The five artists chosen for the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors are likely being informed now in the month of April about their selections. That’s according to recent honoree Billy Crystal, who said he was told last April and had to keep quiet until mid-summer when the 2023 Kch choices were officially announced.
Crystal was honored a few months ago in Washington, D.C. for the annual CBS event, along with Renee Fleming, Barry Gibb, Queen Latifah and Dionne Warwick. Who do we think will be among the honorees announced this summer? Tour our photo gallery above to see who are our choices for the top 50 entertainers who need to be selected soon. You can also visit our forums thread where we have a much lengthier list of hundreds of eligible artists.
SEEKennedy Center Honors: 20 Greatest Performances of All Time
Our gallery features deserving artists from the fields of acting (both film and TV), popular music,...
Crystal was honored a few months ago in Washington, D.C. for the annual CBS event, along with Renee Fleming, Barry Gibb, Queen Latifah and Dionne Warwick. Who do we think will be among the honorees announced this summer? Tour our photo gallery above to see who are our choices for the top 50 entertainers who need to be selected soon. You can also visit our forums thread where we have a much lengthier list of hundreds of eligible artists.
SEEKennedy Center Honors: 20 Greatest Performances of All Time
Our gallery features deserving artists from the fields of acting (both film and TV), popular music,...
- 4/11/2024
- by Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
In January 2019, Paul Simon awoke from a dream. Some voice in his head had informed him, deep within his Rem cycle, that he was going to work on a project called “Seven Psalms.” The singer-songwriter behind “The Sound of Silence,” “A Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” “Love Me Like a Rock,” and several dozen other songs that have likely been part of the soundtrack of your life, willingly or unwillingly, had effectively been retired for several years. Music-wise, he had nothing on deck except for this lovely little riff he’d...
- 3/18/2024
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Nearly 60 years after the release of “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy),” Paul Simon still cringes at the song.
The 1966 Simon & Garfunkel classic features “a line that I hate,” the singer-songwriter told Stephen Colbert on Wednesday at the DGA New York Theater. “As it’s coming up, I’m thinking, ‘Here it comes, here it comes’ – ‘Life, I love you.’ Ugh! ‘All is groovy.’ Oh!” Simon recalled with evident disdain having to “sing it with Artie all the time because it was a hit. In my own shows, I don’t do it unless I make a mistake and I do it to punish myself.”
The crowd erupted with laughter at the singer-songwriter’s recollection and many others he delivered after a screening of the first part of Alex Gibney’s In Restless Dreams, a two-part documentary debuting Sunday on MGM+. Gibney was also onstage to discuss the project,...
The 1966 Simon & Garfunkel classic features “a line that I hate,” the singer-songwriter told Stephen Colbert on Wednesday at the DGA New York Theater. “As it’s coming up, I’m thinking, ‘Here it comes, here it comes’ – ‘Life, I love you.’ Ugh! ‘All is groovy.’ Oh!” Simon recalled with evident disdain having to “sing it with Artie all the time because it was a hit. In my own shows, I don’t do it unless I make a mistake and I do it to punish myself.”
The crowd erupted with laughter at the singer-songwriter’s recollection and many others he delivered after a screening of the first part of Alex Gibney’s In Restless Dreams, a two-part documentary debuting Sunday on MGM+. Gibney was also onstage to discuss the project,...
- 3/14/2024
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
A two-part Paul Simon documentary directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney has been acquired by MGM+ and will premiere on the cable network next month. In anticipation, the first trailer has been revealed and is streaming below.
In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon is described in a press release as “the definitive musical biography” of the folk singer, and details an immersive journey into the life and work of “one of the greatest songwriters (and performers) in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.” It’s set to premiere on MGM+ on March 17th and March 24th at 9:00 p.m. Et/Pt.
The docuseries captures Simon at work on his latest musical project, Seven Psalms, as well as never-before-seen footage of his career, from Simon & Garfunkel to Bridge Over Troubled Water and Graceland. It also features exclusive interviews with friends and collaborators, including jazz heavyweight Wynton Marsalis, SNL’s Lorne Michaels,...
In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon is described in a press release as “the definitive musical biography” of the folk singer, and details an immersive journey into the life and work of “one of the greatest songwriters (and performers) in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.” It’s set to premiere on MGM+ on March 17th and March 24th at 9:00 p.m. Et/Pt.
The docuseries captures Simon at work on his latest musical project, Seven Psalms, as well as never-before-seen footage of his career, from Simon & Garfunkel to Bridge Over Troubled Water and Graceland. It also features exclusive interviews with friends and collaborators, including jazz heavyweight Wynton Marsalis, SNL’s Lorne Michaels,...
- 2/28/2024
- by Kayla Higgins
- Consequence - Music
Jon Batiste, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, which was recorded in front of an audience of film students at Chapman University, is a singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and actor. At just 37, he has already won five Grammys — including, in 2022, album of the year, for We Are — and also has to his name an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award, all for the score of the 2020 film Soul. He is currently nominated for the best original song Oscar for his tune “It Never Went Away,” which is featured in Matthew Heineman’s Netflix documentary feature American Symphony, about the best of times and the worst of times in the life of Batiste and his wife, Suleika Jaouad.
Batiste has been described by Forbes as “a generational artist who is only getting better.” Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s artistic and managing director,...
Batiste has been described by Forbes as “a generational artist who is only getting better.” Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s artistic and managing director,...
- 2/5/2024
- by Scott Feinberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
MGM+ has announced the acquisition of the two-part docuseries “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, debuting on the streamer on March 17 and March 24 at 9 p.m. Edt/Pdt. It focuses on the career of musician Paul Simon.
Per the docuseries’ description, “In Restless Dreams” “juxtaposes Simon’s process of making a new album during the Covid-19 pandemic against archival material tracing Simon’s career and creative journey, including revelatory, previously unseen footage from such historic moments as the recording of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and ‘Graceland,’ Simon & Garfunkel’s unforgettable reunion concert in Central Park, and, 10 years later, Simon’s solo concert there, where he performed before 750,000 people.”
Making appearances in the docuseries are “Saturday Night Live” creator and producer Lorne Michaels, Simon’s wife and singer Edie Brickwell and composer Wynton Marsalis.
Alex Gibney (“The Inventor”) directs and produces, with Jigsaw, Closer Media and Anonymous Content jointly producing.
Per the docuseries’ description, “In Restless Dreams” “juxtaposes Simon’s process of making a new album during the Covid-19 pandemic against archival material tracing Simon’s career and creative journey, including revelatory, previously unseen footage from such historic moments as the recording of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and ‘Graceland,’ Simon & Garfunkel’s unforgettable reunion concert in Central Park, and, 10 years later, Simon’s solo concert there, where he performed before 750,000 people.”
Making appearances in the docuseries are “Saturday Night Live” creator and producer Lorne Michaels, Simon’s wife and singer Edie Brickwell and composer Wynton Marsalis.
Alex Gibney (“The Inventor”) directs and produces, with Jigsaw, Closer Media and Anonymous Content jointly producing.
- 12/6/2023
- by Jaden Thompson and Valerie Wu
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: More than a hit song, “Stand by Me,” by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller and Ben E. King, has transcended the notion of a “standard” — it’s been recorded more than 1,000 times and has made more appearances on the Billboard Hot 100 chart than any other song.
Music and media producer Spencer Proffer and his music-anchored production company Meteor 17 have been selected to produce the authorized feature-length documentary about the iconic song and its significant global impact for over six decades. Emmy and Grammy nominated director J. Kevin Swain — who has directed music videos and other projects for and with Mary J. Blige, Wynton Marsalis, Queen Latifah — has been selected by Proffer to bring the story of the song to the screen.
As part of the film, Emmy- and Grammy-winning producer, composer, musical director and musician Steve Jordan will produce a new version of “Stand by Me.” Jordan has worked with artists including Keith Richards,...
Music and media producer Spencer Proffer and his music-anchored production company Meteor 17 have been selected to produce the authorized feature-length documentary about the iconic song and its significant global impact for over six decades. Emmy and Grammy nominated director J. Kevin Swain — who has directed music videos and other projects for and with Mary J. Blige, Wynton Marsalis, Queen Latifah — has been selected by Proffer to bring the story of the song to the screen.
As part of the film, Emmy- and Grammy-winning producer, composer, musical director and musician Steve Jordan will produce a new version of “Stand by Me.” Jordan has worked with artists including Keith Richards,...
- 11/16/2023
- by Valerie Complex
- Deadline Film + TV
New York, NY– The Paul Taylor Dance Company’s 2023 Season at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, from October 31 through November 12, will include fourteen dances by five choreographers – Ulysses Dove, Amy Hall Garner, Larry Keigwin, Lauren Lovette, and Paul Taylor – and feature world premieres by Lovette, Ptdc’s Resident Choreographer, and Keigwin, Taylor Company Commissioned choreographer. Music on all programs will be performed live by Orchestra of St. Luke’s (Osl), conducted by Taylor Music Director David Lamarche and Tara Simoncic. Ticket prices for the 2023 Season start at $15 and go on sale September 13. Tickets are available at www.boxoffice.dance.
Continuing his mission to build a repertory for the 21st Century, Artistic Director Michael Novak will present four works by three of today’s leading dance makers.
· Lauren Lovette will be represented by two new works. Dreamachine, set to Michael Daugherty’s percussion suite of that name, will have its New York premiere.
Continuing his mission to build a repertory for the 21st Century, Artistic Director Michael Novak will present four works by three of today’s leading dance makers.
· Lauren Lovette will be represented by two new works. Dreamachine, set to Michael Daugherty’s percussion suite of that name, will have its New York premiere.
- 10/18/2023
- by Music Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Music
Wind gusts quivered the tree limbs, rainfall ricocheted off the roads, and in an instant, power cut off at the old Opera House on Elm Street in Camden, Maine, scuttling screenings there at the Camden International Film Festival.
With that mid-September atmospheric outburst, Hurricane Lee did in the scheduled U.S. premiere of Alex Gibney’s new film In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon. Now, the honor of hosting the American debut goes to the Hamptons International Film Festival this Friday, where the documentary screens as the festival Centerpiece (Simon will appear in person there for a conversation moderated by Rolling Stone’s David Fear). On Sunday, the film plays across the pond at the BFI London Film Festival.
Alex Gibney at the Deadline Portrait Studio at TIFF 2023.
During what was supposed to be Gibney’s Camden premiere, I stopped by the hotel where the filmmaker was staying...
With that mid-September atmospheric outburst, Hurricane Lee did in the scheduled U.S. premiere of Alex Gibney’s new film In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon. Now, the honor of hosting the American debut goes to the Hamptons International Film Festival this Friday, where the documentary screens as the festival Centerpiece (Simon will appear in person there for a conversation moderated by Rolling Stone’s David Fear). On Sunday, the film plays across the pond at the BFI London Film Festival.
Alex Gibney at the Deadline Portrait Studio at TIFF 2023.
During what was supposed to be Gibney’s Camden premiere, I stopped by the hotel where the filmmaker was staying...
- 10/4/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
The first thing to say about Alex Gibney’s “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” is that it’s three-and-a-half hours long. Normally I wouldn’t lead with that daunting fact, especially since the film is mostly marvelous: a documentary that every Paul Simon fan on earth should want to see and experience. But will they?
I raise the issue only because “In Restless Dreams” has come into the Toronto Film Festival without a distributor, and let’s just be honest: The 209-minute running time, when you hear about it, doesn’t exactly sound…user-friendly. Gibney, of course, is one of the renaissance masters of contemporary documentary, a filmmaker of staggering skill and eclecticism. On occasion, he sprinkles in a music doc, which is clearly a labor of love for him. If you’ve never seen “Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown,” it’s sensational. And Gibney...
I raise the issue only because “In Restless Dreams” has come into the Toronto Film Festival without a distributor, and let’s just be honest: The 209-minute running time, when you hear about it, doesn’t exactly sound…user-friendly. Gibney, of course, is one of the renaissance masters of contemporary documentary, a filmmaker of staggering skill and eclecticism. On occasion, he sprinkles in a music doc, which is clearly a labor of love for him. If you’ve never seen “Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown,” it’s sensational. And Gibney...
- 9/13/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Paul Simon wanted a documentary. He was a fan of Alex Gibney’s 2015 “Sinatra: All or Nothing at All” and asked the Oscar-winner (“Taxi to the Dark Side”) to consider devoting a documentary to him on the occasion of recording his 15th album, “Seven Psalms”.
The result is “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon,” which had its world premiere as an all-rights sales title at the Toronto International Film Festival. It has a running time of three and a half hours. However, the capacity audience at the Princess of Wales theater didn’t fidget and gave Simon a rousing standing ovation. On stage, he admitted that he didn’t have the courage to watch the film in the theater, and asked if he got a standing ovation. The crowd jumped up for a second time. “And it’s my birthday,” he joked. (It’s actually October 13.)
Going in,...
The result is “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon,” which had its world premiere as an all-rights sales title at the Toronto International Film Festival. It has a running time of three and a half hours. However, the capacity audience at the Princess of Wales theater didn’t fidget and gave Simon a rousing standing ovation. On stage, he admitted that he didn’t have the courage to watch the film in the theater, and asked if he got a standing ovation. The crowd jumped up for a second time. “And it’s my birthday,” he joked. (It’s actually October 13.)
Going in,...
- 9/13/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
At first, the title of Alex Gibney’s “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” seems as if it could be a warning about the director’s approach in this supersized documentary. The film, its title seems to be saying, is about the music of Simon, not the life or the loves or the times of Simon. But it turns out that the music is a gateway to all those other things in this three-and-a-half hour film that covers most of what you’d want to know about the seminal singer-songwriter.
Partly, that’s because Gibney’s jumping off point is Simon’s new album, “Seven Psalms,” an uncommonly personal and soul-searching work for the man who’s been writing songs for seven decades. A half-hour meditation on faith and mortality that came to Simon in a dream and was written during a time when he’d begun to...
Partly, that’s because Gibney’s jumping off point is Simon’s new album, “Seven Psalms,” an uncommonly personal and soul-searching work for the man who’s been writing songs for seven decades. A half-hour meditation on faith and mortality that came to Simon in a dream and was written during a time when he’d begun to...
- 9/10/2023
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
“People used to say I had my finger on the pulse,” Paul Simon tells Alex Gibney early in his artfully composed documentary, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon. “I just have my finger out there and the pulse is running under it.” Either way, few people have had as central a role in American pop music and culture as Simon. Gibney, best-known for exposes including The Inventor, about Elizabeth Holmes’ tech-company fraud, and Going Clear, on Scientology, turns out to be the ideal director to explore Simon’s long, varied run.
Simon invited Gibney into his home studio in Wimberly, Texas, where the cameras watch him tinker with the sound on his latest album, Seven Psalms (released in May) and talk about his career, inspirations, aging and what the loss of hearing in his left ear has meant. With that album as an anchor, the film mostly flashes back and forth in time,...
Simon invited Gibney into his home studio in Wimberly, Texas, where the cameras watch him tinker with the sound on his latest album, Seven Psalms (released in May) and talk about his career, inspirations, aging and what the loss of hearing in his left ear has meant. With that album as an anchor, the film mostly flashes back and forth in time,...
- 9/9/2023
- by Caryn James
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Following a three year shoot, award-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney has just completed production on In Restless Dreams: The Music Of Paul Simon, the documentary about Paul Simon’s legendary Grammy Award-winning career. The film also follows Simon’s journey creating his new album Seven Psalms, which poses questions about faith and mortality, during the pandemic and while dealing with his hearing loss. The film is expected to be part of the fall film festival circuit.
In the film, Gibney and Simon journey through a dreamlike world of storytelling, an absorbing portrait of an artist, that transcends both time and space moving freely between present and past, showcasing both his music making in the here-and-now and a unique peek into his career, from Tom & Jerry to Simon & Garfunkel to the triumphs of Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints. Rarely seen or heard footage of Paul on his own in England...
In the film, Gibney and Simon journey through a dreamlike world of storytelling, an absorbing portrait of an artist, that transcends both time and space moving freely between present and past, showcasing both his music making in the here-and-now and a unique peek into his career, from Tom & Jerry to Simon & Garfunkel to the triumphs of Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints. Rarely seen or heard footage of Paul on his own in England...
- 7/11/2023
- by Justin Kroll
- Deadline Film + TV
Neil Young and Stephen Stills reunited at Los Angeles’ Greek Theater on Saturday night for the latter’s “Light Up The Blues” autism awareness event. It was Young’s first on-stage performance since 2019.
The largely collaborative set concluded the night, with Young stepping up for solo renditions of “From Hank to Hendrix” and “Comes a Time” before being joined by house band Promise of the Real for “Heart of Gold.” Stills added piano accompaniment on the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young number, “Helpless,” and remained to deliver a series of Buffalo Springfield songs, including “For What It’s Worth,” “Bluebird,” and “Mr. Soul” with help from Joe Walsh.
They closed with a rendition of “Long May You Run” from Stills-Young Band’s one-off 1976 joint album of the same name. Watch fan-captured footage of the setlist’s highlights below.
Earlier in the program, Stills paid tribute to late bandmate David Crosby with...
The largely collaborative set concluded the night, with Young stepping up for solo renditions of “From Hank to Hendrix” and “Comes a Time” before being joined by house band Promise of the Real for “Heart of Gold.” Stills added piano accompaniment on the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young number, “Helpless,” and remained to deliver a series of Buffalo Springfield songs, including “For What It’s Worth,” “Bluebird,” and “Mr. Soul” with help from Joe Walsh.
They closed with a rendition of “Long May You Run” from Stills-Young Band’s one-off 1976 joint album of the same name. Watch fan-captured footage of the setlist’s highlights below.
Earlier in the program, Stills paid tribute to late bandmate David Crosby with...
- 4/23/2023
- by Bryan Kress
- Consequence - Music
Nobody knew quite what to expect when Neil Young walked onstage Saturday night at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles to wrap up Light Up The Blues, a fundraising event organized by Stephen Stills and his wife Kristen Stills to benefit Autism Speaks. Discounting a surprise, two-song acoustic set at a Canadian environmental rally in February, Young hadn’t faced a live audience in nearly four years. The other performers at the show (Joe Walsh, Willie Nelson, Sharon Van Etten, Chris Stills, and Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real...
- 4/23/2023
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
Led Zeppelin’s classic-rock standard “Stairway To Heaven,” John Lennon’s peace anthem “Imagine,” Madonna’s 1984 breakthrough album Like A Virgin and John Denver’s signature tune “Take Me Home, Country Roads” are among the works added today to the U.S. National Recording Registry.
The Library of Congress announced the newcomers, a roster that also includes Mariah Carey’s modern holiday classic “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and the original 1985 theme from the Super Mario Bros. video game. The latter becomes the first music from a video game to enter the registry.
In all, 25 albums, singles and other recordings were added to the roster, representing a time span of more than a century. See the complete list below.
From the 1920s, Handy’s Memphis Blues Band’s recording of “St. Louis Blues” and Fletcher Henderson’s “Sugar Foot Stomp” made the list, as did The Fairfield Four...
The Library of Congress announced the newcomers, a roster that also includes Mariah Carey’s modern holiday classic “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and the original 1985 theme from the Super Mario Bros. video game. The latter becomes the first music from a video game to enter the registry.
In all, 25 albums, singles and other recordings were added to the roster, representing a time span of more than a century. See the complete list below.
From the 1920s, Handy’s Memphis Blues Band’s recording of “St. Louis Blues” and Fletcher Henderson’s “Sugar Foot Stomp” made the list, as did The Fairfield Four...
- 4/12/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Paul Simon will release a new composition, Seven Psalms, this spring. The seven-movement work, which finds him playing acoustic instruments and drawing lyrical inspiration from King David’s Psalms, came to him one night in a dream in 2019, and it formulated over several more nights between the hours of 3:30 and 5 a.m. Due out May 19, the finished work finds Simon playing alongside the vocal ensemble Voces8, singer Edie Brickell, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, chamber musicians, and many others. Simon hopes listeners play the 33-minute work uninterrupted in its entirety.
“I...
“I...
- 4/12/2023
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
Acclaimed Jazz Trumpeter and Composer Alexa Tarantino, who is a 3x-“Rising Star – Alto Saxophone” in the Downbeat Magazine Critic’s Poll and a Member of the all-female jazz supergroup Artemis, brings her outstanding Quartet to Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Tickets for the Alexa Tarantino Quartet at Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club on Thursday March 2 at 7:30 P.M., as well as the current list of 2023 shows, can be found on Ticketmaster.com and Jimmy’s Online Event Calendar at: http://www.jimmysoncongress.com/events.
Portsmouth, N.H., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club Features Award-Winning & Prolific Jazz Trumpeter and Composer Alexa Tarantino and her outstanding Quartet on Thursday March 2 at 7:30 P.M. Legendary Jazz Trumpeter & 9x-grammy® Award-Winner Wynton Marsalis describes Alexa as “a one-woman wrecking crew…an indomitable force for expression, education, and absolute excellence.”
“She has arrived, and by the sounds of things,...
Portsmouth, N.H., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club Features Award-Winning & Prolific Jazz Trumpeter and Composer Alexa Tarantino and her outstanding Quartet on Thursday March 2 at 7:30 P.M. Legendary Jazz Trumpeter & 9x-grammy® Award-Winner Wynton Marsalis describes Alexa as “a one-woman wrecking crew…an indomitable force for expression, education, and absolute excellence.”
“She has arrived, and by the sounds of things,...
- 1/28/2023
- by Music Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Music
These days everything and everyone is “iconic.” But here, at the center of five rich and unrushed episodes, is the real deal. As he approaches his 90th birthday, the composer of such immortal numbers as “Crazy,” “Night Life” and “On the Road Again” is still writing songs, still playing to concert crowds. Delving into the incomparable songbook, directors Thom Zimny and Oren Moverman show how Willie Nelson broke the country mold and transcended genre boxes, again and again. Their authorized biography — the musician’s wife and his manager are executive producers — is a love letter, to be sure, and like Nelson himself it doesn’t dwell on negativity, but there’s nothing simplistic or naive about it. Willie Nelson & Family is a portrait of a man who has made music and lived life on his own terms, in good times and bad.
The series is a reminder to the casual...
The series is a reminder to the casual...
- 1/25/2023
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The legendary Alvin Ailey Dance Theater is back with its annual holiday program. The blockbuster show began with “Blue Suite,” choreographed by Ailey in 1958 when he was just 27, reflecting the black experience in a barrelhouse in southern Texas, where he hailed from. The piece reflects his memories of bawdy nights of revels. “Duet,” by Paul Taylor, followed with the beautifully simple tale of a young couple in love. “Four For,” by Robert Battle with music by Wynton Marsalis, joyfully depicts the manic energy of the pandemic lockdown era. The program ended with the iconic signature piece “Revelations” that, as always, brought down the house.
Get tickets now for Alvin Ailey now.
The post Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Impresses Again With A World Premiere & Stirring Classics appeared first on uInterview.
Get tickets now for Alvin Ailey now.
The post Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Impresses Again With A World Premiere & Stirring Classics appeared first on uInterview.
- 12/4/2022
- by Erik Meers
- Uinterview
There are great artists, and then there are artists of such titanic power that they literally change the world. I’m thinking of Shakespeare, Leonardo, Dostoevsky, Picasso. Louis Armstrong is on that Olympian plane. Yet he’s the rare example of an artist whose very fame, image, and media mythology can actually obscure his revolutionary grandeur as a creator. When he first came to prominence, in the ’20s and early ’30s, you heard the Armstrong revolution in every note he played or sang. He blasted the trumpet into an incandescent upper register, hitting high Cs audiences would talk about for days, yet it’s not as if this was some feat of musical mountain-climbing. He was in his own stratosphere, playing from the heavens. Each note vibrated like a shimmering pearl lit from within. No one had sounded like that; no one had commanded like that.
“Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues,...
“Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues,...
- 11/1/2022
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Since that time in his teens when he self-published the early ’90s graffiti art zine “Graphic Scenes & X-Plicit Language,” Sacha Jenkins has been about documenting hip-hop and funk culture — Black culture. Moving between print (he’s creative director at Mass Appeal), television (“Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men”) and film (“Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James”), he’s documented the intricacies of African-American culture with dexterity and painstaking study.
Jenkins is also a musician, making the life and legacy of Louis Armstrong a fitting story for the director-writer-producer to tell. In “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues,” premiering today on Apple TV+, Jenkins documents the jazz trumpeter, vocal innovator and actor as a fire-starter for so much of what we hear now in Black music — rap included, thanks to Armstrong’s innovative rhythmic scatting – as well as being more of an activist than people realized where racism and...
Jenkins is also a musician, making the life and legacy of Louis Armstrong a fitting story for the director-writer-producer to tell. In “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues,” premiering today on Apple TV+, Jenkins documents the jazz trumpeter, vocal innovator and actor as a fire-starter for so much of what we hear now in Black music — rap included, thanks to Armstrong’s innovative rhythmic scatting – as well as being more of an activist than people realized where racism and...
- 10/28/2022
- by A.D. Amorosi
- Variety Film + TV
Freewheeling across the trumpeter’s pathbreaking career, Sacha Jenkins’ immensely enjoyable study speeds through giddyingly rich source material
Luxuriating in a wealth of archival material that encompasses radio and TV interviews, privately recorded conversations from reel-to-reel tapes (Armstrong could swear like a sailor), and good old-fashioned newspaper clippings (remember them?), this documentary about the great Louis Armstrong is a real keeper. Fans of the legendary jazz trumpeter are likely to complain that a mere 104 minutes is not enough to cover such a complex, innovative character whose career spanned decades and hope there will someday be a supercut that goes on for hours. But in a way this swinging, 4/4, 135 beats per minute biography-cum-essay crams a lot into its running time and makes relative brevity its virtue. Like one of Armstrong’s great solos, it feels packed with dynamics, sprinkled with astonishing high notes, and immensely pleasurable.
As with so many docs these days,...
Luxuriating in a wealth of archival material that encompasses radio and TV interviews, privately recorded conversations from reel-to-reel tapes (Armstrong could swear like a sailor), and good old-fashioned newspaper clippings (remember them?), this documentary about the great Louis Armstrong is a real keeper. Fans of the legendary jazz trumpeter are likely to complain that a mere 104 minutes is not enough to cover such a complex, innovative character whose career spanned decades and hope there will someday be a supercut that goes on for hours. But in a way this swinging, 4/4, 135 beats per minute biography-cum-essay crams a lot into its running time and makes relative brevity its virtue. Like one of Armstrong’s great solos, it feels packed with dynamics, sprinkled with astonishing high notes, and immensely pleasurable.
As with so many docs these days,...
- 10/26/2022
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
Click here to read the full article.
PBS has slated the premiere of the documentary In a Different Key, based on the eponymous Pulitzer finalist book, for Dec. 13.
The film, presented by Boston public media institution GBH, centers on co-director and journalist Caren Zucker’s search for the first-ever child diagnosed with autism, Donald Triplett. The film will trace the growing friendship between the Mississippi-based Triplett and Zucker, who has an autistic son, as she grapples with the future for her child once she is gone. In a Different Key will premiere on PBS at 9 pm Et.
Fellow journalist John Donvan, a longtime network correspondent and producer, co-directed the film with Zucker, a former producer for ABC World News Tonight and Nightline. The film features original music by Wynton Marsalis and was funded by Liberty Mutual.
“Really, it’s an untold story of an unrecognized civil rights movement,” Zucker says...
PBS has slated the premiere of the documentary In a Different Key, based on the eponymous Pulitzer finalist book, for Dec. 13.
The film, presented by Boston public media institution GBH, centers on co-director and journalist Caren Zucker’s search for the first-ever child diagnosed with autism, Donald Triplett. The film will trace the growing friendship between the Mississippi-based Triplett and Zucker, who has an autistic son, as she grapples with the future for her child once she is gone. In a Different Key will premiere on PBS at 9 pm Et.
Fellow journalist John Donvan, a longtime network correspondent and producer, co-directed the film with Zucker, a former producer for ABC World News Tonight and Nightline. The film features original music by Wynton Marsalis and was funded by Liberty Mutual.
“Really, it’s an untold story of an unrecognized civil rights movement,” Zucker says...
- 10/14/2022
- by Katie Kilkenny
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It was time for a guys-only talk on Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher, as the host welcomed a panel to discuss just what the heck was going on in a week where the Queen died, the NFL opened, and Los Angeles was so hot “it was like Death Valley with In and Out burgers.”
What it boiled down to was that guys aren’t getting enough traction on Tinder, and Top Gun: Maverick is a macho outlier in a world that is typically afraid to go there.
Panelists Scott Galloway, podcast host and author of Adrift: America in 100 Charts, and Matt Welch, editor-at-large for Reason magazine and cohost of The Fifth Column”podcast, dived into a discusson of Joe Biden’s now-infamous “Bowels of Hell” speech. Maher felt that Biden could have hit a home run by tweaking his speech slightly to embrace the foibles of his own party,...
What it boiled down to was that guys aren’t getting enough traction on Tinder, and Top Gun: Maverick is a macho outlier in a world that is typically afraid to go there.
Panelists Scott Galloway, podcast host and author of Adrift: America in 100 Charts, and Matt Welch, editor-at-large for Reason magazine and cohost of The Fifth Column”podcast, dived into a discusson of Joe Biden’s now-infamous “Bowels of Hell” speech. Maher felt that Biden could have hit a home run by tweaking his speech slightly to embrace the foibles of his own party,...
- 9/10/2022
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Would it be possible to make a comprehensive film about Louis Armstrong that ran under five hours? Ten? You could spend that long listening to serious people talk about him only in terms of American race relations, finally arriving at a stopping point only to realize you’d barely mentioned the music he made.
In Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, Sacha Jenkins is undaunted by the complexity of his subject, plunging ahead with swagger and not worrying if we have unanswered questions at the end. A delightful experience for jazz buffs and more than an eye-opener for any youngsters who barely know who Armstrong was, it’s worth applauding just for its belief that it can meaningfully touch on private life, public persona, musical legacy and everything else — even if, on each front, it leaves one wanting more.
Beyond its value to newbs,...
Would it be possible to make a comprehensive film about Louis Armstrong that ran under five hours? Ten? You could spend that long listening to serious people talk about him only in terms of American race relations, finally arriving at a stopping point only to realize you’d barely mentioned the music he made.
In Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, Sacha Jenkins is undaunted by the complexity of his subject, plunging ahead with swagger and not worrying if we have unanswered questions at the end. A delightful experience for jazz buffs and more than an eye-opener for any youngsters who barely know who Armstrong was, it’s worth applauding just for its belief that it can meaningfully touch on private life, public persona, musical legacy and everything else — even if, on each front, it leaves one wanting more.
Beyond its value to newbs,...
- 9/9/2022
- by John DeFore
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Director Sacha Jenkins does the most important thing he could do in “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues”: He lets Louis Armstrong be messy.
Armstrong is one of those legends about whom people have had strong, polarized opinions. He’s either the greatest artist of the 20th century, in the esteem of Robert Christgau or Wynton Marsalis. Or he’s an Uncle Tom, someone who sold out and pandered to white audiences, as Sammy Davis Jr. once thought. And of course there’s the third path of corporate America, to sand the edges of someone like Armstrong down until he’s a cuddly teddy bear whose “What a Wonderful World” stands ready to accompany any commercial.
Jenkins’ new documentary for Apple TV+ avoids those absolutes. He’s interested in the man who was Armstrong, and that means a more complete, nuanced picture — a portrait of a human not so easy to categorize.
Armstrong is one of those legends about whom people have had strong, polarized opinions. He’s either the greatest artist of the 20th century, in the esteem of Robert Christgau or Wynton Marsalis. Or he’s an Uncle Tom, someone who sold out and pandered to white audiences, as Sammy Davis Jr. once thought. And of course there’s the third path of corporate America, to sand the edges of someone like Armstrong down until he’s a cuddly teddy bear whose “What a Wonderful World” stands ready to accompany any commercial.
Jenkins’ new documentary for Apple TV+ avoids those absolutes. He’s interested in the man who was Armstrong, and that means a more complete, nuanced picture — a portrait of a human not so easy to categorize.
- 9/9/2022
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
The Toronto International Film Festival, running September 8 through 16, has announced its Docs lineup spanning 22 feature films. Opening the program is the Apple Original Films documentary “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues” from director Sacha Jenkins, followed by a lineup featuring new films from the likes of Patricio Guzmán and Werner Herzog. IndieWire spoke with TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers about highlights from the programming.
It wouldn’t be a true documentary season without a new entry from the quixotic mind of Herzog. The distinctive Bavarian director, who turns 80 a week ahead of this year’s TIFF, will visit the festival to screen “Theatre of Thought,” a study of the human brain that goes beyond the traditional boundaries of neurological inquiry.
“It’s a real science-meets-poetry kind of exploration,” Powers said. “He’s exploring the landscape inside our skulls. He also asks if fish have souls and how a tightrope walker conquers fear.
It wouldn’t be a true documentary season without a new entry from the quixotic mind of Herzog. The distinctive Bavarian director, who turns 80 a week ahead of this year’s TIFF, will visit the festival to screen “Theatre of Thought,” a study of the human brain that goes beyond the traditional boundaries of neurological inquiry.
“It’s a real science-meets-poetry kind of exploration,” Powers said. “He’s exploring the landscape inside our skulls. He also asks if fish have souls and how a tightrope walker conquers fear.
- 8/17/2022
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Erykah Badu, executive producer of the forthcoming documentary about late jazz and R&b trumpeter Roy Hargrove, wastes no time in elaborating on the influence her collaborator and high school classmate exerted on her life and career.
“It started with Roy,” says Badu, who first met Hargrove in 1985, when she was a freshman at Dallas’ Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. “Roy was the first person I met in high school: he in the music department and jazz band, me in dance right next door. We danced to that band’s versions of John Coltrane, Miles Davis. That helped me understand what jazz was, and how to interpret it. It was a subtle rebellion. Roy was already a legend as a sophomore — truth is,” she adds, “Roy was actually a legend starting in junior high.”
Hargrove would go on to legendary peaks in both R...
“It started with Roy,” says Badu, who first met Hargrove in 1985, when she was a freshman at Dallas’ Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. “Roy was the first person I met in high school: he in the music department and jazz band, me in dance right next door. We danced to that band’s versions of John Coltrane, Miles Davis. That helped me understand what jazz was, and how to interpret it. It was a subtle rebellion. Roy was already a legend as a sophomore — truth is,” she adds, “Roy was actually a legend starting in junior high.”
Hargrove would go on to legendary peaks in both R...
- 5/27/2022
- by A.D. Amorosi
- Variety Film + TV
If you’ve noticed a lot of music documentaries hitting your favorite platforms, that groundswell is driven by record companies like Universal Music Group looking for ways to invigorate their catalogues. So it makes perfect sense that a musician’s son like Hollywood super-producer Frank Marshall — who has long been Hollywood’s fave party DJ, worked on Martin Scorsese’s The Band documentary “The Last Waltz,” and plays a mean guitar — would move into the space.
Marshall has directed a few features over the years and started producing non-fiction series and features before moving into directing with “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” and “Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name.”
There’s no question Marshall can afford to do whatever he wants with his time. He still devotes his day job to shepherding the latest “Jurassic World” and “Indiana Jones” sequels, and feeds...
Marshall has directed a few features over the years and started producing non-fiction series and features before moving into directing with “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” and “Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name.”
There’s no question Marshall can afford to do whatever he wants with his time. He still devotes his day job to shepherding the latest “Jurassic World” and “Indiana Jones” sequels, and feeds...
- 5/13/2022
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Former President Bill Clinton is launching a second season of his iHeart podcast Why Am I Telling You This? on Thursday, with singer-songwriter Jason Isbell as his first guest.
Among the topics in their wide-ranging conversation is that of Covid vaccine deniers and the challenge of changing their minds about taking the shots.
Isbell has been adamant about having a set of Covid protocols at his concerts that include proof of vaccinations or recent negative tests, something that drew scorn from some of his fans, with some performances canceled, yet praise from others.
In the new episode, which posted at midnight on Thursday, Isbell tells Clinton that performing with vaccine protocols in place “helps me do my job and be happy when I’m on stage and not be concerned and not be worried about people’s safety or about the kind of audience that I have, I just want...
Among the topics in their wide-ranging conversation is that of Covid vaccine deniers and the challenge of changing their minds about taking the shots.
Isbell has been adamant about having a set of Covid protocols at his concerts that include proof of vaccinations or recent negative tests, something that drew scorn from some of his fans, with some performances canceled, yet praise from others.
In the new episode, which posted at midnight on Thursday, Isbell tells Clinton that performing with vaccine protocols in place “helps me do my job and be happy when I’m on stage and not be concerned and not be worried about people’s safety or about the kind of audience that I have, I just want...
- 2/17/2022
- by Ted Johnson
- Deadline Film + TV
The Hollywood Bowl’s 2022 summer season will include a three-night stand by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees Duran Duran, a fireworks-laden 4th of July engagement by the comedy/bluegrass team of Steve Martin and Martin Short, a Loggins & Messina reunion, a fully staged production of Cyndi Lauper’s Broadway musical “Kinky Boots” and a salute to Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee that will feature Billie Eilish and Debbie Harry, among others.
Artists with shows on the summer agenda include Ricky Martin, Pentatonix, Sheryl Crow, Diana Ross, Chvrches, John Fogerty, A-ha, Grace Jones, John Fogerty, UB40, A.R. Rahman, Lang Lang, Pink Martini, the Gipsy Kings, Boyz II Men and TLC.
As always, the LA Philharmonic may be the biggest star on the lineup, with 34 shows scheduled, 10 of which will be under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel.
“Kinky Boots” marks this year’s annual staged production of a Broadway show,...
Artists with shows on the summer agenda include Ricky Martin, Pentatonix, Sheryl Crow, Diana Ross, Chvrches, John Fogerty, A-ha, Grace Jones, John Fogerty, UB40, A.R. Rahman, Lang Lang, Pink Martini, the Gipsy Kings, Boyz II Men and TLC.
As always, the LA Philharmonic may be the biggest star on the lineup, with 34 shows scheduled, 10 of which will be under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel.
“Kinky Boots” marks this year’s annual staged production of a Broadway show,...
- 2/15/2022
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
“How’re you feeling?” Penny Lane asks Kenny G.
G turns, and pauses a beat.
“Uh… Underappreciated, in general.”
From these first 10 seconds of Lane’s new documentary about the saxophonist — and the startling backlashes he’s provoked throughout his 40-year career — you know you’re in for . With Lane’s laughter, just off-camera, to G’s response, it’s apparent right away this won’t be an objective biographical account, her subject held at some artificial remove, but instead, like Lane’s other films, an impressionist reverie of how the material before you makes you feel.
And Kenny G’s music has inspired a lot of feelings indeed. For his fans — and there are many, as the 52.4 million records he’s certified to have sold testify, putting him ahead of Bob Seger, Bob Marley, Kiss, and Aretha Franklin in sales — his music is moving and inspirational, whether providing the...
G turns, and pauses a beat.
“Uh… Underappreciated, in general.”
From these first 10 seconds of Lane’s new documentary about the saxophonist — and the startling backlashes he’s provoked throughout his 40-year career — you know you’re in for . With Lane’s laughter, just off-camera, to G’s response, it’s apparent right away this won’t be an objective biographical account, her subject held at some artificial remove, but instead, like Lane’s other films, an impressionist reverie of how the material before you makes you feel.
And Kenny G’s music has inspired a lot of feelings indeed. For his fans — and there are many, as the 52.4 million records he’s certified to have sold testify, putting him ahead of Bob Seger, Bob Marley, Kiss, and Aretha Franklin in sales — his music is moving and inspirational, whether providing the...
- 9/12/2021
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Andra Day, Mavis Staples, and Wynton Marsalis have been tapped to perform at the 2021 Newport Jazz festival, which will take place July 30th through August 1st at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island.
The lineup also features Khruangbin, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, Yola, Cory Wong, Makaya McCraven, Charles Lloyd, and Ledisi, who will perform a special set of Nina Simone songs. Newport Jazz’s Artist in Residence Robert Grasper is also set to perform on all three days of the festival: On day one, he and Terrace Martin...
The lineup also features Khruangbin, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, Yola, Cory Wong, Makaya McCraven, Charles Lloyd, and Ledisi, who will perform a special set of Nina Simone songs. Newport Jazz’s Artist in Residence Robert Grasper is also set to perform on all three days of the festival: On day one, he and Terrace Martin...
- 6/2/2021
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
New York State is plotting a massive, multi-month festival, NY PopsUp, to reintroduce live entertainment after it was put on hold because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The festival will boast more than 300 pop-up events across the state over the course of 100 days, starting February 20th and running through Labor Day, September 6th. Per a release, NY PopsUp will serve as a “pilot program” by “creating the state’s first large-scale model for how to bring live performance back safely after this prolonged Covid-related shutdown.”
The initial lineup for NY PopsUp...
The festival will boast more than 300 pop-up events across the state over the course of 100 days, starting February 20th and running through Labor Day, September 6th. Per a release, NY PopsUp will serve as a “pilot program” by “creating the state’s first large-scale model for how to bring live performance back safely after this prolonged Covid-related shutdown.”
The initial lineup for NY PopsUp...
- 2/8/2021
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
Bill Clinton launched a new podcast Thursday called Why Am I Telling You This? via IHeartMedia, the company announced.
In the 46-minute first episode of the interview series, the former president — a saxophone player and jazz aficionado —chats with Wynton Marsalis about that jazz great’s career.
“Growing up in Arkansas just after World War II in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, most of our entertainment revolved around storytelling. Listening to my relatives and neighbors tell stories showed me that everyone has a story and...
In the 46-minute first episode of the interview series, the former president — a saxophone player and jazz aficionado —chats with Wynton Marsalis about that jazz great’s career.
“Growing up in Arkansas just after World War II in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, most of our entertainment revolved around storytelling. Listening to my relatives and neighbors tell stories showed me that everyone has a story and...
- 2/4/2021
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
Former President Bill Clinton has released the first episode of his new podcast with iHeartMedia.
Why Am I Telling You This? will feature Clinton in conversation with some of the experts across a wide range of topics that interest him. The first episode features a sit-down with jazz artist Wynton Marsalis, who discusses his life and recent works The Ever Fonky Lowdown and The Democracy! Suite. Clinton was known for playing the saxophone during his presidential campaign.
“Growing up in Arkansas just after World War II in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, most of our entertainment revolved ...
Why Am I Telling You This? will feature Clinton in conversation with some of the experts across a wide range of topics that interest him. The first episode features a sit-down with jazz artist Wynton Marsalis, who discusses his life and recent works The Ever Fonky Lowdown and The Democracy! Suite. Clinton was known for playing the saxophone during his presidential campaign.
“Growing up in Arkansas just after World War II in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, most of our entertainment revolved ...
Former President Bill Clinton has released the first episode of his new podcast with iHeartMedia.
Why Am I Telling You This? will feature Clinton in conversation with some of the experts across a wide range of topics that interest him. The first episode features a sit-down with jazz artist Wynton Marsalis, who discusses his life and recent works The Ever Fonky Lowdown and The Democracy! Suite. Clinton was known for playing the saxophone during his presidential campaign.
“Growing up in Arkansas just after World War II in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, most of our entertainment revolved ...
Why Am I Telling You This? will feature Clinton in conversation with some of the experts across a wide range of topics that interest him. The first episode features a sit-down with jazz artist Wynton Marsalis, who discusses his life and recent works The Ever Fonky Lowdown and The Democracy! Suite. Clinton was known for playing the saxophone during his presidential campaign.
“Growing up in Arkansas just after World War II in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, most of our entertainment revolved ...
It’s been nearly a year since Covid-19 essentially ceased touring – the financial backbone of most working musicians – in the United States and beyond. As a result, thousands of musicians and touring professionals, nearly all of whom work as non-unionized independent contractors, are still out of work and struggling to make ends meet during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
With no end in sight and no firm forecast for a return to normal touring in the future, they need more help than ever. Rolling Stone has compiled over 20 charities that have...
With no end in sight and no firm forecast for a return to normal touring in the future, they need more help than ever. Rolling Stone has compiled over 20 charities that have...
- 2/3/2021
- by Jonathan Bernstein and Claire Shaffer
- Rollingstone.com
Exclusive: CAA has signed screenwriter, producer and author Selwyn Seyfu Hinds.
Hinds’ has a handful of films in development including Prince Of Cats, the adaptation of Ronald Wimberly’s graphic novel, at Legendary; and 1000 Miles, based on the memoir Running A Thousand Miles For Freedom by William and Ellen Craft, to be directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper for Big Beach Films and Zucker Productions.
He is also the showrunner of the upcoming 20th Television/Hulu series Washington Black based on the book by author, Esi Edugyan, starring Sterling K. Brown, who is also producing with The Gotham Group, and to be directed by Anthony Hemingway. Hinds recently worked as a writer-producer on Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone.
Previously, Hinds served as Editor-in-Chief of the hip hop magazine The Source in the late-‘90s, and created the Vertigo comic-book series Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child.
Additionally, Hinds has written two non-fiction books,...
Hinds’ has a handful of films in development including Prince Of Cats, the adaptation of Ronald Wimberly’s graphic novel, at Legendary; and 1000 Miles, based on the memoir Running A Thousand Miles For Freedom by William and Ellen Craft, to be directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper for Big Beach Films and Zucker Productions.
He is also the showrunner of the upcoming 20th Television/Hulu series Washington Black based on the book by author, Esi Edugyan, starring Sterling K. Brown, who is also producing with The Gotham Group, and to be directed by Anthony Hemingway. Hinds recently worked as a writer-producer on Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone.
Previously, Hinds served as Editor-in-Chief of the hip hop magazine The Source in the late-‘90s, and created the Vertigo comic-book series Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child.
Additionally, Hinds has written two non-fiction books,...
- 1/29/2021
- by Justin Kroll
- Deadline Film + TV
Elvis Costello, Sting and Billy Joel are among the stars lending their support to a campaign to save the fabled New York City jazz venue Birdland. The effort includes a virtual concert — which Costello will partake in — airing January 24th at 7 p.m. Et.
Like so many venues across the country, Birdland was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced it to shut its doors. Despite the passage of the Save Our Stages Act in last year’s Covid-19 relief bill, which will provide targeted aid to the live entertainment industry,...
Like so many venues across the country, Birdland was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced it to shut its doors. Despite the passage of the Save Our Stages Act in last year’s Covid-19 relief bill, which will provide targeted aid to the live entertainment industry,...
- 1/22/2021
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Tuesday unveiled an extensive program of pop-up performances across the state starting next month with 150 artists from Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, Renée Fleming, Wynton Marsalis and Hugh Jackman to orchestras, ballets and theater companies.
Cuomo called it a New York Arts Revival Program to help a state devastated by Covid-19 to recall its “unique cultural assets” in and beyond New York City — from the Ballet Hispanico, Ars Nova, Albany Symphony Orchestra and National Black Theatre to the Pendragon Theatre in Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. Many are supported by New York State Council on the Arts, which helps fund over 2,000 arts organizations across the state.
“Broadway, museums, film, comedy, dance, and music — are fundamental to both the economy and the spirit of New York,” said Cuomo in his 11th State of the State, a multi-part address devoted largely to talk of jumpstarting New York’s economic resurgence.
Cuomo called it a New York Arts Revival Program to help a state devastated by Covid-19 to recall its “unique cultural assets” in and beyond New York City — from the Ballet Hispanico, Ars Nova, Albany Symphony Orchestra and National Black Theatre to the Pendragon Theatre in Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. Many are supported by New York State Council on the Arts, which helps fund over 2,000 arts organizations across the state.
“Broadway, museums, film, comedy, dance, and music — are fundamental to both the economy and the spirit of New York,” said Cuomo in his 11th State of the State, a multi-part address devoted largely to talk of jumpstarting New York’s economic resurgence.
- 1/12/2021
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
Four top film composers will reveal the secrets behind their crafts when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Btl Experts” Q&a event with key 2021 Oscar contenders this month. Each person will participate in two video discussions to be published on Wednesday, December 9, at 5:00 p.m. Pt; 8:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our senior editor Joyce Eng and a group chat with Joyce and all of the composers together.
RSVP today to this specific event by clicking here to book your reservation. Or click here to RSVP for our entire ongoing panel series. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.
This “Meet the Btl Experts” panel welcomes the following 2021 Oscar contenders:
“Herself” (Amazon Prime): Natalie Holt
Holt was nominated at the Emmys for “Victoria.” Other projects have included “Beecham House,” “Knightfall,” “Journey’s End,...
RSVP today to this specific event by clicking here to book your reservation. Or click here to RSVP for our entire ongoing panel series. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.
This “Meet the Btl Experts” panel welcomes the following 2021 Oscar contenders:
“Herself” (Amazon Prime): Natalie Holt
Holt was nominated at the Emmys for “Victoria.” Other projects have included “Beecham House,” “Knightfall,” “Journey’s End,...
- 12/3/2020
- by Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Documentary Hold Your Fire directed by Stefan Forbes has nabbed the second annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film, a $200,000 finishing grant for a filmmaker who uses original research and compelling narrative to tell stories that touch on an aspect of American history.
Produced by Amir Soltani and Tia Wou, the feature-length doc explores the longest hostage siege in NYPD history in1973 at a Brooklyn sporting goods store and how Harvey Schlossberg, an officer with a doctorate in psychology, averted a bloodbath.
In the incident, four young Black men stealing guns for self-defense were cornered by police. A violent gun battle ensued and soon a police officer lay dead in the freezing rain. Hundreds of officers poured into Williamsburg intent on carrying out then standard NYPD operating procedure: issue an ultimatum, then assault the store with deadly force despite hostages being trapped inside.
Produced by Amir Soltani and Tia Wou, the feature-length doc explores the longest hostage siege in NYPD history in1973 at a Brooklyn sporting goods store and how Harvey Schlossberg, an officer with a doctorate in psychology, averted a bloodbath.
In the incident, four young Black men stealing guns for self-defense were cornered by police. A violent gun battle ensued and soon a police officer lay dead in the freezing rain. Hundreds of officers poured into Williamsburg intent on carrying out then standard NYPD operating procedure: issue an ultimatum, then assault the store with deadly force despite hostages being trapped inside.
- 10/20/2020
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
Chances are, if you’ve seen many of the late films of Theodoros Angelopoulos, Michelangelo Antonioni (everything since L’avventura), Marco Bellocchio, Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini (almost everything since Amarcord), Mario Monicelli, Elio Petri, Francesco Rosi, Andrei Tarkovsky (Nostalghia), the Taviani brothers, and/or Luchino Visconti, and paid much attention to their script credits, you know who Tonino Guerra (1920–2012) was and is—a ubiquitous presence in modernist European cinema, especially its Italian branches. Petri was his first cinematic employer, after Guerra started out as a schoolteacher and poet whose parents were illiterate; later on, he became a visual artist as well as a screenwriter with over a hundred credits.Even after one acknowledges the exceptionally collaborative role played by multiple writers on Italian films, it seems that no one else was considered quite as essential by so many important directors. In Nicola Tranquillino’s documentary about Tonino (visible on YouTube...
- 9/29/2020
- MUBI
Updated with video: Bill Maher found his stride in his first episode since March to originate from the regular studio home of HBO’s Real Time, capping tonight’s show with a call-to-postal-action against — who else — President Donald Trump.
“If Trump’s going to try to scuttle the Post Office, we need to fight back,” the host said, delivering his “New Rules” show-ending monologue from his familiar set at LA’s CBS Television City. Starting in October, he added, “Don’t use the mail for anything but ballots until the election is over” on November 3.
Without an in-person audience due to Covid-19 restrictions, no one applauded Maher’s proposed hashtag for the postal effort: #FreeUpTheMail, but he charged forward anyway. The segment, along with conversations with guests Wynton Marsalis, Trey Gowdy, Rick Wilson and Nina Burleigh, saw Maher ditch the self-pitying mewling of some of his recent backyard efforts during the pandemic.
“If Trump’s going to try to scuttle the Post Office, we need to fight back,” the host said, delivering his “New Rules” show-ending monologue from his familiar set at LA’s CBS Television City. Starting in October, he added, “Don’t use the mail for anything but ballots until the election is over” on November 3.
Without an in-person audience due to Covid-19 restrictions, no one applauded Maher’s proposed hashtag for the postal effort: #FreeUpTheMail, but he charged forward anyway. The segment, along with conversations with guests Wynton Marsalis, Trey Gowdy, Rick Wilson and Nina Burleigh, saw Maher ditch the self-pitying mewling of some of his recent backyard efforts during the pandemic.
- 8/29/2020
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
J.K. Rowling has returned the Ripple of Hope Award given to her by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Organization after the president of the organization Kerry Kennedy criticized the “Harry Potter” author for recent comments she’s made that were deemed transphobic.
Rowling in a statement to her website Friday pushed back on the criticism and asserts that she does not have hatred for transgender individuals but felt she had no choice but to return the award. Rowling received the Ripple of Hope Award in December 2019.
“The statement incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people,” Rowling said. “As a longstanding donor to LGBT charities and a supporter of trans people’s right to live free of persecution, I absolutely refute the accusation that I hate trans people or wish them ill, or that standing up for the rights of women is wrong,...
Rowling in a statement to her website Friday pushed back on the criticism and asserts that she does not have hatred for transgender individuals but felt she had no choice but to return the award. Rowling received the Ripple of Hope Award in December 2019.
“The statement incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people,” Rowling said. “As a longstanding donor to LGBT charities and a supporter of trans people’s right to live free of persecution, I absolutely refute the accusation that I hate trans people or wish them ill, or that standing up for the rights of women is wrong,...
- 8/28/2020
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Former Bachelorette star Rachel Lindsay is taking on an Extra gig as a correspondent for the syndicated news magazine’s upcoming season, the show’s site announced on Thursday.
Lindsay — who headlined Season 13 of The Bachelorette — has been serving as a special correspondent for the program since 2019. She will be based out of Los Angeles alongside host Billy Bush and correspondent Jennifer Lahmers.
More from TVLineTrump Calls Bill Maher a 'Gaunt' 'Jerk' After Real Time Host Eulogizes POTUSSelena Gomez Is a Sweet But So-So Chef in Trailer for HBO Max SeriesThe Bachelorette's Rachel Lindsay Is Ready to Leave the...
Lindsay — who headlined Season 13 of The Bachelorette — has been serving as a special correspondent for the program since 2019. She will be based out of Los Angeles alongside host Billy Bush and correspondent Jennifer Lahmers.
More from TVLineTrump Calls Bill Maher a 'Gaunt' 'Jerk' After Real Time Host Eulogizes POTUSSelena Gomez Is a Sweet But So-So Chef in Trailer for HBO Max SeriesThe Bachelorette's Rachel Lindsay Is Ready to Leave the...
- 8/27/2020
- by Vlada Gelman
- TVLine.com
A new organization called Black Theatre Coalition has launched its inaugural program to increase work opportunities for Black theater professionals by at least 500% within the next 10 years.
And the group has hit the ground running, announcing a partnership with the producers of Broadway’s upcoming revival of Steven Sondheim’s Company to initiate 10 paid apprenticeships for young Black men and woman. The Company internships will represent every department of the production, and span the first rehearsal through opening night.
In addition, Btc says three Broadway management companies have pledged to employ four Black general managers when the pandemic shutdown lifts.
Btc also announced plans to present a series of three shows per year in New York City – one original musical, one revival of a musical and one new play – featuring works produced, created, designed and managed by Black artists and executives. The group has partnered in the project with musician Wynton Marsalis,...
And the group has hit the ground running, announcing a partnership with the producers of Broadway’s upcoming revival of Steven Sondheim’s Company to initiate 10 paid apprenticeships for young Black men and woman. The Company internships will represent every department of the production, and span the first rehearsal through opening night.
In addition, Btc says three Broadway management companies have pledged to employ four Black general managers when the pandemic shutdown lifts.
Btc also announced plans to present a series of three shows per year in New York City – one original musical, one revival of a musical and one new play – featuring works produced, created, designed and managed by Black artists and executives. The group has partnered in the project with musician Wynton Marsalis,...
- 7/23/2020
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
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