent around the globe — has significantly boosted international participation. Today, roughly 20% of the organization’s nearly 10,000 members live…

While “Batman” and “Elvis” led the Make-up and Hairstylists Guild noms with three apiece, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” hair department head Camille Friend’s nomination could have been a precursor to her Oscar nom. She could also make history by becoming the third Black hair department head to win an Academy Award for hair and makeup. (Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson won earlier for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”). Friend, who counts “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Pt. 1&2” and the 2019 “Black Panther” among her credits, is aware of the significance of her nominations. “I thought about all the little Black girls, Latina girls and Asian girls. They can look at me and say, ‘Oh, I don’t just have to work in a salon. I…

After being bogged down by the pandemic for two years, the Berlin Film Festival is firing on all cylinders again and eager to reclaim its role as Europe’s indispensable indie film industry engine. Artistic director Carlo Chatrian and executive director Mariëtte Rissenbeek have been busy building back the Berlinale, which besides the festival comprises the European Film Market (EFM), the world’s second-largest film bazaar after the Cannes’ Marché du Film. Significantly, EFM company stands and market screening slots are sold out. More than in the past, the lineup of Berlin’s 73rd edition — which runs Feb. 16-26 — features a vast assortment of different genres. Some titles, says Chatrian, have “a very strong connection to current events. Case in point is “Superpower,” Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s doc about Volodymyr…

FILM REVIEW Director: Steven Soderbergh Starring: Channing Tatum, Salma Hayek, Juliette Motamed “Toothless” probably isn’t the first word “Magic Mike” fans want to associate with Channing Tatum’s aging exotic dancer series, but there’s no denying the female-targeting franchise has dulled its bite over the past decade. If the Walt Disney Co. had made a movie about male strippers, it might look something like “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” a soft, in-name-only sequel to the 2012 hit, whose title is about as convincing as reports of director Steven Soderbergh’s retirement. Tatum’s still got it, and he ain’t about to retire, even if his semi-autobiographical hero, Mike Lane, has lost his magic and seems ready to hang up his thong. Meanwhile, gone are all the other gorgeous hunks who road-tripped with him in…

TLC marketers immediately knew that the new dating series “MILF Manor” would pose a challenge — just on its title alone. That’s not to mention its premise: eight single women, between the ages of 40 and 60, dating men who are decades younger. (And here’s the twist: That pool of men are the women’s sons.) “I think we all had a moment where we went, ‘Wait, what? What are we doing?’” TLC senior VP of marketing Jennifer Jakowicz says of “MILF Manor,” which premiered Jan. 15. “It was a slight moment of panic. Then we all kind of focused our energies, and we said, ‘OK, we’re gonna do this.’” But some of the usual marketing methods, such as paid media, had to be reconsidered. “We were rejected by some media…

In three of the past four years, the international feature race at the Academy Awards hasn’t been much of a race. Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” were all the only films in their respective fields with an accompanying best picture nomination, so a win in the lower-profile category was seen as a matter of course — with only “Parasite,” in a history-making coup, managing to take both. It’s a rule of thumb that has yet to be disproven at the Oscars, with “Z,” “Life Is Beautiful,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Amour” also cruising to an easy victory en route to losing best picture. (Only the 1971 Swedish epic “The Emigrants” provides a slight asterisk: under now-changed rules, though nominated, it lost…

After narrowing down 144 eligible documentary features to a remarkably strong shortlist of 15 docs, the Academy’s nonfiction branch whittled down that batch to five nominees: “All That Breathes,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Fire of Love,” “A House Made of Splinters,” and “Navalny.” It’s a quintuplet of powerful films from five formidable helmers. It’s also a list that, as every year, is notably missing several heralded docus including Brett Morgen’s “Moonage Daydream,” Ondi Timoner’s “Last Flight Home” and Alex Pritz’s “The Territory.” But despite the omissions, five beautifully crafted movies remain from both veteran and relatively green directors. Interestingly all but one of the nominated films, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, which is a testament to just how vital…

GRAY’S GOLD Oscar is 95 this year, meaning he’s been around longer than most of us. And many people assume the look of the award, his nickname and the structure of the annual voting … just kinda happened. However, Bruce Davis details the thought and innovations behind these things in his authoritative new book, “The Academy and the Award: The Coming of Age of Oscar and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences” (Brandeis University Press). Davis, who was AMPAS’ executive director for 20 years, dispels a lot of Oscar lore. No, neither Bette Davis nor the Academy’s Margaret Herrick came up with the nickname Oscar. No, Mexican actor Emilio Fernandez was not the model. Cedric Gibbons didn’t sketch out the design on the tablecloth at the Biltmore. Davis…

The majority of producers might be forgiven for agonizing about their choice of career as they enter the 73rd Berlinale. Yet despite the shaky state of the independent film market and uncertain future of cinemagoing, producer collaborations — across borders and continents — are playing an enhanced and vital role as the industry pivots once again in the face of ongoing disruption. Definitions of the so-called “independent producer” moniker vary so widely that the very term has been questioned. “There is no such thing as an independent producer,” Bill Mechanic, CEO of Pandemonium and former Fox Filmed Entertainment boss, memorably opined to IFTA members pre-pandemic. “There are dependent producers: dependent on distributors, financiers and bankers and distribution channels that understand the market even less that the corporations that own the…

TV REVIEW True Crime: Hulu (3 episodes; all reviewed); Feb. 9 Half the battle in making a truecrime documentary is finding the right story — one that can hold our interest and generate real insights. But the other half, the filmmaker’s approach, matters just as much. In narrating the famous tale of a bizarre ring of extortion that bloomed at Sarah Lawrence College in the early 2010s, “Stolen Youth” director Zach Heinzerling has his subject. But with a startling rawness and directness, Heinzerling’s work makes a case for itself as an unusually sensitive and strong outing in the genre. Those familiar with the case of Larry Ray, a parent of a Sarah Lawrence student who moved into his daughter’s housing at the Yonkers, N.Y., liberal arts college, may have learned…

Five weeks into 2023, here’s the good news for Hollywood: The stock prices of the media conglomerates are up across the board. The bad news for the entertainment industry is that the gains are largely in response to widespread cost-cutting campaigns. Peak TV has most certainly peaked, and now Wall Street is rewarding companies that are vowing to tap the brakes on the content-spending binge of the past half-dozen years. The latest stark example of Hollywood sobering up came Jan. 30 courtesy of Paramount Global, when it revealed the plan to consolidate Showtime and its streaming service Paramount+. Paramount Global’s move was an acknowledgment that it has to prioritize cost-cutting, so it can no longer shell out megabucks on shows to fuel two separate services. “Bridging the divide between linear…

AWARDS CIRCUIT What do “The Broadway Melody” (1929), “Grand Hotel” (1932) and “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935) have in common? In Oscar history, they are the only films to have won the Academy’s most coveted award — and nothing else. Could Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin” join that select group this year, despite being the second-most-nominated movie of the lot? Of the dark comedy’s nine noms, only three have a viable path to glory: Colin Farrell for actor, McDonagh for original screenplay and best picture. The other mentions — director, supporting actress and the double-dipping (and vote-splitting) supporting actors among them — face hurdles too high to clear. Farrell is walking steady with a Golden Globe for lead actor (comedy), but the film was shut out at the…

You’re not going to believe this, but Elizabeth Banks has never done cocaine. “I took ‘Just say no’ to heart,” Banks says over breakfast in Beverly Hills. Growing up in western Massachusetts and moving to New York City to break into acting, the 48-year-old Banks had many opportunities to, you know, do some blow, but she claims she never took them. She says it was just too risky. “Being a goody-two-shoes played into it,” she says. “Personal safety played a big role in it. I was a cocktail waitress for years. And I was not interested in not being sober for the shit I saw.” Banks has no such reservations, however, when it comes to filming a giant hairy mammal ingesting a boatload of coke. That is the wild premise…

While the final five in the international category at the Oscars ended up being mostly Eurocentric, the shortlist was one of the most diverse. Especially notable are the number of edgy stories set in different Muslim societies. They come not only from the Arab world such as Morocco’s submission “The Blue Caftan,” helmed by Maryam Touzani (“Adam”), but also Denmark with “The Holy Spider” from helmer Ali Abbasi (“Border”) and Sweden with “The Cairo Conspiracy” (ne “The Boy From Heaven”) directed by Tarik Saleh. There’s also Saim Sadiq’s debut feature, “Joyland,” from Pakistan, but it is a Pakistan-India-U.S. production. For the past several decades, filmmaking in the Nordic countries has been enriched by first- and second-generation or emigré talents with a hyphenated identity. For example, Stockholm-born director-writer Saleh’s father is…

Beyond the all-encompassing premise of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s massively ambitious, multiverse-spanning family dramedy, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” has proven to be the description of the categories it has dominated throughout awards season: it earned eight nominations, the most of any competing film, when the Independent Spirit Awards announced its contenders in November. That it since received five Golden Globe nominations (with two wins), 10 from BAFTA, 11 from the Academy Awards and film of the year nods from a few dozen critics groups speaks to Film Independent’s prescience — and suggests that the film’s winning streak will likely continue when the org holds its ceremony March 4. Yet true to their name, the Independent Spirits included a number of films that have elsewhere hovered on the edges…

Since 2013, Variety has been selecting its list of 10 Brits to Watch, artists across all media who have made an impact in entertainment. This year’s honorees will be feted at the seventh annual Newport Beach Film Festival U.K. Honors on Feb. 16 at at the Londoner Hotel in London. DOLLY ALDERTON “Everything I Know About Love” Don’t try to pin Alderton down. When Alderton, 34, started writing, she says, “I felt lots of pressure because people would tell me I had to choose one thing.” She proved doubters wrong with success as a newspaper columnist, memoirist (“Everything I Know About Love”), novelist (“Ghosts”) and TV writer — she adapted “Everything I Know About Love” into the show of the same name for BBC One and Peacock. Yet she still gets…