A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit. Julia Roberts is back in the awards conversation this season, not only with her latest film, Ben Is Back, which has been winning her some of the best reviews of her career, but also her Amazon series Homecoming, which got a two-season initial order and has racked up Lead Actress nominations right out of the gate for her at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards after just a 10-episode first… Read
In 2010, Debra Granik made Winter's Bone, the film that first showcased the skill of Jennifer Lawrence, who would be Oscar-nominated for her breakthrough performance. Granik returns to narrative eight years on with Leave No Trace, which tells the story of Will and Tom, a father and daughter living an unconventional life off-the-grid in a public park. Granik's film refuses to moralize, asking questions about non-conforming lifestyles without ever passing judgement on its… Read
On Ralph Breaks the Internet, Disney's follow-up to 2012's Wreck It Ralph, Alan Menken enjoyed the privilege of being sought after for the legacy he's built, and a singular musical quality only he could provide. As the eight-time Oscar winner notes, he has become a genre unto himself at this point. "It certainly beats a stick in the eye," the legendary composer laughs. "It's nice in that you know that your work is really valued." The force behind such Disney animated… Read
It was an all-woman panel — actress, director, film editor — as the Destroyer team of Nicole Kidman, Karyn Kusama and Plummy Tucker joined me on the DGA stage last month for Deadline’s eighth annual The Contenders Los Angeles awards-season event.
The subject was the very intense Annapurna film opening Christmas Day, in which Kidman plays a flawed, beaten and determined Los Angeles cop trying to come back from some very big mistakes. Kidman discusses how she and Kusama had… Read
With Disney's acquisition of Fox now imminent, Hollywood is only now coming to terms with its impact in terms of lost jobs and the emerging predominance of the new entity in film and TV, as we discuss in the latest episode of The Bart & Fleming Podcast.
On the movie side, with a hefty lineup of tentpoles and sequels, the combined entity will not only dominate box office but also control prime release dates. But will the ubiquity of the massive new company hurt or help the… Read
Ryan Coogler is living the dream. As a kid he loved and watched the Rocky movies and then grew up to actually work with Sylvester Stallone and take the series forward as a director. Also as a kid he read Marvel comics and particularly Black Panther, and would grow up to direct the first Black Panther movie — one that became a box office giant of record proportions, as well as the first Marvel or comic book movie to seriously have a chance at the Best Picture Oscar.
Of… Read
The Critics’ Choice Awards will honor The Girl in the Spider’s Web star and The Crown alum Claire Foy and sitcom hitmaker Chuck Lorre at its 24th annual ceremony next month.
Foy, who also recently co-starred opposite Ryan Gosling in Damien Chazelle’s First Man, will receive the CCA’s #SeeHer Award. The group says it a woman who embodies the values set forth by the #SeeHer movement — to push boundaries on changing stereotypes and recognize the importance of authentic… Read
It’s not the first time that a sequel has arrived more than a decade after it’s predecessor, and in such situations, it’s always daunting for a studio, because you never know if moviegoers are still going to care, or if they’re too precious about the original movie.
However, Disney/Pixar’s Incredibles 2, like Finding Dory before it, delivered the same type of electricity as its original movie 14 years ago (arguably more), hooking both legacy audiences and a new generation… Read
On Bohemian Rhapsody, depicting the rise of Freddie Mercury from outsider status to that of an icon, costume designer Julian Day went after the essence of a figure that was larger than life, seeking to please both legions of diehard Queen fans and his lead actor, Rami Malek. For various reasons, Mercury was a substantially difficult character to take on. As singular of a stage presence as he was, with a uniquely potent global fan base, the musician was as influential in… Read
WHOJoanna Kulig
Age: 36
Hometown: Krynica-Zdrój, Lesser Poland, Poland
WHAT
In Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War, Kulig is Zula, a woman in post-war Poland who joins a folk music touring group. She begins a romance with conductor Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and the two form a passionate but volatile couple. The story spans time and countries as the pair begins to realize that although they should never be together, they can never be apart.
"I think Zula is like me, very… Read
Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is the story of one woman’s struggle in 1970s Mexico City, but it is also a story about Mexico, and what the country was going through at the time of Cuarón’s youth.
“It was an attempt to come to terms with and try to understand what existence is,” he said onstage recently at Deadline’s The Contenders Los Angeles awards-season event. “How, on the one hand, we’re limited by time and space, but that same time and space molds who we are. It was so… Read
For the past three years, the Outstanding TV movie Primetime Emmy category was won by episodes of TV series, Sherlock special Abominable Bride and Black Mirror’s San Junipero and USS Callister installments. Now the TV Academy is setting a length threshold, 75 minutes, for a program to be eligible to compete as TV movie.
Of the three most recent TV movie Emmy winners only one, San Junipero, would not have been eligible under the new guidelines but the rule change is… Read
