Hollywood
April 25, 2021
by Suzanne Joe Kai
"Nomadland" director Chloé Zhao made history at tonight's 2021 Academy Awards, becoming the first woman of color to win Best Director.
Her film "Nomadland" also won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Actress in a leading role.
Frances McDormand won the Oscar for Best Actress in "Nomadland."
She was also a Producer of the film.
Frances plays a woman in her 60's who loses everything in the Great Recession of 2008 and lives in a van as a nomad like other transient workers in the American West during the 2008 economic crisis.
Frances McDormand howled onstage during her acceptance speech in tribute to Michael Wolf "Nomadland's" production sound mixer who died at the age of 35.
Chloé Zhao is only the second woman ever to win the Directing award, tonight marking yet another milestone for the Oscars.
The only other woman to win an Oscar for Directing is Kathryn Bigelow[5] in 2010,[6] for The Hurt Locker.
Born in Beijing, China, Chloé moved with her parents to London when she was in high school, and attended Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
She attended New York University's MFA graduate film program.
She currently lives in Ojai, California.
Sources:
Oscars.org
IMDB
RottenTomatoes.com
Variety.com April 25, 2021 Frances McDormand
Variety.com March 6, 2021 Wolf Snyder
By Stephen Rakower
Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethaku wins the Palm D'or for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives a mystical reincarnation tale of a man with acute kidney failure who chooses to spend his final days with his loved ones in the countryside.
Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave - the birthplace of his first life.
The film is the sixth for the 39 year old director who likes to be called by his nickname, Joe, and the first Palm d'Or for Thailand.
Joe is outspoken about the current political troubles in Thailand, and the recent deadly clashes in the streets of Bangkok.
He says the clashes are due to the wide divide between the rich and the poor.
He is lobbying for more Thai government funding of films. This year he said, Thailand announced a new government film fund of $6.2 million, with half going to one film directed by a Thai prince to do a historical film. Just before flying to France to the Cannes Film Festival, he said he was lobbying Thailand's Ministry of Culture for more transparency in film funding.
Joe is the son of two doctors who moved from Bangkok to the northeast part of Thailand and built a hospital there. His film is set in the same northeast location as his childhood.
From 1994 to 1997, Joe attended the Chicago Art Institute where he was exposed to many kinds of films, especially experimental films. He initially had alot of challenges adapting...
“The early Sixties have been good to me lately,” said Darren Pettie, whose diverse roles circa 1960′s include his turn as Lucky Strike scion Lee Garner, Jr. in several episodes of the critically acclaimed and award winning AMC TV series “Mad Men”; as James in Atlantic’s Off-Broadway production of Harold Pinter’s The Collection penned in 1961; and as Christopher Flanders in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s current production of Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, with Olympia Dukakis, set in 1962.
Erik Haagensen of Backstage.com describes Christopher Flanders as a “former poet, aging pretty boy, and professional houseguest,” and notes, “as Chris, Darren Pettie is properly fraying at the edges, an intriguing mix of calculation, sympathy, arrogance, and sexual magnetism.”
Williams’ haunting drama takes place in Flora Goforth’s picturesque Italian mountaintop home, where the wealthy American widow, in denial over her impending demise, has sequestered herself from the world in order to write her memoirs. Pettie’s character is a handsome and mysterious young poet who arrives without warning to keep Flora company in her final hours. It is a dreamlike play that blossoms into a fascinating meditation on life and death.
This production of Williams’The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore is actually a compilation of different drafts woven together by director Michael...
As violence is escalating against journalists working in war-torn countries, low profile or nearly invisible still and video cameras, and content capture and distribution technologies are becoming necessary survival gear.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has reported an unprecedented number of casualties: eleven journalists have been killed this year worldwide, eight of the eleven in the Middle East, one in Vietnam, one in the Philippines, and one in Mexico. CPF reports that there have been more than 300 attacks on journalists covering the recent political unrest in the Middle East.
CNN's Anderson Cooper and his camera crew were attacked by pro-government supporters on February 2, 2011 in Cairo while covering the Egyptian conflict. A video shot by Cooper for CNN's AC360 can be seen on this link. Cooper was able to keep his small Flip video camera recording, as he was escaping from his attackers. While Cooper was able to broadcast his reports and fly back to New York, many other journalists have not been as lucky. Some have been jailed, brutally beaten, stabbed or shot, their equipment destroyed, or worse - killed.
The large, conspicuous shoulder mounted video cameras have quickly been replaced by low profile gear such as the miniature Flip video cameras. Laptops are being replaced in the field by iPhones and other cell phones which can transmit still images, audio and video, and update blogs, Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Fresh from the Atlanta set of House of Payne, the award-winning actress was a vision in a cream colored tuxedo when we attended a concert performance by Marva Hicks in Pat Holley’s Me and Caesar Lee at the Triad Theatre in New York earlier this month.
Burse hinted at big developments in Season 7 for Claretha and talked about the festivities of the 2011 NAACP Image Awards in L.A.“It’s been really hair raising,” said Burse. “I can’t give too much away until they start the new season. She’s in a very interesting storyline. I can only urge you to tune in because many eyebrows will be raised.”
Click here to watch “Payneful Visit,” the episode where Claretha reveals she has leukemia.
About Claretha, Burse shared, “She’s funny, she’s sassy, very sensitive. She is a woman who likes being in love, and has been hurt many times as a result. She has a great big heart. She loves her friends deeply and loyally. She has a sense of flair. I wear outrageous gear and change my hair to fit my outfit. From head to...