Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/10/2021 i Variety

For all of us big Paul Newman fans, it came as thrilling news last week that Knopf will be publishing the Hollywood icon’s unfinished memoir next fall, largely based on his own oral history along with interviews with his friends and family, actors like Tom Cruise and directors including George Roy Hill of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” fame. I’ve been obsessed with Newman my entire life, having grown up watching all his movies and going gaga every time he appeared on-screen. I met him once years ago when he and Joanne Woodward visited an acting class that I was in with one of Newman’s daughters. Meeting and conversing with that dreamy blue-eyed wonder was, well, you can just imagine. I spoke with Knopf editor-at-large Peter Gethers, who will…

NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, are something of a Rorschach test. The craze for the technology, which verifies ownership of unique digital assets, has swept across content industries in 2021. But will NFTs mature into a longterm business for Hollywood? True believers herald them as a major market-disrupting force, with the full impact unfurling over the next decade or more. Skeptics, though, see a FOMO-fueled trend that’s as overheated as the Dutch tulip bulb craze of the 1600s. Lately, there’s practically been a new NFT announcement every day. The diverse roster of companies, brands and artists hopping on the bandwagon include Warner Bros., Disney, Lionsgate, Fox, ViacomCBS, WWE, the UFC, CNN and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. In music, those catching NFT fever range from K-pop superstars BTS to Lil…

AWARDS CIRCUIT There’s not much that Lady Gaga cannot do. A 12-time Grammy winner, the pop superstar has made a seamless transition to features (“A Star Is Born”) and television (“American Horror Story: Hotel”). As the world awaits her interpretation of the murderess Patrizia Reggiani in “House of Gucci,” are we also waiting on a future best actress winner, who could mimic a trajectory once executed by Cher? The best actress race is buzzing with past nominees (Jessica Chastain, a contender for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”), previous winners (Penélope Cruz for “Parallel Mothers,” Frances McDormand for “The Tragedy of Macbeth”), newcomers (Emilia Jones for “CODA,” Rachel Zegler for “West Side Story”) and career-defining character transformations (Kristen Stewart for “Spencer”). But while the field is notable, a front-runner has yet…

It was supposed to be a lark, the joint album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, and certainly not a cash-in or an awards play. So the first big surprise about “Raising Sand” — the 2007 collaborative effort by the erstwhile Led Zeppelin frontman and the bluegrass-turned-pop singer and violinist — was that it got made at all. The second was that such a seemingly niche project, delicately crafted with roots-virtuoso producer T Bone Burnett, not only went platinum but was honored with six Grammys — including two of the top categories, album of the year and record of the year. If you’re Krauss, who long held the mark for most Grammys by a female artist (her 27 were finally surpassed this year when Beyoncé moved up to 28), that…

GRAY’S GOLD “CODA” may be the most radical Oscar contender this year. Writer-director Sian Heder says, “We told a simple story about family dynamics. I was trying to portray a complicated family that felt real.” She’s right: The structure is straightforward and the story is indeed simple, about a hearing daughter from a deaf family who wants to pursue her own career. But the film is revolutionary because it centers on a deaf family. Most films ignore them; if a film does depict a deaf person, they’re usually alone — and usually played by a hearing actor. Marlee Matlin, who plays the matriarch in “CODA,” says: “Sian put these characters front and center, that’s part of the film’s appeal; audiences haven’t seen this before; this movie fulfills the thirst of…

Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast” is a film he holds near and dear to his heart, as the semi-autobiographical movie is a touching love letter to his childhood. Jude Hill stars as Buddy, a young boy growing up amid the rising political tensions of Ireland in the ’60s. Early in the movie an explosion on the street where his home is informs his parents’ eventual decision to move the family away from the city. Putting family front and center was key for Branagh, who both wrote and directed. But equally important was remembering Buddy’s perspective. “In the cut and framing, we talked about keeping the audience positively unsettled in the way the boy is,” Branagh says. In a scene at a gate, when a villain comes up behind Buddy’s father, played by…

COLUMN This month marks the 40th anniversary of my joining Variety, which sets off a number of thoughts. The first is a realization: 40 years? I’m old! (This is startling because for many years I wasn’t.) The second reaction is how much things have changed. Occasionally, people will say, “Wow, 40 years at one place!” And I think, well, yes, but that requires a few footnotes. It’s always been Variety and it always will be. But as you may have noticed, a lot has changed since 1981, such as entertainment and journalism. And Variety is at the intersection of both. As a bonus, both worlds have been revolutionized by technology. Variety has not only been my workplace for multiple decades, but now I’m beginning to see it as a metaphor…

Film festivals have been the primary hatching-ground for Oscar contenders ever since the Academy’s tastes shifted predominantly from studio to independent cinema earlier this century — though in the international feature category, this has been the case for far longer. Rare is the non-English-language nominee that captures voters’ imaginations without a profile boost from one of the major fests — you have to go back to 2008’s Japanese sleeper “Departures” to find a film that won without an assist from Cannes, Venice, Berlin or Toronto. This year, with the festival circuit largely back to business as usual after the disruptions of the pandemic, a vast number of submissions in the category are hot with festival buzz, with Cannes — making up for lost time after last year’s cancelled edition —…

Less than a decade ago the campaign to win an Academy Award for feature documentary did not include billboards on Sunset Boulevard, six-figure one-page ads in the New York Times and incessant screenings at New York’s Crosby Hotel or Los Angeles’ Four Seasons followed by free food and cocktails for Academy documentary branch members. Nowadays it’s customary. While the docu Oscar race has never been a completely level playing field, all the money and attention being thrown at documentaries these days has made garnering a little gold man for nonfiction a big business. And although there are policies in place within the Academy to counter and compensate for films without big backers, there is no denying that the influx of streaming services and their growing appetite for doc fare has…

Resuming its traditional post as the last stand of the fall festival season, the American Film Institute’s AFI Fest will return to its traditional home at the TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood, its first in-person fest since 2019. Per AFI president and CEO Bob Gazzale, the event will re-enter the scene with its sense of purpose intact. “AFI Fest was created to fulfil a need, and that need seems to change every year, certainly during a global pandemic,” Gazzale says. “And what we determined early was that the goal of AFI this year was to manifest what we learned during the pandemic: that experiencing life with others is a joy. To laugh together, to experience a jump scare, to experience a story well told has always proven a tonic for…

The initial meeting between “The Humans” director Stephen Karam and production designer David Gropman included some personal history. “The first thing we did was, he walked me around his neighborhood,” Gropman says. Adapted from Karam’s play of the same name, “The Humans” is a New York-set drama dripping with anxiety and claustrophobia as it follows a family’s Thanksgiving in the youngest daughter’s newly rented apartment. Karam began writing the play in 2007, in the climate of mid-financial-crisis, post-9/11 America and inspired by what he calls “the maze of prewar apartments I’ve lived in my entire New York life.” Shortly after Gropman signed on, he knew he had a location to share as well. The apartment in the film is almost a complete replica of the home of a group of…

MUSIC REVIEW Artist: Silk Sonic Label: Aftermath-Atlantic It might have a core of ultrarich high-calorie cheese, but the throwback song is a very specific and carefully calibrated art form. It must evoke and transcend the era it’s reviving in an affectionate or hilarious fashion (or both); it has to be a great song as well as a nostalgia trip for those who remember, and a vicarious saunter through a previous decade for those who don’t. Equally, the timing has to be right: You don’t want to bring back something that doesn’t feel particularly fresh or relevant at that moment (the standard 20-year nostalgia cycle is a reliable benchmark, if not necessarily a rule). Songs ranging from Childish Gambino’s “Redbone” and Lenny Kravitz’s “It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over” (both nods…

Was the deadly tragedy at Travis Scott’s ill-fated Astroworld Festival at Houston’s NRG Park on Nov. 5 an aberration in a concert industry with a mostly admirable safety record, or a horrific wake-up call about flaws in planning and execution that could have led to disaster much sooner? With eight dead and more than 300 injured as the crowd stampeded before and during Scott’s set, most industry sources declined to comment, saying investigations — and a rapidly growing number of lawsuits — will reveal the causes. But the general public and lawyers representing the victims are pointing to countless videos posted online that show the concert continuing, and Scott riling up an already unruly crowd, well after the festival had been declared a “mass casualty” event. Many are placing the…

If you’re looking for someone to throw a punch or take on a zombie horde, well, Jon Bernthal’s probably your guy. But when you’re looking for an actor who can credibly serve-and-volley, he might not spring to mind. That was the dilemma facing “King Richard” director Reinaldo Marcus Green when he was looking for someone to portray Rick Macci, the tennis coach who took a chance on a young Venus and Serena Williams. Bernthal has made a career playing tough guys, such as gritty Marvel antihero Frank Castle or “The Walking Dead’s” Shane Walsh. When looking for an actor to play Tony Soprano’s father for “The Many Saints of Newark,” Bernthal, who has broken his nose more than a dozen times, made perfect sense. But to play the happily square…

As Hollywood grapples with the accidental shooting death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, I had the chance to talk with “Squid Game” writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk (1) about the safety precautions taken on the set of his intensely violent series. “We of course have a prop master, but also in Korea, we’re not really a gun-owning country, so only the police can have and own a gun,” he said. “Because of that, bullets are not really easily as distributed as they are maybe here, so there’s a very low, low possibility of any safety issues happening on set.” In fact, he said, “in my life, I have never seen a real bullet. I have only seen them in the movies.” I caught up with Hwang on Monday before a…

These are the submissions for the international film Oscar by country. The deadline for entries was Nov. 1. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced Dec. 21 and the nominations will come out Feb 8. The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27 at the Dolby Theatre. The Academy has not yet released a final list of entries; Variety compiled this list from individual country’s announcements. ALBANIA Two Lions Heading to Venice Dir. Jonid Jorji KEY CAST: Vasjan Lami, Alessandra Bonarotta LOGLINE: A pair of filmmakers heading to the Venice festival are sidetracked from their destination after meeting two adult film actors. PRODCO: Bajo Films ALGERIA Heliopolis Dir. Djaafar Gacem KEY CAST: Souhila Mallem, Mehdi Ramdani, Cesar Duminil LOGLINE: True story of an uprising in the Algerian…

When people talk about diversifying the entertainment industry, it almost always centers on race, gender or sexuality. But one of the most radical shifts in Hollywood has gone largely unnoticed: The Oscars’ documentary branch more than doubled its membership over the past five years, and around half of its new voters are based outside the U.S. The move hasn’t just turned more foreign docs into Oscar finalistsand nominees. It’s now influencing which films get funded and distributed, and determining winners in categories as big as international feature and best picture. “We have an effect on what wins in other categories, so when you see a [South Korean] film like ‘Parasite’ win best picture, our branch probably played a big role in that,” says Roger Ross Williams, a documentary branch governor.…

Today’s television landscape would look like an alien planet to visitors from 2002. Cable had only begun to hit its stride with original programming, “streaming” TV had not yet taken hold, binging an entire new series in a weekend wasn’t possible. And despite the existence of hundreds of channel options, a series focusing seriously on mental health was nowhere to be found. Then Dr. Phil McGraw came along. After several tryouts on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the folksy, mustached, straight-talking doctor of psychology landed his own series. “Dr. Phil” premiered on Sept. 16, 2002 — and the floodgates were officially opened. Equal parts insight and heartfelt entertainment therapy, with a sprinkle of ratings-goosing sensationalism, McGraw and his team, which includes his wife, Robin, on camera and executive producer Carla Pennington…

Apple Original Films’ post-apocalyptic “Finch,” starring Tom Hanks and dropping Nov. 5 on Apple TV Plus, avoids the familiar sights of zombies and aliens. Instead, it’s a story of a man who survives in a bunker with his dog, Goodyear. When he learns he has a terminal illness, he devises a plan to build an AI robot to care for the pup once he’s gone. VFX supervisor Scott Stokdyk and his team were called on to build the droid, named Jeff. He’s the only other voice in the film besides Hanks, and comes to develop a soul. Stokdyk had actor Caleb Landry Jones dress in a special suit complete with a mask as well as practical elements like the robot’s outer arms and gloves. “We used the latest motion capture…