Category: Arts and Entertainment

This category is about arts and entertainment.

2020 Critics’ Choice Awards: ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the top winner

January 12, 2020

by Carla Hay

With four prizes, Columbia Pictures’ movie drama “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”(set in 1969) emerged as the top winner at the 25th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards, which were presented on January 12, 2020, at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California. Taye Diggs hosted the show, which was televised in the U.S. on The CW.

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” won the top movie prize (Best Picture), as well as Best Original Screenplay (for writer/director Quentin Tarantino), Best Supporting Actor (for Brad Pitt) and Best Production Design (for Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh). Coming close behind  in movie wins was Universal Pictures’ World War I drama “1917,” which won three awards: Best Director (for Sam Mendes, who won the prize in a tie with “Parasite” director Bong Joo); Best Cinematography (for Roger Deakins); and Best Editing (for Lee Smith).

In the TV categories, “Fleabag” was the top winner, with three awards: Best Comedy Series, Best Actress in a Comedy Series (for Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (for Andrew Scott).

Netflix’s “The Irishman” was the top nominee overall, going into the ceremony with 14 nods. But in the end, the mob drama only one Critics’ Choice Award: Best Acting Ensemble. The cast includes Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino and Ray Romano.

The ceremony also had mutliple categories that resulted in a voting tie this year. In addition to a tie for Best Director, there were ties for Best Song and Best Tall Show. The winners for Best Song were “Glasgow (No Place Like Home)” from the drama “Wild Rose” and “(I’m Gonna) Love You Again” from the musical “Rocketman.” The winners for Best Talk Show were “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and “The Late Late Show With James Corden.”

Eddie Murphy received the Lifetime Achievement Award. Kristen Bell got the #SeeHer Award, which is given to a female entertainer who is a role model for female empowerment.

The 25th annual Critics’ Choice Awards show was produced by Bob Bain Productions and Berlin Entertainment.

According to a Critics Choice Association press release: “The Critics Choice Association is the largest critics organization in the United States and Canada, representing more than 400 television, radio and online critics. It was organized this year with the formal merger of the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association, recognizing the blurring of the distinctions between film, television, and streaming content.”

The following is the complete list of winners and nominations for the 2020 Critics’ Choice Awards:

*=winner

MOVIES

BEST PICTURE
“1917”
“Ford v Ferrari”
“The Irishman”
“Jojo Rabbit”
“Joker”
“Little Women”
“Marriage Story”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”*
“Parasite”
“Uncut Gems”

BEST ACTOR
Antonio Banderas – “Pain and Glory”
Robert De Niro – “The Irishman”
Leonardo DiCaprio – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Adam Driver – “Marriage Story”
Eddie Murphy – “Dolemite Is My Name”
Joaquin Phoenix – “Joker”*
Adam Sandler – “Uncut Gems”

BEST ACTRESS
Awkwafina – “The Farewell”
Cynthia Erivo – “Harriet”
Scarlett Johansson – “Marriage Story”
Lupita Nyong’o – Us
Saoirse Ronan – “Little Women”
Charlize Theron – “Bombshell”
Renée Zellweger – “Judy”*

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Willem Dafoe – “The Lighthouse”
Tom Hanks – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
Anthony Hopkins – “The Two Popes”
Al Pacino – “The Irishman”
Joe Pesci – “The Irishman”
Brad Pitt – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”*

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Laura Dern – “Marriage Story”*
Scarlett Johansson – “Jojo Rabbit”
Jennifer Lopez – “Hustlers”
Florence Pugh – “Little Women”
Margot Robbie – “Bombshell”
Zhao Shuzhen – “The Farewell”

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS
Julia Butters – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Roman Griffin Davis – “Jojo Rabbit”*
Noah Jupe – “Honey Boy”
Thomasin McKenzie – “Jojo Rabbit”
Shahadi Wright Joseph – “Us”
Archie Yates – “Jojo Rabbit”

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE
“Bombshell”
“The Irishman”*
“Knives Out”
“Little Women”
“Marriage Story”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Parasite”

BEST DIRECTOR
Noah Baumbach – “Marriage Story”
Bong Joon Ho – “Parasite”* (tie)
Greta Gerwig – “Little Women”
Sam Mendes – “1917”* (tie)
Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie – “Uncut Gems”
Martin Scorsese – “The Irishman”
Quentin Tarantino – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Noah Baumbach – “Marriage Story”
Rian Johnson – “Knives Out”
Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won – “Parasite”
Quentin Tarantino – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”*
Lulu Wang – “The Farewell”

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Greta Gerwig – “Little Women”*
Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
Anthony McCarten – “The Two Popes”
Todd Phillips & Scott Silver – “Joker”
Taika Waititi – “Jojo Rabbit”
Steven Zaillian – “The Irishman”

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Jarin Blaschke – “The Lighthouse”
Roger Deakins – “1917”*
Phedon Papamichael – “Ford v Ferrari”
Rodrigo Prieto – “The Irishman”
Robert Richardson – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Lawrence Sher – “Joker”

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Mark Friedberg, Kris Moran – “Joker”
Dennis Gassner, Lee Sandales – “1917”
Jess Gonchor, Claire Kaufman – “Little Women”
Lee Ha Jun – “Parasite”
Barbara Ling, Nancy Haigh – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”*
Bob Shaw, Regina Graves – “The Irishman”
Donal Woods, Gina Cromwell – “Downton Abbey”

BEST EDITING
Ronald Bronstein, Benny Safdie – “Uncut Gems”
Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker – “Ford v Ferrari”
Yang Jinmo – “Parasite”
Fred Raskin – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Thelma Schoonmaker – “The Irishman”
Lee Smith – “1917”*

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Ruth E. Carter – “Dolemite Is My Name”*
Julian Day – “Rocketman”
Jacqueline Durran – “Little Women”
Arianne Phillips – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Sandy Powell, Christopher Peterson – “The Irishman”
Anna Robbins – “Downton Abbey”

BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP
“Bombshell”*
“Dolemite Is My Name”
“The Irishman”
“Joker”
“Judy”
“Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”
“Rocketman”

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
“1917”
“Ad Astra”
“The Aeronauts”
“Avengers: Endgame”*
“Ford v Ferrari”
“The Irishman”
“The Lion King”

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
“Abominable”
“Frozen II”
“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”
“I Lost My Body”
“Missing Link”
“Toy Story 4”*

BEST ACTION MOVIE
“1917”
“Avengers: Endgame”*
“Ford v Ferrari”
“John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum”
“Spider-Man: Far From Home”

BEST COMEDY
“Booksmart”
“Dolemite Is My Name”*
“The Farewell”
“Jojo Rabbit”
“Knives Out”

BEST SCI-FI OR HORROR MOVIE
“Ad Astra”
“Avengers: Endgame”
“Midsommar”
“Us”*

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“Atlantics”
“Les Misérables”
“Pain and Glory”
“Parasite”*
“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”

BEST SONG
“Glasgow (No Place Like Home)” – “Wild Rose”* (tie)
“(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” – “Rocketman”* (tie)
“I’m Standing With You” – “Breakthrough”
“Into the Unknown” – “Frozen II”
“Speechless” – “Aladdin”
“Spirit” – “The Lion King”
“Stand Up” – “Harriet”

BEST SCORE
Michael Abels – “Us”
Alexandre Desplat – “Little Women”
Hildur Guðnadóttir – “Joker”*
Randy Newman – “Marriage Story”
Thomas Newman – “1917”
Robbie Robertson – “The Irishman

TELEVISION

BEST DRAMA SERIES
“The Crown” (Netflix)
“David Makes Man” (OWN)
“Game of Thrones” (HBO)
“The Good Fight” (CBS All Access)
“Pose” (FX)
“Succession” (HBO)*
“This Is Us” (NBC)
“Watchmen” (HBO)

BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Sterling K. Brown – “This Is Us” (NBC)
Mike Colter – “Evil” (CBS)
Paul Giamatti – “Billions” (Showtime)
Kit Harington – “Game of Thrones” (HBO)
Freddie Highmore – “The Good Doctor” (ABC)
Tobias Menzies – “The Crown” (Netflix)
Billy Porter – “Pose” (FX)
Jeremy Strong – “Succession” (HBO)*

BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Christine Baranski – “The Good Fight” (CBS All Access)
Olivia Colman – “The Crown” (Netflix)
Jodie Comer – “Killing Eve” (BBC America)
Nicole Kidman – “Big Little” Lies (HBO)
Regina King – “Watchmen” (HBO)*
Mj Rodriguez – “Pose” (FX)
Sarah Snook – “Succession” (HBO)
Zendaya – “Euphoria” (HBO)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Asante Blackk – “This Is Us” (NBC)
Billy Crudup – “The Morning Show” (Apple)*
Asia Kate Dillon – “Billions” (Showtime)
Peter Dinklage – “Game of Thrones” (HBO)
Justin Hartley – “This Is Us” (NBC)
Delroy Lindo – “The Good Fight” (CBS All Access)
Tim Blake Nelson – “Watchmen” (HBO)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Helena Bonham Carter – “The Crown” (Netflix)
Gwendoline Christie – “Game of Thrones” (HBO)
Laura Dern – “Big Little Lies” (HBO)
Audra McDonald – “The Good Fight” (CBS All Access)
Jean Smart – “Watchmen” (HBO)*
Meryl Streep – “Big Little Lies” (HBO)
Susan Kelechi Watson – “This Is Us” (NBC)

BEST COMEDY SERIES
“Barry” (HBO)
“Fleabag” (Amazon)*
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon)
“Mom” (CBS)
“One Day at a Time” (Netflix)
“Pen15” (Hulu)
“Schitt’s Creek” (Pop)

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Ted Danson – “The Good Place” (NBC)
Walton Goggins – “The Unicorn” (CBS)
Bill Hader – “Barry” (HBO)*
Eugene Levy – Schitt’s Creek (Pop)
Paul Rudd – “Living with Yourself” (Netflix)
Bashir Salahuddin – “Sherman’s Showcase” (IFC)
Ramy Youssef – “Ramy” (Hulu)

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Christina Applegate – “Dead to Me” (Netflix)
Alison Brie – “GLOW” (Netflix)
Rachel Brosnahan – “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon)
Kirsten Dunst – “On Becoming a God in Central Florida” (Showtime)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus – “Veep” (HBO)
Catherine O’Hara – “Schitt’s Creek” (Pop)
Phoebe Waller-Bridge – “Fleabag” (Amazon)*

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Andre Braugher – “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” (NBC)
Anthony Carrigan – “Barry” (HBO)
William Jackson Harper – “The Good Place” (NBC)
Daniel Levy – “Schitt’s Creek” (Pop)
Nico Santos – “Superstore” (NBC)
Andrew Scott – “Fleabag” (Amazon)*
Henry Winkler – “Barry” (HBO)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Alex Borstein – “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon)*
D’Arcy Carden – “The Good Place” (NBC)
Sian Clifford – “Fleabag” (Amazon)
Betty Gilpin – “GLOW” (Netflix)
Rita Moreno – “One Day at a Time” (Netflix)
Annie Murphy – “Schitt’s Creek” (Pop)
Molly Shannon – “The Other Two” (Comedy Central)

BEST LIMITED SERIES
“Catch-22” (Hulu)
“Chernobyl” (HBO)
“Fosse/Verdon” (FX)
“The Loudest Voice” (Showtime)
“Unbelievable” (Netflix)
“When They See Us” (Netflix)*
“Years and Years” (HBO)

BEST MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION
“Brexit” (HBO)
“Deadwood: The Movie” (HBO)
“El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” (Netflix)*
“Guava Island” (Amazon)
“Native Son” (HBO)
“Patsy & Loretta” (Lifetime)

BEST ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Christopher Abbott – “Catch-22” (Hulu)
Mahershala Ali – “True Detective” (HBO)
Russell Crowe – “The Loudest Voice” (Showtime)
Jared Harris – “Chernobyl” (HBO)
Jharrel Jerome – “When They See Us” (Netflix)*
Sam Rockwell – “Fosse/Verdon” (FX)
Noah Wyle – “The Red Line” (CBS)

BEST ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Kaitlyn Dever – “Unbelievable” (Netflix)
Anne Hathaway – “Modern Love” (Amazon)
Megan Hilty – “Patsy & Loretta” (Lifetime)
Joey King – “The Act” (Hulu)
Jessie Mueller – “Patsy & Loretta” (Lifetime)
Merritt Wever – “Unbelievable” (Netflix)
Michelle Williams – “Fosse/Verdon” (FX)*

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Asante Blackk – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
George Clooney – “Catch-22” (Hulu)
John Leguizamo – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
Dev Patel – “Modern Love” (Amazon)
Jesse Plemons – “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” (Netflix)
Stellan Skarsgård – “Chernobyl” (HBO)*
Russell Tovey – “Years and Years” (HBO)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Patricia Arquette – “The Act” (Hulu)
Marsha Stephanie Blake – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
Toni Collette – “Unbelievable” (Netflix)*
Niecy Nash – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
Margaret Qualley – “Fosse/Verdon” (FX)
Emma Thompson – “Years and Years” (HBO)
Emily Watson – “Chernobyl” (HBO)

BEST ANIMATED SERIES
“Big Mouth” (Netflix)
“BoJack Horseman” (Netflix)*
“The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance” (Netflix)
“She-Ra and the Princesses of Power” (Netflix)
“The Simpsons” (Fox)
“Undone” (Amazon)

BEST TALK SHOW
“Desus & Mero” (Showtime)
“Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” (TBS)
“The Kelly Clarkson Show” (NBC)
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” (HBO)
“The Late Late Show with James Corden” (CBS)* (tie)
“Late Night with Seth Meyers” (NBC)* (tie)

BEST COMEDY SPECIAL
“Amy Schumer: Growing” (Netflix)
“Jenny Slate: Stage Fright” (Netflix)
“Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s ‘All in the Family’ and ‘The Jeffersons’” (ABC)*
“Ramy Youssef: Feelings” (HBO)
“Seth Meyers: Lobby Baby” (Netflix)
“Trevor Noah: Son of Patricia” (Netflix)
“Wanda Sykes: Not Normal” (Netflix)

2021 Golden Globe Awards: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler return as hosts

January 11, 2020

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (Photo by Heidi Gutman/NBCUniversal)

The following is a press release from Dick Clark Productions and NBC:

Award-winning comedy icons Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are returning to the Golden Globes as co-hosts for the 2021 telecast.

The announcement was made by NBC Entertainment Chairman Paul Telegdy during the network’s day at the Television Critics Association Tour in Pasadena, Calif.

The date of next year’s Golden Globes will be announced at a later time.

Fey and Poehler were critically applauded when they hosted the Globes from 2013-15, receiving universal praise for their witty on-stage banter and effortless rapport with one another.

“NBC has long been the home to two of the funniest people on the planet – Tina Fey and Amy Poehler – and we didn’t want to wait any longer to share the great news that they’ll be hosting the Globes once again,” said Paul Telegdy, Chairman, NBC Entertainment.

“There’s no denying that Tina and Amy’s comedic chemistry is infectious,” said Lorenzo Soria, President of the HFPA. “We can’t wait to see the dynamic duo return to the Golden Globes stage.”

“Tina and Amy have provided Golden Globes viewers with some of the most memorable moments the show has ever seen,” said Amy Thurlow, President of dick clark productions. “We’re thrilled to welcome them back in 2021.”

Fey, along with Robert Carlock, is co-creator and an executive producer of NBC’s upcoming Universal Television-produced untitled comedy series starring Ted Danson as L.A.’s mayor. Holly Hunter also stars.

Fey has won two Golden Globes and six Emmys for writing and/or acting for the multi-Emmy Award-winning comedy “30 Rock” and “Saturday Night Live.” Fey and Robert Carlock are also producers of the Netflix/Universal Television series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” The show was Emmy nominated four times for Outstanding Comedy Series and an upcoming interactive special is due out later this year.

Poehler is a Golden Globe and Emmy winner, well known for her portrayal of eternal optimist Leslie Knope on NBC’s beloved comedy “Parks and Recreation.” She is currently an executive producer of the Emmy-nominated Netflix comedy “Russian Doll” and executive producer/co-host of NBC’s “Making It.” She also is an executive producer and co-star of the upcoming animated series “Duncanville” on Fox.

The Golden Globe Awards, often referred to as “Hollywood’s Party of the Year,” is one of the biggest nights on the calendar for live viewing. It’s also one of the few award shows that combine the honorees of both film and television. The 2020 Golden Globe Awards telecast averaged a 4.7 rating in adults 18-49 and 18.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, and was the No. 1 primetime entertainment telecast on the broadcast networks in adults 18-49 since the Academy Awards on Feb. 24, 2019 (7.7 rating).

Produced by Dick Clark Productions in association with the HFPA, the Golden Globe Awards are viewed in more than 210 territories worldwide. Lorenzo Soria is president of the HFPA. Mike Mahan, CEO of Dick Clark Productions, Amy Thurlow, President of Dick Clark Productions and Barry Adelman, Executive VP of Television at Dick Clark Productions served as executive producers.

ABOUT HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) was founded in 1943 – then known as the Hollywood Foreign Correspondents Association – by a group of entertainment journalists based in Los Angeles. During World War II, the non-profit organization established a cultural bridge between Tinseltown and millions of cinema fans around the world who demanded drama and inspiration through entertainment. The HFPA continues to do so today with a membership representing more than 55 countries. Since 1944, the group has hosted the annual Golden Globe® Awards – the premier ceremony which honors achievements in both television and film. The licensing fees from the Golden Globe® Awards has enabled the organization to donate more than $37.5 million to more than 70 entertainment-related charities, film restoration, scholarship programs and humanitarian efforts over the last 25 years. For more information, please visitwww.GoldenGlobes.com and follow us on Twitter (@GoldenGlobes), Instagram (@GoldenGlobes), and Facebook (www.facebook.com/GoldenGlobes).

ABOUT DICK CLARK PRODUCTIONS
Dick Clark Productions (DCP) is the world’s largest producer and proprietor of televised live event entertainment programming with the “Academy of Country Music Awards,” “American Music Awards,” “Billboard Music Awards,” “Golden Globe Awards,” “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” and the “Streamy Awards.” Weekly television programming includes “So You Think You Can Dance” from 19 Entertainment and DCP. DCP also owns one of the world’s most unique and extensive entertainment archive libraries with over 60 years of award-winning shows, historic programs, specials, performances and legendary programming. DCP is a division of Valence Media, a diversified media company with divisions and strategic investments in premium television, wide release film, specialty film, live events and digital media. For additional information, visit www.dickclark.com.

Review: ‘Les Misérables’ (2019), starring Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti and Djibril Zonga

January 10, 2020

by Carla Hay

Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti and Djibril Zonga in “Les Misérables” (Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios)

“Les Misérables”

Directed by Ladj Ly

French with subtitles

Culture Representation: With almost no connection to Victor Hugo’s famed novel “Les Misérables,” this male-centric French drama film takes place in the present-day, predominantly black Paris ghetto of Montfermeil, which is policed by mostly white law-enforcement officers.

Culture Clash: The movie tells a brutal story of how police corruption and abuse of power make conflicts worse in an underprivileged community that already mistrusts the police.

Culture Audience: “Les Misérables” will appeal primarity to arthouse audiences who have a high tolerance for violent acts committed on screen.

Issa Perica (center) and Al-Hassan Ly (far right) in “Les Misérables” (Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios)

It’s been pointed out many times before, but it must be said in every review of “Les Misérables,” the feature-film debut from director Ladj Ly: This movie has almost nothing in common with the Victor Hugo novel “Les Misérables,” which has been famously adapted into stage musicals, plays, TV shows and movies. (“Les Misérables” translates to “the miserable ones” in English.) The only common threads between Ly’s “Les Misérables” and Hugo’s “Les Misérables” are that the movie takes place in the Paris ghetto of Montfermeil (the home of street urchin Gavroche in Hugo’s novel), and much of the story is about a cop pursuit.

Ly’s “Les Misérables” is France’s 2019 official entry for the Academy Awards category of Best International Feature Film. The movie won the Jury Prize (in a tie with the Brazilian film “Bacurau”) at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, and it was released in France later that year. It’s an interesting Academy Awards choice for France, considering that France has another very strong 2019 awards contender with writer/director Céline Sciamma’s 18th century-set drama “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which won the Best Screenplay award at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Perhaps France chose “Les Misérables” because it’s perceived as more socially relevant to today’s culture than “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” a lesbian romance that takes place in 1770.

Viewers should be warned that Ly’s “Les Misérables” is intense and often depressing. There’s no Jean Valjean hero who has mercy on the poor and saves people’s lives. The U.S. already has dozens of movies and TV shows about police brutality inflicted on financially disadvantaged communities that are populated mostly by people of color, so American audiences might not be as in shock and awe over Ly’s “Les Misérables” as other audiences might be who are in countries where police gun violence isn’t as prevalent.

Ly based his feature film “Les Misérables” (which he wrote with Giordano Gederlini  and Alexis Manenti) on his short film of the same title. Both films were inspired by the real-life 2005 World Cup riots in France. The actors who portray the three cops at the center of the story in the short film reprise their roles in the feature film: Damien Bonnard is earnest new employee Stéphane (nicknamed Pento); Manenti is alpha-male racist bully Chris; and Djibril Zonga is “go along to get along” follower Gwada.

At the beginning of the film, field sergeant Chris establishes his dominance as the leader of the pack by taunting newcomer Stéphane about his hairstyle. Stéphane is a divorced father who has transferred to the precinct so that he can live closer to his son. During most of the movie, Stéphane is doing ride-along training with Chris and Gwada in crime-ridden Montfermeil. Chris (who’s proud that he’s nicknamed Pink Pig) is the type of dirty cop who takes pleasure in using his authority to intimidate people.

For example, when he sees a group of three teenage girls who are hanging out on the street, he uses it as an excuse to stop and frisk search one of them whom he suspects has been smoking a joint. He also sexually harasses her by telling her he can put his finger up her anal area if he wants to do it. When one of the teenage girls objects to the harassment and starts filming the illegal search with her phone, Chris angrily grabs the phone and smashes it by throwing it on the ground.

Ultimately, there are no arrests, but Stéphane and Gwada stand by and do nothing to stop loose-cannon Chris, who is fully aware that he has the power to get away with his corruption. Apparently, he’s been doing it for years, and his hot-headed temperament is well-known in the police force. When Stéphane first shows up for work, fellow officers let it be known that they think Chris and Gwada are the “loser” cops, and anyone assigned to field duties with them is very unlucky.

Meanwhile, teenage Buzz (played by Al-Hassan Ly) has been going around the neighborhood causing mischief with a drone, including secretly video recording young female neighbors whose windows are exposed. When one of the teenage girls confronts Buzz with two of her female friends, he expresses sheepish contrition and agrees to delete the embarrassing videos and use the drone to record one of their upcoming basketball games.

The cop trio soon gets involved in solving an unusual crime: a baby lion has been stolen from a zoo, and the suspect is a young male who lives in Montfermeil. During a series of events that go horribly wrong, Buzz’s drone video catches Gwada committing a crime against the suspected lion thief: a teenage boy named Issa (played by Issa Perica), who’s also one of Buzz’s friends. Even though Chris has spotted the drone and knows that there are eyewitnesses, he decides to cover up the crime anyway. A horrified Stéphane objects, but ultimately goes along with the plan. The cop trio then spends the rest of the movie in pursuit of finding the video evidence so it can be destroyed.

There’s a gritty realism to “Les Misérables” that will hit hard with people who are disturbed by police brutality. The film’s unrelenting negativity doesn’t leave much room for hope or positive inspiration, since almost every major character in the movie either participates in crimes or looks the other way when they see crimes being committed. And even though the movie’s pace often builds suspense over what will happen next, director Ly accurately portrays the deep-rooted cynicism and defeatist attitude that disenfranchised people have that their fates are already sealed. They know that even if they’re not guilty of crimes, they can be easily framed by cops and mistreated by an uncaring and overwhelmed legal system.

The ultimate message in the movie is: “Should these disenfranchised communities take this abuse, or should they fight back?” The ending of Ly’s “Les Misérables” might not be satisfying enough for people who are used to having conflicts clearly resolved in a story, but the movie’s conclusion is a reflection of real life, where there aren’t always easy answers.

Amazon Studios released “Les Misérables” in select U.S. cinemas on January 10, 2020. The film was originally released in France in 2019.

 

Review: ‘Like a Boss,’ starring Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne and Salma Hayek

January 10, 2020

by Carla Hay

Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne and Salma Hayek in "Like a Boss"
Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne and Salma Hayek in “Like a Boss” (Photo by Eli Joshua Ade/Paramount Pictures)

“Like a Boss”

Directed by Miguel Arteta

Culture Representation: Taking place in Atlanta and centered on the beauty industry, the comedy “Like a Boss” has a racially diverse cast that includes representation of white people, African Americans, Latinos and Asians in the middle and upper classes.

Culture Clash: Pandering to the worst stereotypes of women, the plot of “Like a Boss” is basically about a corporate catfight.

Culture Audience: “Like a Boss” will appeal primarily to people who like mindless comedies that sink to low and crude levels.

Tiffany Haddish, Salma Hayek and Rose Byrne in “Like a Boss” (Photo by Eli Joshua Ade/Paramount Pictures)

If you were someone who sat through the excruciatingly dumb trailer of “Like a Boss” as it played during previews of a movie you saw in a theater, you might have seen from the repulsed reactions of people in the audience that this movie was not only a turn-off but it was also going to be a flop. “Like a Boss” tries to pass itself off as a raunchy feminist film, but in the end, the movie (written and directed by men) treats women like trash by presenting them as clueless about business and being at their cruelest to other women. “Like a Boss” director Miguel Arteta and screenwriters Adam Cole-Kelly and Sam Pitman should be embarrassed about putting this crap into the world, because it shows how inept they are at making a female-centric comedy.

The plot centers on entrepreneurs Mel Paige (played by Rose Byrne) and Mia Carter (played by Tiffany Haddish), two best friends since childhood who have an Atlanta store that sells their own brand of beauty products called M&M. Mel handles the financial matters of the business, while Mia handles the creative aspects. On the surface, things seem to be going well, but Mel is hiding a secret that she eventually confesses to Mia: their company is $493,000 in debt. (This isn’t a spoiler, since the confession is in the movie’s trailers. And if you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve basically seen what could be called the best parts of this bad movie.) It doesn’t help the company’s finances that Mia likes to give deep discounts to customers for random reasons.

However, M&M is making enough sales to attract the attention of corporate shark Claire Luna (played by Salma Hayek), the owner of the successful  beauty corporation Ovieda that’s supposed to be a market leader. The writers of this movie clearly don’t know that the biggest U.S.-based beauty companies in America are actually headquartered in New York or Los Angeles, but maybe the filmmakers got financial incentives from Atlanta to have this cheap-looking movie take place there.

Claire swoops in to make an offer to buy 51% of M&M and pay off all the company’s debts. Mel wants to do the deal, but Mia is reluctant because it would break Mel and Mia’s pact to never sell the business. Mia, who is more street-smart than Mel, also senses that Claire can’t be trusted. However, Mel is desperate to erase the company’s debts, and argues with Mia that the sale would be good for the company.

After Claire observes the tension that the proposed deal is causing between the two longtime friends, Claire offers to buy 49% of the company on the condition that if either Mel or Mia leaves the company, Claire will get 51% ownership of the business. Of course, in a movie as stupid and unrealistic as this one, not only do Mel and Mia cave in to Claire’s demands that they make their decision in one day, but they also sign the deal in Claire’s office without any attorneys involved.

As a further insult to women, the screenwriters came up with the catty motivation that Claire targeted Mel and Mia for a takeover because she’s jealous of their close friendship and wants the deal to break up Mel and Mia. It turns out that Claire started Ovieda with her longtime best friend, whom Claire ended up firing because Claire is basically a greedy you-know-what. Claire wants to split up Mel and Mia because Claire failed at working with her best friend, so Claire can’t stand to see two female best friends work well together as business partners. In other words, Claire isn’t thinking like a real business person but is thinking like a petty high schooler. If this corporate raider were a man, there’s no way the filmmakers would come up with this moronic motivation to take over a company.

But the cattiness doesn’t stop there in “Like a Boss.” Mel and Mia have a circle of bourgeois “frenemies”—Kim, Jill and Angela (played by Jessica St. Clair, Natasha Rothwell and Ari Graynor)—mostly married mothers who apparently look down on the unmarried and childless Mel and Mia, who still live like college students. Mel and Mia are roommates who regularly smoke pot and have meaningless flings with boy toys. Meanwhile, Mel and Mia are convinced that their own lifestyles are better than their domesticated friends because Mel and Mia don’t have the responsibilities of husbands and children. Mel and Mia and their “Real Housewives”-type friends spend almost all of their scenes together trying to outdo and impress each other instead of genuinely having fun together as real friends do.

There’s also an unnecessary subplot where Claire pits Mia and Mel against two sexist men named Greg (played by Ryan Hansen) and Ron (played by Jimmy O. Yang), who have their own beauty company that’s competing with M&M for the millions being offered by Claire in the acquisition deal. Greg and Ron are portrayed as dorks who think they’re “woke,” but they’re really dismissive of their customers’ needs. They see beauty products as a way to exploit customers’ insecurities about their looks instead of enhancing natural beauty, and so their company uses a lot of cringeworthy marketing techniques that reflect this condescending attitude.

“Like a Boss” is polluted with some not-very-funny slapstick moments and an annoying fixation on telling jokes about women’s private parts every 10 minutes. There are cheesy Lifetime movies that are better than “Like a Boss,” which certainly isn’t worth spending any money to see. Byrne is capable of doing better work in comedies (as evidenced by “Bridesmaids” and “Neighbors”), but in “Like a Boss,” her Mel character is such a one-dimensional, uptight neurotic that there’s no room for any nuanced complexities.

Haddish continues to put herself in Typecast Hell as the foul-mouthed, quick-tempered, loud caricature that she keeps doing in every movie she’s done since her breakout in 2017’s “Girls Trip,” which is still her best film. Even though her Mia character in “Like a Boss” is college-educated, Mia is an unsophisticated mess. Unfortunately, there are many people in this world who have little or no contact with black women, and they get their ideas and stereotypes of black women from what they see on screen. Fortunately, we have versatile and intelligent actresses like Viola Davis, Regina King and Lupita Nyong’o to offset the damaging, negative stereotypes of black women that Haddish continues to perpetuate in her choice of roles.

“Like a Boss” also has some Hispanic racial stereotyping, since Claire makes Mel and Mia do some salsa-like dance moves with her in the office while Mexican music suddenly plays in the background. (Hayek is Mexican, in case you didn’t know.) There’s also a running gag that Claire can’t speak proper English because she’s constantly mispronouncing and fabricating English words. The not-so-subtle message the filmmakers are conveying is that Latino immigrants who are successful in American business still aren’t smart enough to master the English language. Just because “Like a Boss” director Arteta is also Latino doesn’t excuse this awful stereotyping.

Meanwhile, Hayek and Billy Porter (who plays the sassy Barrett, an openly gay employee of Mel and Mia) have the talent to be doing Oscar-caliber work. Instead, they are slumming it in this garbage movie. Supporting characters that could have been interesting are instead poorly written knock-offs that have been seen countless times before in other movies. Jennifer Coolidge plays the ditzy blonde (Sydney, an employee of Mel and Mia), while Karan Soni plays the villain’s smarmy lackey (Josh, who is Claire’s assistant).

“Like a Boss” is supposed to be a comedy about female empowerment in corporate America, but instead this movie has a very ghetto, misogynistic mindset that belongs in the same trash pile as a bunch of toxic and outdated cosmetics products.

Paramount Pictures released “Like a Boss” in U.S. cinemas on January 10, 2020.

Review: ‘Underwater,’ starring Kristen Stewart

January 10, 2020

by Carla Hay

Kristen Stewart in “Underwater”
Kristen Stewart in “Underwater” (Photo by Alan Markfield)

“Underwater”

Directed by William Eubank

Culture Representation: The movie’s characters are a predominately white, educated crew of underwater explorers (with one African American and one Asian) who are tasked with drilling for resources in the deep ocean when they come under attack and fight for their lives.

Culture Clash: Telling a story with an implied environmental message, “Underwater” shows what happens when deep-ocean creatures fight back against humans who plunder their territory.

Culture Audience: “Underwater” will primarily appeal to those looking for a suspenseful sci-fi/horror movie that won’t be considered a classic but will provide about 90 minutes of escapist entertainment.

Kristen Stewart in “Underwater” (Photo by Alan Markfield)

Kristen Stewart: action hero? Taking massive cues from Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley character in “Alien,” Stewart goes from brainy, introspective crew member to kick-ass warrior, as she takes on deep-sea monsters in the sci-fi/horror film “Underwater.” After starring in the 2019 comedy reboot fiasco of Columbia Pictures’ “Charlie’s Angels,” Stewart (who’s been making mostly arty indie films for the past several years) has taken another step into major-studio action fare—but in 20th Century Fox’s “Underwater,” she’s going for scares instead of laughs.

During the opening credits of “Underwater,” there are flashes of media headlines and news reports about unconfirmed sightings of mysterious creatures in the deep ocean. According to the headlines, a major corporation named Kepler has been mining the deep oceans for resources, and hasn’t been giving full explanations for why employees have apparently disappeared from the underwater drilling sites. These elaborate, high-tech facilities (which are seven miles below the ocean surface) look like a cross between a factory, a spaceship and an underground bunker. They’re so high-tech that the Kepler workers living in these facilities for weeks or months at a time don’t need to wear oxygen masks or submarine suits when they’re in the building.

Within the first five minutes of the film, we’re barely introduced to Stewart’s mechanical/electrical engineer character Norah Price (who looks pensive as she brushes her teeth, muses about her isolation in a voiceover, and thinks about her broken love affair with her former fiancé) when the facility is hit with a massive explosion that kills many people in the crew and destroys the emergency equipment. Six of the surviving crew members, including Norah, find each other and agree to a desperate plan to walk across the ocean floor to an abandoned facility named Roebuck, in the hopes that Roebuck’s emergency equipment still works so they can escape or call for help.

The other five crew members are crew captain Lucien (played by Vincent Cassel), a take-charge Frenchman who has a 14-year-old daughter waiting for him at home; marine biology student Emily (played by Jessica Henwick), an inquisitive type who scares easily; operations expert Smith (played by John Gallagher Jr.), who’s in a romantic relationship with Emily; systems manager Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie), a solid guy who has a dorky side; and wisecracking Paul (played by T.J. Miller, who can’t seem to break out of his typecast as a supporting character who’s socially awkward and talks too much). They soon find out what caused the explosion (Hint: It wasn’t faulty equipment.)

Because the frantic action begins so early in the film, the “Underwater” screenplay by Brian Duffield and Adam Cozad doesn’t leave much room for character development. The actors do the best that they can with the generic characters and mostly forgettable dialogue that were written for them. The movie’s biggest asset, under the choppy direction of William Eubank, is the way it ramps up suspense, even if there are glaring plot holes the size of the ocean where these crew members are trapped. The visual effects for the sea monsters also achieve their intended impact, but the creatures’ very existence in the ocean (much like Godzilla) requires a huge suspension of disbelief. And cinematographer Bojan Bazelli serves up some compelling shots that might give some people the feelings of dizziness or claustrophobia if the movie is watched on a big screen.

However, the “Underwater” filmmakers don’t want viewers of this movie to think too hard, because then you’ll start to ask questions that unravel the plot, such as: “How could creatures of this size and quantity escape detection for so long?” Even if one company tried to cover up the existence of these monsters, their impact on the environment would be noticed already by too many marine biologists and people who work directly in the ocean. Monsters in outer space make more sense if they’re supposed to be undetected by humans on Earth. And at least in the world of Godzilla, millions of people in that world know that Godzilla is a creature that lives in the ocean. In “Underwater,” these monsters are a total surprise to the unlucky crew members who encounter them.

Just like a lot of movies whose plot is driven by suspense, “Underwater” also has a “race against time” element because (of course) the survivors are running out of oxygen. But this plot device is conveniently ignored when these so-called trained underwater professionals waste a lot of oxygen by talking too much. Paul, the annoying motormouth, is the chief culprit. In order to enjoy this movie, you can’t pay attention to the screenplay’s inconsistencies in how their underwater suits are supposed to work.

And since this is a horror movie, not everyone is going to get out alive. But there will be moments of further disbelief when certain characters go through things that would kill someone in real life, and then they survive, and you’re left wondering, “How are they still alive…and with their hair still neatly in place?” And—this is no joke—you can see freshly applied beauty makeup on one of the actresses’ faces after her character has supposedly gone through underwater hell. There must be some industrial-quality waterproof lipstick they have in that underwater bunker. There’s also a small stuffed animal that gets carried around as a good luck charm that somehow doesn’t get lost or destroyed during all the mayhem. “Underwater” is not a movie made for people who pay attention to these kinds of details.

“Underwater” is certainly not the worst horror film of 2020, and the movie’s ending should be commended for not being a total cliché. However, if you want a horror flick with memorable characters and a solid plot, then you’ll have to look elsewhere.

20th Century Fox released “Underwater” in U.S. cinemas on January 10, 2020.

Review: ‘The Sonata,’ starring Freya Tingley

January 10, 2020

by Carla Hay

Freya Tingley in "The Sonata"
Freya Tingley in “The Sonata” (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)

“The Sonata”

Directed by Andrew Desmond

Culture Representation: Taking place in England and France, “The Sonata” is a horror flick that centers mostly on people in the European world of classical music, a culture that is almost exclusively Caucasian.

Culture Clash: A supernatural ghost story, “The Sonata” uses the age-old conflict of good versus evil, with a minor subtext about resentments that working-class people can have for people in the upper class.

Culture Audience: “The Sonata” will primarily appeal to people who have the time to watch a B-movie that covers a lot of the same tropes that many other horror movies have already covered.

Freya Tingley in “The Sonata” (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)

When it comes to horror movies about evil spirits, “The Sonata” follows the formula so closely that horror fans can easily predict what’s going to happen. Directed by Andrew Desmond, who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur Morin, “The Sonata” checks the boxes of many familiar clichés used by movies of this ilk. Attractive young lead actress? Check. Spooky old house? Check. Nightmarish sightings of dead people? Check. The first two acts of the movie are far superior to the third and final act, which devolves into a disappointing dud. But if you must sit through this movie, here’s what to expect, without revealing any spoilers.

Rose Fisher (played by Freya Tingley), a British woman in her late 20s, is a talented and intensely focused professional solo violinist whose life revolves around her work. From the first scene, we find out that she’s an emotionally distant loner with no family ties. When her agent/manager Charles Vernais (played by Simon Abkarian) interrupts her rehearsal to inform her that her father has died, her response is: “I don’t have time for this right now.”

It turns out there’s a reason for Rose’s cold reaction to the news of her father’s death: He abandoned her and her mother (who is now deceased) when she was just 14 months old. The death of her father also exposes the secret that Rose has been keeping for years: Her father was the famous composer Richard Marlowe (played by Rutger Hauer), who disappeared at the height of his fame and became a recluse in France. Because of his abrupt departure from the spotlight, many people had assumed he had died years earlier.

Rose never really knew her father, and he never kept in touch with her and her mother. Therefore, Rose doesn’t really feel sad that he’s died, and she doesn’t even ask how he passed away. (It’s shown in the beginning of the movie that he set himself on fire.) Before his death, she had also kept her father’s identity a secret from everyone (including Charles) in her line of work because she didn’t want to trade in on his name to advance her career. It should be noted that Dutch actor Hauer, who died in July 2019, has screen time in the movie that’s less than 10 minutes, so it would be a mistake for people to think he has a lead role in this movie.

Richard Marlowe did not leave a will, and Rose is his only heir. She finds out that even though he didn’t have much money, he did leave behind his secluded mansion in France and all of his copyrighted work, so Rose inherits it all. Rose decides to bail out on some work commitments, in order to travel to France to check out the mansion. Charles is naturally upset by her decision, and there’s further tension in the relationship when Rose tells him that a big agency has offered to sign her. Ultimately, she sticks with Charles, who is (as he points out to her) the only person in her life who’s like a family member to her.

Early on in the movie, it’s established that Rose is a loner, so it actually makes sense that she has no qualms about staying in an isolated mansion by herself. Soon after arriving, she meets the housekeeper Thérèse (played by Catherine Schaub-Abkarian), who goes to the mansion once a week to clean and do other domestic duties. Thérèse tells Rose that when her father was alive, he kept to himself and was despised by the townspeople, who suspected that he was behind the disappearance of a local boy, who has remained missing. Thérèse also tells Rose how her father died.

While looking through some items in her father’s study, Rose finds a hand-written sonata in a locked desk drawer. Because her father’s initials are signed at the end of the sonata, she rightfully assumes that he was the one who wrote it. There are also four mysterious symbols on the sheets of paper. It’s easy to figure out that these symbols have something to do with the dark and foreboding atmosphere in and around the mansion. When Rose plays the sonata, she sees a shadowy adult figure, which just as quickly disappears. Thus begins her sightings of ghostly figures (some more menacing than others) in her nightmares as well as in her waking hours. It’s clear that playing the sonata has unleashed something evil.

Meanwhile, Rose tells Charles about the secret sonata, which was her father’s last work, and sends it to him to take a look at it. Charles does some research on the Internet and finds a video of an old TV interview that Marlowe gave about a masterpiece that he was working on at the time. Figuring out that the hidden sonata is the masterpiece in question, Charles goes behind Rose’s back and consults with some industry experts to feel out the market value of the sonata and to ask if they know what the mysterious symbols mean. There’s an ulterior motive to these consultations: Charles (a former classical musician and a recovering alcoholic) is in a precarious financial situation, since Rose (his only client) still might end up leaving him for a big agency, so he’s looking for a way to cash in on the sonata for some financial security.

While Charles consults with the enigmatic Sir Victor Ferdinand (played by James Faulkner), a former colleague of Marlowe’s, Sir Victor tells Charles the true meaning behind the four symbols, which represent power, immortality, appearance and duality. He also reveals that a French secret society created these symbols in the 19th century, and the society had certain beliefs on how to conjure up the devil.

The best parts of “The Sonata” are the production design by Audrius Dumikas, the art direction by Janis Karklins and the cinematography by Janis Eglitis, because they all convincingly evoke the Gothic atmosphere of an old haunted mansion in the French countryside. The film’s musical score by Alexis Maingaud is also effective in eliciting moods in all the right places. Less impressive are the movie’s basic visual effects, which look like something you’d see in a mid-budget TV show. The actors do a competent job with this trite and sometimes problematic script. The melodramatic turn of one of the characters toward the end of the movie is just a little too over-the-top and is almost laughable.

If you’re looking for a horror movie with some mild scares and compelling set designs, then “The Sonata” is worth watching. Just don’t expect to see any scares that are original or an ending that is particularly satisfying.

Screen Media Films released “The Sonata” in select U.S. cinemas and on VOD on January 10, 2020.

2020 NAACP Image Awards: ‘Harriet’ is the top nominee

January 9, 2020

Cynthia Erivo stars as Harriet Tubman in “Harriet,” which scored a leading 10 nominations in the movie and music categories at the 2020 NAACP Image Awards. (Photo by Glen Wilson/Focus Features)

The following is a press release from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP):

The nominees for the 51st NAACP Image Awards were announced today at a joint press conference with Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP and Connie Orlando – Executive Vice-President, Specials, Music Programming & Music Strategy. The winners will be revealed during the two-hour live TV special airing on BET Networks on Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT.

Netflix leads the television category nominations with 30, with an additional 12 nominations in the motion picture categories for a total of 42. RCA Records leads in the music recording categories with 14, followed by Columbia Records and BMG respectively with 7. Universal Pictures leads the motion picture categories with 15 nominations, and Penguin Random House has 8 nominations followed by HarperCollins with 4 in the literary categories.

“Representation across entertainment and the arts has profound meaning and unparalleled power to shape perceptions, influence culture, and galvanize communities,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “This year’s nominees have conveyed a wide range of authentic stories and experiences that have resonated with many, and we’re proud to continue celebrating their outstanding achievements and performances.”

“This is a historic occasion for BET Networks, and we’re thrilled to be able to celebrate our network’s 40th anniversary in conjunction with this milestone moment of hosting the NAACP Image Awards,” said Scott Mills, President of BET Networks. “It is our distinct privilege to be able to acknowledge contributions of talent in TV, music, movies and literature and we look forward to celebrating these contributions next month.”

The NAACP Image Awards honors the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music, literature, and film and also recognizes individuals or groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors. The Image Awards previously aired on TV One.

In previous years, Image Awards attendees included Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Taraji P. Henson, Viola Davis, Gabrielle Union, Kerry Washington, Anthony Anderson, Sterling K. Brown, Mandy Moore, Halle Berry, Common, Dwayne Johnson, Steve Harvey, Audra Day, John Legend, Lena Waithe, Tracee Ellis Ross, David Oyelowo, Laverne Cox, Octavia Spencer, Issa Rae, Trevor Noah, Terry Crews, Yara Shahidi, Danai Gurira, Jacob Latimore, Jay Pharoah, Jemele Hill, Josh Gad, Loretta Devine, Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Meta Golding, Michael Smith, Tyler James Williams, Ava DuVernay, Chadwick Boseman, and many more.

As previously announced:

Voting is now open to the public to determine the winners of the 51st NAACP IMAGE AWARDS by visiting www.naacpimageawards.net – Winners will be revealed during the 51st NAACP Image Awards telecast. For all information and the latest news, please visit the official NAACP Image Awards website at www.naacpimageawards.net or on Facebook at naacpimageawards and Twitter @naacpimageaward (#NAACPImageAwards).

About NAACP:
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas at naacp.org.

About BET Networks:
BET Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIA.B), is the nation’s leading provider of quality entertainment, music, news, and public affairs television programming for the African-American audience. The primary BET channel reaches more than 90 million households and can be seen in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and sub-Saharan Africa. BET is the dominant African-American consumer brand with a diverse group of business extensions: BET.com, a leading Internet destination for Black entertainment, music, culture and news; BET HER, a 24-hour entertainment network targeting the African-American Woman; BET Music Networks – BET Jams, BET Soul and BET Gospel; BET Home Entertainment; BET Live, BET’s growing festival business; BET Mobile, which provides ringtones, games and video content for wireless devices; and BET International, which operates BET around the globe.

Following is the complete list of categories and nominees for the 51st NAACP Image Awards:

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR

  • Angela Basset
  • Billy Porter
  • Lizzo
  • Regina King
  • Tyler Perry

TELEVISION CATEGORIES

Outstanding Comedy Series

  • “Ballers” (HBO)
  • “black-ish” (ABC)
  • “Dear White People” (Netflix)
  • “grown-ish” (Freeform)
  • “the Neighborhood” (CBS)

Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series

  • Anthony Anderson – “black-ish” (ABC)
  • Cedric The Entertainer – “the Neighborhood” (CBS)
  • Don Cheadle – “Black Monday” (Showtime)
  • Dwayne Johnson – “Ballers” (HBO)
  • Tracy Morgan – “The Last O.G.” (TBS)

Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series

  • Logan Browning – “Dear White People” (Netflix)
  • Jill Scott – “First Wives Club” (BET+)
  • Tiffany Haddish – “The Last O.G.” (TBS)
  • Tracee Ellis Ross – “black-ish ” (ABC)
  • Yara Shahidi – “grown-ish” (Freeform)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

  • Andre Braugher – “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” (NBC)
  • Deon Cole – “black-ish” (ABC)
  • Laurence Fishburne – “black-ish” (ABC)
  • Terry Crews – “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” (NBC)
  • Tituss Burgess – “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” (Netflix)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

  • Halle Bailey – “grown-ish” (Freeform)
  • Loretta Devine – “Family Reunion” (Netflix)
  • Marsai Martin – “black-ish” (ABC)
  • Regina Hall – “Black Monday” (Showtime)
  • Tichina Arnold – “the Neighborhood” (CBS)

Outstanding Drama Series

  • “Godfather of Harlem” (EPIX)
  • “Greenleaf” (OWN)
  • “Queen Sugar” (OWN)
  • “The Chi” (Showtime)
  • “Watchmen” (HBO)

Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series

  • Billy Porter – “Pose” (FX Networks)
  • Forest Whitaker – “Godfather of Harlem” (EPIX)
  • Kofi Siriboe – “Queen Sugar” (OWN)
  • Omari Hardwick – “Power” (Starz)
  • Sterling K. Brown – “This Is Us” (NBC)

Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series

  • Angela Bassett – “9-1-1” (FOX)
  • Regina King – “Watchmen” (HBO)
  • Rutina Wesley – “Queen Sugar” (OWN)
  • Simone Missick – “All Rise” (CBS)
  • Viola Davis – “How to Get Away with Murder” (ABC)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

  • Delroy Lindo – “The Good Fight” (CBS All Access)
  • Giancarlo Esposito – “Godfather of Harlem” (EPIX)
  • Harold Perrineau – “Claws” (TNT)
  • Nigél Thatch – “Godfather of Harlem” (EPIX)
  • Wendell Pierce – “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” (Prime Video)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

  • CCH Pounder – “NCIS: New Orleans” (CBS)
  • Lynn Whitfield – “Greenleaf” (OWN)
  • Lyric Ross – “This Is Us” (NBC)
  • Susan Kelechi Watson – “This Is Us” (NBC)
  • Tina Lifford – “Queen Sugar” (OWN)

Outstanding Television Movie, Limited-Series or Dramatic Special

  • American Son (Netflix)
  • Being Mary Jane (BET Networks)
  • Native Son (HBO)
  • True Detective (HBO)
  • When They See Us (Netflix)

Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Limited-Series or Dramatic Special

  • Caleel Harris – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
  • Ethan Henry Herisse – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
  • Idris Elba – “Luther” (BBC America)
  • Jharrel Jerome – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
  • Mahershala Ali – “True Detective” (HBO)

Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Limited-Series or Dramatic Special

  • Aunjanue Ellis – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
  • Gabrielle Union – “Being Mary Jane” (BET Networks)
  • Kerry Washington – “American Son” (Netflix)
  • Niecy Nash – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
  • Octavia Spencer – “Truth Be Told” (Apple TV+)

Outstanding News/Information (Series or Special)

  • PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (PBS)
  • Surviving R. Kelly (Lifetime)
  • The Breakfast Club (REVOLT)
  • The Story of God with Morgan Freeman (National Geographic)
  • Unsung (TV One)

Outstanding Talk Series

  • “Red Table Talk” (Facebook Watch)
  • “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” (Comedy Central)
  • “The Real” (Syndicated)
  • “The Shop: Uninterrupted” (HBO)
  • “The Tamron Hall Show” (Syndicated)

Outstanding Reality Program/Reality Competition Series/Game Show

  • “Iyanla: Fix My Life” (OWN)
  • “Lip Sync Battle” (Paramount Network)
  • “Rhythm + Flow” (Netflix)
  • “Sunday Best” (BET Networks)
  • “The Voice” (NBC)

Outstanding Variety (Series or Special)

  • “2019 Black Girls Rock!” (BET Networks)
  • “Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones” (Netflix)
  • “Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé” (Netflix)
  • “Saturday Night Live” (NBC)
  • “Wanda Sykes: Not Normal” (Netflix)

Outstanding Children’s Program

  • “Doc McStuffins” (Disney Junior)
  • “Family Reunion” (Netflix)
  • “Kevin Hart’s Guide to Black History” (Netflix)
  • “Marvel’s Avengers: Black Panther’s Quest” (Disney XD)
  • “Motown Magic” (Netflix)

Outstanding Performance by a Youth (Series, Special, Television Movie or Limited-Series)

  • Caleel Harris – “When They See Us” (Netflix)
  • Lonnie Chavis – “This Is Us” (NBC)
  • Lyric Ross – “This Is Us” (NBC)
  • Marsai Martin – “black-ish” (ABC)
  • Miles Brown – “black-ish” (ABC)

Outstanding Host in a Talk or News/Information (Series or Special) – Individual or Ensemble

  • Angela Rye – “Young Gifted and Broke: A BET Town Hall” (BET Networks)
  • Jada Pinkett Smith – “Red Table Talk” (Facebook Watch)
  • Lester Holt – “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” (NBC)
  • Trevor Noah – “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” (Comedy Central)
  • Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar,  Sunny Hostin, Meghan McCain, Abby Huntsman, Ana Navarro – “The View” (ABC)

Outstanding Host in a Reality/Reality Competition, Game Show or Variety (Series or Special) – Individual or Ensemble

  • Iyanla Vanzant – “Iyanla: Fix My Life” (OWN)
  • LL Cool J – “Lip Sync Battle” (Paramount Network)
  • Regina Hall – “2019 BET Awards” (BET Networks)
  • Steve Harvey – “Celebrity Family Feud” (ABC)
  • Wayne Brady – “Let’s Make A Deal” (CBS)

Outstanding Guest Performance in a Comedy or Drama Series

  • Blair Underwood – “Dear White People” ( Netflix)
  • David Alan Grier – “Queen Sugar” (OWN)
  • Kelly Rowland – “American Soul” (BET Networks)
  • MAJOR. – “STAR” (FOX)
  • Sanaa Lathan – “The Affair” (Showtime)

RECORDING CATEGORIES

Outstanding Album

  • “Cuz I Love You” – Lizzo (Nice Life Records/Atlantic Records)
  • “Homecoming: The Live Album” – Beyoncé (Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records)
  • “I Used To Know H.E.R.” – H.E.R. (MBK Entertainment / RCA Records)
  • “Sketchbook” – Fantasia (Rock Soul Inc./BMG)
  • “Worthy” – India.Arie (India.Arie Inc./BMG)

Outstanding New Artist

  • Ari Lennox (Dreamville/Interscope Records)
  • Lil Nas X (Columbia Records)
  • Lucky Daye (Keep Cool/RCA Records)
  • Mahalia (Burkmar/Warner Music UK)
  • Mykal Kilgore (Affective Music)

Outstanding Male Artist

  • Bruno Mars (Atlantic Records)
  • Khalid (RCA Records)
  • Lil Nas X (Columbia Records)
  • MAJOR. (BOE Music Group/EMPIRE)
  • PJ Morton (Morton Records)

Outstanding Female Artist 

  • Beyoncé (Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records)
  • Fantasia (Rock Soul Inc./BMG)
  • H.E.R. (MBK Entertainment / RCA Records)
  • India.Arie (India.Arie Inc./BMG)
  • Lizzo (Nice Life Records/Atlantic Records)

Outstanding Song – Traditional

  • “Enough” – Fantasia (Rock Soul Inc./BMG)
  • “Jerome” – Lizzo (Nice Life Records/Atlantic Records)
  • “SPIRIT” – Beyoncé (Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records)
  • “Stand Up” – Cynthia Erivo written by Joshuah Brian Campbell & Cynthia Erivo (Back Lot Music)
  • “Steady Love” – India.Arie (India.Arie Inc./BMG)

Outstanding Song – Contemporary

  • “Before I Let Go” – Beyoncé (Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records)
  • “Hard Place” – H.E.R. (MBK Entertainment / RCA Records)
  • “Juice” – Lizzo (Nice Life Records/Atlantic Records)
  • “Talk” – Khalid (RCA Records)
  • “Motivation” – Normani (Keep Cool/RCA Records)

Outstanding Duo, Group or Collaboration

  • “Brown Skin Girl” – Blue Ivy, SAINt JHN, Beyoncé & WizKiD (Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records)
  • “No Guidance” – Chris Brown feat. Drake (Chris Brown Entertainment/RCA Records)
  • “Say So” – PJ Morton feat. JoJo (Morton Records/EMPIRE)
  • “Shea Butter Baby” – Ari Lennox feat. J. Cole (Dreamville/Interscope Records)
  • “Show Me Love” – Alicia Keys feat. Miguel (RCA Records)

Outstanding Jazz Album

  • “Carib” – David Sanchez (Ropeadope)
  • “Center of The Heart” – Najee (Shanachie)
  • “Love & Liberation” – Jazzmeia Horn (Concord Jazz)
  • “SoulMate” – Nathan Mitchell (Enm Music Group)
  • “The Dream Is You: Vanessa Rubin Sings Tadd Dameron” – Vanessa Rubin (Vanessa Rubin)

Outstanding Gospel/Christian Song (Traditional or Contemporary)

  • “I Made It Out” – John P. Kee feat. Zacardi Cortez (Kee Music Group/Entertainment One)
  • “Laughter” – Bebe Winans feat. Korean Soul (Regimen Records)
  • “Love Theory” – Kirk Franklin (Fo Yo Soul Records/RCA Records)
  • “Not Yet” – Donnie McClurkin (Camdon Music/RCA Inspiration)
  • “Victory” – The Clark Sisters (Karew Records/Motown Gospel/Capitol CMG)

Outstanding Music Video/Visual Album

  • “Hard Place” – H.E.R. (MBK Entertainment / RCA Records)
  • “Juice” – Lizzo (Nice Life Records/Atlantic Records)
  • “No Guidance” – Chris Brown feat. Drake (Chris Brown Entertainment/RCA Records)
  • “Steady Love” – India.Arie (India.Arie Inc./BMG)
  • “Talk” – Khalid (RCA Records)

Outstanding Soundtrack/Compilation Album

  • “Harriet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)” – Terence Blanchard (Back Lot Music)
  • “Queen & Slim The Soundtrack” – Various Artists (Motown Records)
  • “The Lion King: The Gift” – Beyoncé w/Various Artists (Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records)
  • “The Lion King Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” – Various Artists (Walt Disney Records)
  • “Us (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)” – Michael Abels (Back Lot Music)

LITERATURE CATEGORIES

Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction 

  • “New Daughters of Africa” – Margaret Busby (HarperCollins Publishers)
  • “Out of Darkness, Shining Light” – Petina Gappah (Simon and Schuster)
  • “Red at the Bone” – Jacqueline Woodson (Riverhead Books PRH)
  • “The Revisioners” – Margaret Wilkerson Sexton (Counter Point Press)
  • “The Water Dancer” – Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World)

Outstanding Literary Work – Nonfiction 

  • “Breathe: A Letter to My Sons” – Dr. Imani Perry (Beacon Press)
  • “STONY THE ROAD: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow” – Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Penguin Press)
  • “The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations” – Toni Morrison (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • “The Yellow House” – Sarah M. Broom (Grove Atlantic)
  • “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays” – Damon Young (HarperCollins Publishers)

Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author 

“American Spy” – Lauren Wilkinson (Random House)

  • “I Am Dance: Words and Images of the Black Dancer” – Hal Banfield (Author), Javier Vasquez (Illustrator), (Literary Revolutionary)
  • “More Than Pretty: Doing The Soul Work To Uncover Your True Beauty ” – Erica Campbell (Howard Books)
  • “Such A Fun Age” – Kiley Reid (Putnam Publishing / Penguin Publishing Group)
  • “The Farm” – Joanne Ramos (Random House)

Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Autobiography 

  • “Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System” – Cyntoia Brown-Long (Atria Books)
  • “Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward” – Valerie Jarrett (Viking Press)
  • “More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say)” – Elaine Welteroth (Viking Press)
  • “My Name Is Prince” – Randee St. Nicholas (HarperCollins Publishers)
  • “The Beautiful Ones” – Prince (Author), Dan Piepenbring (Edited by), (Random House)

Outstanding Literary Work – Instructional

  • “Inspire Your Home: Easy, Affordable Ideas to Make Every Room Glamorous” – Farah Merhi (Tiller Press)
  • “Letters to the Finishers (who struggle to finish)” – Candace E. Wilkins (New Season Books)
  • “More Than Pretty: Doing the Soul Work that Uncovers Your True Beauty” – Erica Campbell (Howard Books)
  • “Vegetables Unleashed” – José Andres (HarperCollins Publishers)
  • “Your Next Level Life: 7 Rules of Power, Confidence, And Opportunity For Black Women In America” – Karen Arrington (Author), Joanna Price (Illustrator), Sheryl Taylor (Forward) (Mango Publishing)

Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry 

  • “A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland” – DaMaris B. Hill (Bloomsbury Publishing)
  • “Felon: Poems” – Reginald Dwayne Betts (W.W. Norton Company)
  • “Honeyfish” – Lauren K. Alleyne (New Issues Poetry and Prose)
  • “Mistress” – Chet’la Sebree (New Issue Poetry and Prose)
  • “The Tradition” – Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)

Outstanding Literary Work – Children

  • “A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation” – Barry Wittenstein (Author), Jerry Pinkney (Illustrator), (Neal Porter Books / Holiday House Publishing Inc.)
  • “Hair Love” – Matthew A. Cherry (Author), Vashti Harrison (Illustrator), (Kokila)
  • “Parker Looks Up: An Extraordinary Moment” – Parker Curry (Author), Jessica Curry (Author), Brittany Jackson (Illustrator), (Aladdin Books)
  • “Ruby Finds a Worry” – Tom Percival (Bloomsbury Publishing)
  • “Sulwe” – Lupita Nyong’o (Author), Vashti Harrison (Illustrator), (Simon & Schuster, BFYR)

Outstanding Literary Work – Youth/Teens 

  • “Around Harvard Square” – C.J. Farley (Akashic Books)
  • “Her Own Two Feet: A Rwandan Girl’s Brave Fight to Walk” – Meredith Davis (Author), Rebeka Uwitonze (Author), (Scholastic Inc.)
  • “Hot Comb” – Ebony Flowers (Author), Ebony Flowers (Illustrator), (Drawn and Quarterly)
  • “I’m Not Dying with You Tonight” – Gilly Segal (Author), Kimberly Jones (Author), (Sourcebooks Fire)
  • “The Forgotten Girl” – India Hill Brown (Scholastic Inc.)

MOTION PICTURE CATEGORIES
Outstanding Motion Picture

  • “Dolemite is My Name” (Netflix)
  • “Harriet” (Focus Features)
  • “Just Mercy” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • “Queen & Slim” (Universal Pictures)
  • “Us” (Universal Pictures)

Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture

  • Chadwick Boseman – “21 Bridges” (STX Films)
  • Daniel Kaluuya – “Queen & Slim” (Universal Pictures)
  • Eddie Murphy – “Dolemite is My Name” (Netflix)
  • Michael B. Jordan – “Just Mercy” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • Winston Duke – “Us” (Universal Pictures)

Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture

  • Alfre Woodard – “Clemency” (Neon)
  • Cynthia Erivo – “Harriet” (Focus Features)
  • Jodie Turner-Smith – “Queen & Slim” (Universal Pictures)
  • Lupita Nyong’o – “Us” (Universal Pictures)
  • Naomie Harris – “Black and Blue” (Screen Gems/Sony Pictures)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture

  • Jamie Foxx – “Just Mercy” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • Leslie Odom, Jr. – “Harriet” (Focus Features)
  • Sterling K. Brown – “Waves” (A24)
  • Tituss Burgess – “Dolemite Is My Name” (Netflix)
  • Wesley Snipes – “Dolemite Is My Name” (Netflix)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture

  • Da’Vine Joy Randolph – “Dolemite is My Name” (Netflix)
  • Janelle Monáe – “Harriet” (Focus Features)
  • Jennifer Lopez – “Hustlers” (STX Films)
  • Marsai Martin – “Little” (Universal Pictures)
  • Octavia Spencer – “Luce” (Neon)

Outstanding Breakthrough Performance in Motion Picture

  • Cynthia Erivo – “Harriet” (Focus Features)
  • Jodie Turner-Smith – “Queen & Slim” (Universal Pictures)
  • Marsai Martin – “Little” (Universal Pictures)
  • Rob Morgan – “Just Mercy” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • Shahadi Wright Joseph – “Us” (Universal Pictures)

Outstanding Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture

  • “Dolemite is My Name” (Netflix)
  • “Harriet” (Focus Features)
  • “Just Mercy” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • “Queen & Slim” (Universal Pictures)
  • “Us” (Universal Pictures)

Outstanding Independent Motion Picture 

  • “Clemency” (Neon)
  • “Dolemite is My Name” (Netflix)
  • “Luce” (Neon)
  • “Queen & Slim” (Universal Pictures)
  • “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” (Netflix)

Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance (Television or Film)

  • Alfre Woodard – “The Lion King” (Walt Disney Studios)
  • Donald Glover – “The Lion King” (Walt Disney Studios)
  • James Earl Jones – “The Lion King” (Walt Disney Studios)
  • Lupita Nyong’o – “Serengeti” (Discovery Channel)
  • Sterling K. Brown – “Frozen II” (Walt Disney Studios)

DOCUMENTARY CATEGORIES
Outstanding Documentary (Film)

  • “Miles Davis: Birth Of The Cool” (Eagle Rock Entertainment)
  • “The Black Godfather” (Netflix)
  • “The Apollo” (HBO)
  • “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” (Magnolia Pictures)
  • “True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality” (HBO)

Outstanding Documentary (Television – Series or Special)

  • “Free Meek” (Prime Video)
  • “Hitsville: The Making of Motown” (Showtime)
  • “Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé” (Netflix)
  • “Martin: The Legacy of A King” (BET Networks)
  • “ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke” (Netflix)

WRITING CATEGORIES
Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series 

  • Cord Jefferson – “The Good Place” – Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy (NBC)
  • Gloria Calderon Kellett, Mike Royce – “One Day at a Time” – Ghosts (Netflix)
  • Jason Kim – “Barry” – Past=Present x Future Over Yesterday (HBO)
  • Karen Gist, Peter Saji – “Mixed-ish” – Let Your Hair Down (ABC)
  • Trevor Noah – “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” – Steve King’s Comments Meet Trevor Noah: Racism Detective (Comedy Central)

Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series 

  • Ava DuVernay, Michael Starrbury – “When They See Us” – Part Four (Netflix)
  • Damon Lindelof, Cord Jefferson – “Watchmen” – The Extraordinary Being (HBO)
  • Nichelle Tramble Spellman – “Truth Be Told” – Monster (Apple TV+)
  • Nkechi Okoro Carroll – “All American” – Hussle & Motivate (The CW)
  • Pat Charles – “Black Lightning” – The Book of Secrets: Chapter One: Prodigal Son (The CW)

Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Television)

  • Cas Sigers-Beedles – “Twas the Chaos Before Christmas” (BET Networks)
  • Melissa Bustamante – “A Christmas Winter Song” (Lifetime)
  • Patrik-Ian Polk, Devon Shepard, and Alyson Fouse – “Being Mary Jane” (BET Networks)
  • Suzan-Lori Parks – “Native Son” (HBO)
  • Yvette Nicole Brown – “Always a Bridesmaid” (BET Networks)

Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Film)  

  • Chinonye Chukwu – “Clemency” (Neon)
  • Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham – “Just Mercy” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
  • Doug Atchison – “Brian Banks” (Bleecker Street and ShivHans Pictures)
  • Jordan Peele – “Us” (Universal Pictures)
  • Kasi Lemmons, Gregory Allen Howard – “Harriet” (Focus Features)

DIRECTING CATEGORIES
Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series

  • Anya Adams – “GLOW” – Outward Bound (Netflix)
  • Justin Tipping – “Black Monday” -7042 (Showtime)
  • Ken Whittingham – “Atypical” – Road Rage Paige (Netflix)
  • Randall Winston – “Grace and Frankie” – The Pharmacy (Netflix)
  • Shaka King – “Shrill” – Pool (Hulu)

Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series

  • Ava DuVernay – “When They See Us” – Part Four (Netflix)
  • Carl H. Seaton, Jr. – “Snowfall” – Hedgehogs (FX Networks)
  • Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson – “Power” – Forgot About Dre (STARZ)
  • Debbie Allen – “Grey’s Anatomy” – Silent All These Years (ABC)
  • Jet Wilkinson – “The Chi” – The Scorpion and the Frog (Showtime)

Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (Television)

  • Codie Elaine Oliver – “Black Love” (OWN)
  • Janice Cooke – “I Am Sombody’s Child: The Regina Louise Story (Lifetime)
  • Kenny Leon – “American Son” (Netflix)
  • Rashid Johnson – “Native Son (HBO)
  • Russ Parr – “The Bobby Debarge Story” (TV One)

Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (Film) 

  • Chiwetel Ejiofor – “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” (Netflix)
  • Jordan Peele – “Us” (Universal Pictures)
  • Kasi Lemmons – “Harriet” (Focus Features)
  • Mati Diop – “Atlantics” (Les Films du Bal Presente en Co-Production avec Cinekap et Frakas Productions en Co-Production avec Arte France Cinema et Canal+ International for Netflix)
  • Reginald Hudlin – “The Black Godfather” (Netflix)

2020 BAFTA Film Awards: ‘Joker’ is the top nominee

January 7, 2020

by Carla Hay

Joaquin Phoenix in “Joker” (Photo by Niko Tavernise)

With 11 nominations, the supervillain origin story “Joker” is the leading contender for the 73rd annual British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards, which will be presented at Royal Albert Hall in London on February 2, 2020. Graham Norton will host the show, which will be broadcast exclusively on BBC One and BBC One HD in the United Kingdom and in other major territories around the world. BBC America will have the U.S. telecast of the show.

Other films to receive several nominations include “The Irishman” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which garnered 10 nods each. “1917” has nine nods, and “Jojo Rabbit” received six nominations. “Little Women,” “Marriage Story” and “The Two Popes” got five nods each. “For Sama,” “Parasite” and “Rocketman” received four nominations each. Three nominations each went to “Bombshell,” “Judy,” “Le Mans ’66” (which is known as “Ford v Ferrari” in the U.S. and other countries) and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Eligible movies were those released in the United Kingdom in 2019. (Some movies that have been getting awards buzz, such as “Uncut Gems” and “Just Mercy,” were released in the U.S. in 2019, and will have a U.K. release in 2020.)

The nominees for the EE Rising Star Award were previously announced as Awkwafina, Jack Lowden, Kaitlyn Dever, Kelvin Harrison Jr, and Micheal Ward. According to a BAFTA press release: “The award is voted for by the British public and presented to an actress or actor who has demonstrated exceptional talent and has begun to capture the imagination of the U.K. public. Voting is now open at ee.co.uk/baftas.”

Snubs and Surprises

Eddie Murphy in “Dolemite Is My Name” (Photo by François Duhamel)

The most noticeable snubs were for non-white actors in the major acting categories: All of the BAFTA nominees in these categories this year are white: Leading Actor, Leading Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress. That means no acting nominations for anyone in the casts of the critically acclaimed, award-winning films “Parasite,” “Dolemite Is My Name” and “Pain and Glory.” The good news is that there is racial diversity in the actors nominated in the EE Rising Star Award. The nominees in that category include Kelvin Harrison Jr. (“Luce,” “Waves”) and Micheal Ward (“Blue Story”) are black, while Awkwafina (“The Farewell”) is Chinese American. Meanwhile, once again, there were no female directors nominated in the category of Best Director.

A big surprise was Margot Robbie scoring two BAFTA supporting actress nominations this year. Although she was widely expected to get a nod for “Bombshell” in this category, she was not widely expected to get nominated for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” considering that the movie received a lot of criticism for Robbie’s Sharon Tate character not having enough meaningful dialogue and screen time. Another notable surprise is Jessie Buckley’s lead actress nomination for “Wild Rose,” since her performance in the movie has been largely ignored for nominations for major movie awards.

Here is the complete list of nominations for the 2020 BAFTA Awards:

Best Film

“1917”
“The Irishman”
“Joker”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Parasite”

Outstanding British Film

“1917”
“Bait”
“For Sama”
“Rocketman”
“Sorry We Missed You”
“The Two Popes”

Best Director

Sam Mendes (“1917”)
Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”)
Todd Phillips (“Joker”)
Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Bong Joon Ho (“Parasite”)

Leading Actress

Jessie Buckley (“Wild Rose”)
Scarlett Johansson (“Marriage Story”)
Saoirse Ronan (“Little Women”)
Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”)
Renée Zellweger (“Judy”)

Leading Actor

Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”)
Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”)
Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”)
Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”)
Jonathan Pryce (“The Two Popes”)

Supporting Actor

Tom Hanks (“A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood”)
Anthony Hopkins (“The Two Popes”)
Al Pacino (“The Irishman”)
Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”)
Brad Pitt (“Once Upon A Time in Hollywood”)

Supporting Actress

Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”)
Scarlett Johansson (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Florence Pugh (“Little Women”)
Margot Robbie (“Bombshell”)
Margot Robbie (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Adapted Screenplay

Steven Zaillian (“The Irishman”)
Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Todd Phillips, Scott Silver (“Joker”)
Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”)
Anthony McCarten (“The Two Popes”)

Original Screenplay

Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Katie Silberman (“Booksmart”)
Rian Johnson (“Knives Out”)
Noah Baumbach (“Marriage Story”)
Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Han Jin Won, Bong Joon-ho (“Parasite”)

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer

Mark Jenkin, Kate Byers, Linn Waite (“Bait”)
Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts (“For Sama”)
Alex Holmes (“Maiden”)
Harry Wootliff (“Only You”)
Álvaro Delgado-Aparicio (“Retablo”)

Original Score

Thomas Newman (“1917”)
Michael Giacchino (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Hildur Guđnadóttir (“Joker”)
Alexandre Desplat (“Little Women”)
John Williams (“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”)

Cinematography

Roger Deakins (“1917”)
Rodrigo Prieto (“The Irishman”)
Lawrence Sher (“Joker”)
Phedon Papamichael (“Le Mans ’66”)
Jarin Blaschke (“The Lighthouse”)

EE Rising Star Award (public vote)

Awkwafina
Kaitlyn Dever
Kelvin Harrison Jr.
Jack Lowden
Micheal Ward

Film Not in the English Language

Lulu Wang, Daniele Melia (“The Farewell”)
Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts (“For Sama”)
Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar (“Pain and Glory”)
Bong Joon Ho (“Parasite”)
Céline Sciamma, Bénédicte Couvreur (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”)

Documentary

Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert (“American Factory”)
Todd Douglas Miller (“Apollo 11”)
Asif Kapadia (“Diego Maradona”)
Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts (“For Sama”)
Karim Amer, Jehane Noujaim (“The Great Hack”)

Animated Film

Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho (“Frozen 2”)
Sergio Pablos, Jinko Gotoh (“Klaus”)
Will Becher, Richard Phelan, Paul Kewley (“A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon”)
Josh Cooley, Mark Nielsen (“Toy Story 4”)

Casting

Shayna Markowitz (“Joker”)
Douglas Aibel, Francine Maisler (“Marriage Story”)
Victoria Thomas (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Sarah Crowe (“The Personal History of David Copperfield”)
Nina Gold (“The Two Popes”)

Editing

Thelma Schoonmaker (“The Irishman”)
Tom Eagles (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Jeff Groth (“Joker”)
Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker (“Le Mans ’66”)
Fred Raskin (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Production Design

Dennis Gassner, Lee Sandales (“1917”)
Bob Shaw, Regina Graves (“The Irishman”)
Ra Vincent, Nora Sopková (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Mark Friedberg, Kris Moran (“Joker”)
Barbara Ling, Nancy Haigh (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Costume Design

Christopher Peterson, Sandy Powell (“The Irishman”)
Mayes C. Rubeo (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Jany Temime (“Judy”)
Jacqueline Durran (“Little Women”)
Arianne Phillips (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Makeup and Hair

Naomi Donne (“1917”)
Vivian Baker, Kazu Hiro, Anne Morgan (“Bombshell”)
Kay Georgiou, Nicki Ledermann (“Joker”)
Jeremy Woodhead (“Judy”)
Lizzie Yianni Georgiou (“Rocketman”)

Sound

Scott Millan, Oliver Tarney, Rachael Tate, Mark Taylor, Stuart Wilson (“1917”)
Tod Maitland, Alan Robert Murray, Tom Ozanich, Dean Zupancic (“Joker”)
David Giammarco, Paul Massey, Steven A. Morrow, Donald Sylvester (“Le Mans ’66”)
Matthew Collinge, John Hayes, Mike Prestwood Smith, Danny Sheehan (“Rocketman”)
David Acord, Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio, Stuart Wilson, Matthew Wood (“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”)

Special Visual Effects

Greg Butler, Guillaume Rocheron, Dominic Tuohy (“1917”)
Dan Deleeuw, Dan Sudick (“Avengers: Endgame”)
Leandro Estebecorena, Stephane Grabli, Pablo Helman (“The Irishman”)
Andrew R. Jones, Robert Legato, Elliot Newman, Adam Valdez (“The Lion King”)
Roger Guyett, Paul Kavanagh, Neal Scanlan, Dominic Tuohy (“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”)

British Short Animation

Maryam Mohajer (“Grandad Was a Romantic”)
Kathrin Steinbacher (“In Her Boots”)
Naaman Azhari, Lilia Laurel (“The Magic Boat”)

British Short Film

Myriam Raja, Nathanael Baring (“Azaar”)
Hector Dockrill, Harri Kamalanathan, Benedict Turnbull, Laura Dockrill (“Goldfish”)
Sasha Rainbow, Rosalind Croad (“Kamali”)
Carol Dysinger, Elena Andreicheva (“Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl”)
Lena Headey, Anthony Fitzgerald (“The Trap”)

Review: ‘Limerence,’ starring Tammy Minoff

January 7, 2020

by Carla Hay

Tammy Minoff and Matthew Del Negro in “Limerence” (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)

“Limerence”

Directed by Tammy Minoff

Culture Representation: Taking place in bohemian-friendly California locations, the romantic comedy “Limerence” has an almost entirely white cast playing mostly American middle-class characters.

Culture Clash: The entire plot revolves around the characters’ conflicts and personal feelings on what kinds of commitments are needed to validate romantic relationships.

Culture Audience: “Limerence” will appeal primarily to fans of low-budget indie flicks that focus on love, relationships and quirky characters.

Matthew Del Negro and Tammy Minoff in “Limerence” (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)

Romantic movies have an interesting challenge right now. Movie audiences are craving more sophisticated and nuanced stories than the formulaic romantic comedies that Kate Hudson and Jennifer Lopez used to make in the 2000s. But at the same time, the enduring popularity of “The Bachelor” franchise indicates that there are millions of people who want to see the fantasy of being swept up into a love affair so passionate that getting engaged after dating for a short period of time can be a real possibility. When it comes to movies and scripted TV shows, the would-be couple usually has a “meet cute” moment, and there’s usually one partner in the relationship who is more reluctant to commit than the other. At the same time, we are also living in the #MeToo era, where workplace romances shown on screen are being viewed in a different way than how they might have been perceived in previous decades.

“Limerence” (written and directed by Tammy Minoff) packs in all of these issues in a mostly charming way and throws in some clichés as well as some curveballs. The characters’ dialogues are more realistic than some of the contrived situations that drive the central story: Two seemingly commitment-phobic people—aspiring painter Rosemary Wilder (played by Minoff) and art-gallery owner Tom Bartlett (played by Matthew Del Negro)—find themselves falling in love with each other.

Rosemary, the protagonist of “Limerence,” is an artistic free spirit in her mid-20s who has a history of cheating on and breaking up with boyfriends when she feels too confined in a relationship. She believes in love, but doesn’t necessarily believe that she’s suited for long-term monogamy. Rosemary is devoted to her art, but she doesn’t like to call herself an “artist” because she thinks that word is too pretentious to describe herself. She’s also the type who’s aware that she’s usually the most attractive woman in a room, so she gravitates toward men for emotional validation. It’s obvious that she gets along better with men than she does with women, since Rosemary doesn’t seem to have any close female friends.

Rosemary is a recent transplant from New York City to Venice, California (a well-known magnet for bohemian types), but her living situation is less than ideal upon arriving in Venice. She has to stay with her best friend from high school: Leo (played by Billy Aaron Brown), a slacker who’s living in a commune-like home with a bunch of eccentric New Age people who have names like Shamrock and Honeybee. One of the house residents is Rosemary’s and Leo’s mutual friend Emma (played by Marissa Ingrasci), who’s fully immersed in the hippie-ish lifestyle, while Leo just needs a place to stay since he can’t afford a place of his own. Rosemary is the type of person who goes with the flow, because the first thing she does when she’s in the house’s bathroom is light up a joint and impulsively dye her hair pink when she sees pink hair dye in the medicine cabinet.

Leo has a day job at a Vitamin Shoppe, but he moonlights as an events DJ. Meanwhile, Rosemary has vague plans to draw and paint and hopefully find a way to sell her work. While spending a few hours sketching at a local café, she sees a handsome older man (about 10 to 15 years older than she is) meeting different women for dates in the café at different times, before he and each woman leave for an obvious tryst. It’s unclear if the different women know about each other, but it’s very clear that the guy is a playboy.

Later, while accompanying Leo to a DJ gig at a bar mitzvah, Rosemary sees the playboy, who’s a longtime friend of a married couple at the party. Rosemary and the guy have the “meet cute” moment where they flirt and play coy with one another before Rosemary tells him that she saw him being a player with different women at the café. After some alcohol is consumed, Rosemary and the guy end up in bed together at his place before she even bothers to ask what his name is. She asks what his name is only after she’s getting ready to leave, because she thinks he’s a one-night stand she’ll probably never see again. But this is a romantic movie, so of course she’ll see him again.

That moment comes after Rosemary breezily (and unrealistically) gets hired on the spot as an assistant at a trendy art gallery, when she tells the no-nonsense manager Jack (played by Jack Merrill) that she met him in Brooklyn, and she decided to take him up on his offer to look him up when she was in California. Jack doesn’t really remember her, but the movie wants viewers to believe that Rosemary has such a magnetic personality that she can talk this cynical manager into hiring her, and he does. Not long after she’s hired, in walks the gallery’s owner. His name is Tom Bartlett, and he’s the playboy who is (of course) Rosemary’s recent hookup. At first, Rosemary and Tom play it cool in front of the other employees and act like they have a strictly professional relationship. But it isn’t long before their passions take over, and they don’t try to hide that they’re sleeping together.

In a private conversation between Tom and Jack, viewers find out that Tom has a history of sleeping with young, attractive women (usually aspiring artists who end up working at his gallery) and then dumping them. It’s resulted in the gallery having a revolving door of employees who are Tom’s female conquests, and Jack is getting fed up with these shenanigans. Tom considers it mixing business with pleasure, but in this #MeToo era, any boss who acts this way is just asking to be sued for sexual harassment if the dumped woman decides that she was taken sexually advantage of by her boss. Although there’s no indication that Tom’s relationships are non-consensual, his pattern of having flings with his female employees is the most cringeworthy aspect of the movie.

Rosemary is no angel either, but the main flaw of “Limerence” is that the movie plays right into tired clichés that a financially successful “bad boy” who has his pick of women can be changed by suddenly falling in love with an unsophisticated younger woman whose life isn’t going so well, and he can be her knight in shining armor by giving her a better life. Some of the most popular romantic movies of all time use these clichés, from “A Star Is Born” to “Pretty Woman.” However, one of the best aspects of “Limerence” is Minoff’s ability to craft Rosemary as a complex character who’s full of contradictions.

On the one hand, Rosemary sees herself as someone who likes to be independent and not bound by a lot of society’s norms. She privately ridicules Tom’s married friends Donald and May (played by Evan Arnold and Jennifer Lafleur), whom Tom has known since his college days. Rosemary thinks Donald and May’s domesticated relationship is boring. Rosemary says she wants her relationship with Tom to be casual, to the point where she refuses to call him her “boyfriend” or “lover,” and instead calls Tom her “peeps.”

On the other hand, after Rosemary fends off unwanted sexual advances from one of the men in the commune house, she immediately moves in with Tom (she says it’s only temporary), making her not only dependent on Tom for her salary but also for a place to live—not exactly the actions of an independent free spirit who wants to keep things casual. There are so many things wrong with Rosemary and Tom’s relationship that it’s kind of repellent to watch. Even though Rosemary initially declines Tom’s offer to show her artwork in his gallery, she eventually accepts his offer after he convinces her that he thinks she’s genuinely talented.

Although it’s obvious that their relationship is consensual, it’s just not a good look when anyone (particularly a woman in this #MeToo era) gets a big career boost by sleeping with their boss. But this is a situation that will always exist as long as people have sexual hookups with people they work with in some way. It’s realistic, it can get messy, and it’s not going away just because of the #MeToo movement. There are countless young women just like Rosemary: Because of their relative lack of experience in the workplace, they aren’t really thinking about the long-term effects of dating co-workers or bosses. Rosemary is so flippant about it that when the gallery is closed to the public, she walks around wearing nothing on top but her bra, and she openly expresses her sexuality with Tom while around other employees. What Rosemary sees as flirty and fun in the workplace is what most other people would see as inappropriate and unprofessional.

To its credit, “Limerence” doesn’t dismiss the very real consequences of the unbalanced power dynamic when a boss sleeps with an employee. If the relationship is out in the open, and if the employee is female, her talent and merit will always be questioned by colleagues and business associates. Did she get that promotion or raise because she deserved it or because she was sleeping with the boss? Meanwhile, the boss (who’s usually male in these situations) has more power and is less vulnerable to the gossip that can taint people’s reputations, and therefore is more likely to bounce back if the relationship ends badly. There’s a great scene in “Limerence” that illustrates the very realistic resentment that’s churned up when Rosemary experiences the career fringe benefits of sleeping with Tom, and she gets a rude awakening that she (not Tom) is the one whose reputation is going to get the most damage because of it.

“Limerence” also throws in some complications by having underlying sexual tensions between Leo and Rosemary (he’s had an unrequited crush on her for years); between Donald and Rosemary (he’s fairly open about how attracted he is to her while still being faithful to his wife); and between May and Tom, who secretly had a drunken makeout years ago, before May and Donald got married. (Tom confesses this secret to Rosemary shortly after he and Rosemary hook up.) There are hints that May is still sexually attracted to Tom, but the feeling isn’t mutual. May and Donald are having their own issues in their marriage, since they’ve been trying to start a family, but their inability to conceive a child has caused tensions in their relationship.

Meanwhile, what rings less true is that viewers are supposed to believe that Tom falls so in love with Rosemary that he’s suddenly no longer interested in dating other women—a “redemption of the bad boy” fantasy narrative that’s pushed in so many movies of this type. However, Minoff does a skillful job in showing Rosemary’s transformation from commitment-phobe to someone who makes decisions that she didn’t think she would make in the name of love. One of the best lines in the film (which explains Rosemary’s two-sided character) is when she wonders aloud if the person she thinks she should be would hate the person she actually is.

Even with some of the emotional turmoil that happens in the movie, there’s plenty of snappy and genuinely laugh-out-loud funny dialogue that will engage viewers who are looking for some adult-oriented comedy. The final scenes in the third act of “Limerence” are the most poignant and authentic. In the end, “Limerence” is an appealing film about the complications of a woman on a journey of self-identity. The main takeaway from watching the movie is that even if people think they are very self-aware and comfortable with who they are, they can find out things about themselves that will surprise them.

Gravitas Ventures released “Limerence” on VOD, digital and DVD on January 7, 2020.

Review: ‘Days of Rage: The Rolling Stones’ Road to Altamont’

January 7, 2020

by Carla Hay

(Image courtesy of Vision Films)

“Days of Rage: The Rolling Stones’ Road to Altamont”

Directed by Tom O’Dell

Culture Representation: A documentary about the disastrous and tragic Altamont concert headlined by the Rolling Stones in 1969, “Days of Rage” focuses on the era’s youthful counterculture movement and the business of rock music, as represented by white men who are British and American.

Culture Clash: In addition to showing a history of the 1960s counterculture and Generation Gap, the movie also examines how violence affected the factions of pop culture that were involved in the Altamont concert.

Culture Audience: “Days of Rage” will appeal primarily to Rolling Stones fans and people interested in learning more about how the Altamont concert became a notorious example of the dark side of the 1960s counterculture movement.

Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger (pictured at far left) on stage at the 1969 Altamont concert, in a photo still from “Days: of Rage: The Rolling Stones’ Road to Altamont” (Photo courtesy of Vision Films)

The first thing you should know about the absorbing documentary “Days of Rage: The Rolling Stones’ Road to Altamont” is that the Rolling Stones are not interviewed for this film. The second thing you should know is that the movie is not a rehash of “Gimme Shelter,” the 1970 documentary from director brothers Albert and David Maysles that chronicled the Rolling Stones’ ill-fated free Altamont concert in the San Francisco area on December 6, 1969. Even without the Rolling Stones’ participation, “Days of Rage” is a riveting historical account that explores much more than the Rolling Stones’ performance at Altamont concert. The movie takes an overall look at the circumstances and culture that led up to this tragic and violent event, during which an African American man named Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death in the audience by Hell’s Angels gang members while the Rolling Stones were performing “Sympathy for the Devil.” (The band didn’t perform the song for years after the tragedy happened.)

People who are interested in this documentary, which clocks in at a little over 100 minutes, should also know that the descriptions of the Altamont concert don’t come until the last third of the movie. The first two-thirds of the movie are a deep dive into how rock music and youth culture influenced each other in the 1960s, and led to the rise of the era’s counterculture movement. The 1960s counterculture was defined by rebellion against traditional establishment customs, and it included Vietnam War protests, liberal/left-wing politics, sexual liberation and rampant drug use, with marijuana and LSD being popular drugs of choice. Even though Altamont and the Rolling Stones are used as a hook in the title to sell this documentary, the movie is really about issues much larger than a rock band and a concert. The background information on how the 1960s counterculture happened might not be very revealing to aficionados who already know about the counterculture movement, but the documentary is a compelling visual journey into this part of history, regardless of how much knowledge people have about it.

Fortunately, director Tom O’Dell, who also wrote and edited “Days of Rage,” has constructed the story in such a fascinating way that viewers shouldn’t mind how long it takes for the film to get to the details of Altamont, since the preceding content provides much-needed context to explain how the Rolling Stones ended up in the most tragic moment of the band’s history. Unlike many unauthorized films about famous entertainers that are released direct to video, this isn’t a shoddy, “fly by night” money grab that interviews people with questionable credibility who have no connection to the artist. Two of the key people who were in the Rolling Stones’ inner circle in 1969 and who were at Altamont are interviewed for “Days of Rage”: former Rolling Stones tour manager Sam Cutler and Ronnie Schneider, who was a producer of the Rolling Stones’ 1969 tour.

The quality of “Days of Rage” is on par with a news documentary on CNN or BBC. Much of the Rolling Stones archival video footage in the documentary is from ABKCO, the company that owns the rights to most of the band’s 1960s recordings and official video archives. There are also clips from Rolling Stones documentaries, such as “Gimme Shelter,” “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Stones in the Park.” Given that “Days of Rage” is a low-budget independent film, the filmmakers wouldn’t have been able to afford the rights to license original recordings of Rolling Stones songs for use in the documentary, so generic facsimile music is used as the soundtrack instead, except for one snippet of the original recording of the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man.”

The documentary also includes the expected representation of authors and journalists (a mix of Brits and Americans) who provide commentary. They include “The Rolling Stones Discover America” author Michael Lydon, who attended the Altamont concert as a journalist; Rolling Stone magazine contributor Anthony DeCurtis; journalist Nigel Williamson, who’s known for his work for Uncut and Billboard magazines; “Altamont” author Joel Selvin, who was the San  Francisco Chronicle’s pop-music critic from 1972 to 2009; Grateful Dead historian Peter Richardson; “Rolling Stones: Off the Record” author Mark Paytress; photographer Gered Mankowitz, who took some of the most iconic photos of the Rolling Stones in the 1960s; “1968 in America” author Joel Kaiser; and Keith Altham, who was a writer/editor at NME from 1964 to 1967, and who later became an entertainment publicist whose clients included the Rolling Stones. All of these talking heads provide articulate and insightful viewpoints. The documentary also benefits from the appealing British narration of Thomas Arnold.

The first third of the movie delves into the 1960s British Invasion (rock/pop acts from Great Britain taking over the American charts), the influential London youth culture, the Generation Gap and the Rolling Stones’ image as the rebellious antithesis to the more family-friendly Beatles. It was an image that was carefully crafted by Andrew Loog Oldham, a former publicist who was the Rolling Stones’ manager/producer from 1964 to 1967, when he was ousted in favor of American manager Allen Klein, whose background was in accounting. It was Klein who was a key player in the Rolling Stones getting lucrative record deals and becoming a top touring act, but he is described in most historical accounts of the Stones as a greedy bully who was involved in legal battles with the Stones for years after they fired him in 1969. (Klein, who died in 2009, founded the aforementioned ABKCO.)

The second third of the movie covers the rise of the counterculture in the mid-to-late 1960s, particularly in San Francisco, the home base of the Grateful Dead, which used Hell’s Angels gang members as peaceful security employees during the band’s concerts. (The Hell’s Angels were far from peaceful at Altamont.) All of these changes in society took place during the rise of LSD gurus Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary; California’s influential 1967 mass gatherings the Human Be-In (in San Francisco) and the Monterey Pop Festival; increasingly violent political protests; and the 1968 assassinations of civil-rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

During this era, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (who had almost parallel careers in the 1960s) were part of the soundtracks to millions of people’s lives. The documentary notes the contrast between the two bands in the pivotal year of 1967: While the Beatles triumphed with the universally praised, artful masterpiece album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and with anthems such as “All You Need Is Love,” the Rolling Stones stumbled with the critically panned album “Their Satanic Majesties Request” and the sardonic “We Love You” single, which failed to resonate with audiences on a wide level. The Rolling Stones were further sidelined in 1967 by legal problems for lead singer Mick Jagger, rhythm guitarist Keith Richards (the two chief songwriters of the Rolling Stones) and lead guitarist Brian Jones, who all got busted for drugs, resulting in jail time and scandalous trials.

But with civil unrest happening in many parts of the world, the Stones returned with a vengeance to the top of their game, marking the beginning of what many music historians and Stones fans consider to be the band’s best and most creative period in the late 1960s to early 1970s. The zenith of the Rolling Stones began in 1968 with the release of the single “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and the “Beggars Banquet” album, which included other Stones classics such as “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man.” By 1969, the Stones were ready to tour again, this time with new guitarist Mick Taylor, the replacement for Rolling Stones co-founder Jones, who died by drowning on June 3, 1969, less than a month after he left the band. It was the first major lineup change to the Rolling Stones since the band began making records in 1963. The lineup was rounded out by drummer Charlie Watts and bass player Bill Wyman.

The Rolling Stones’ first concert with Taylor was a massive free show (with an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people in attendance) at London’s Hyde Park on July 5, 1969, with the concert’s focus changing into a tribute to Jones because of his unexpected death. Even though the Hyde Park show was generally considered one of the worst concerts the Rolling Stones ever performed (their playing was out-of-tune and ragged), the show was a peaceful event with security provided by the British Hell’s Angels. The Hyde Park concert planted the seed for the idea of the Rolling Stones headlining a similar gigantic free concert in America, especially after the Woodstock Festival in August of 1969 became a cultural phenomenon. The Rolling Stones did not perform at Woodstock or the Monterey Pop Festival, and the documentary mentions that Jagger was particularly keen on performing at a huge counterculture event in America.

And when the Grateful Dead’s co-manager Rock Scully suggested that the Rolling Stones headline a free, one-day, Woodstock-inspired festival in San Francisco, with security provided by the Hell’s Angels, plans were set in motion for the concert that would become Altamont. In addition to the Rolling Stones, other bands on the bill were the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jefferson Airplane and the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. All four of these California-based acts except for CSN&Y member Neil Young had performed at Woodstock. The Rolling Stones’ “Let It Bleed” album (which included the classic single “Gimme Shelter”) was scheduled to be released just one day before the Altamont concert, which was essentially supposed to be a high-profile launching pad for the album.

The documentary points out that the British Hell’s Angels who provided security at the Rolling Stones’ Hyde Park concert were pussycats compared to their violent counterparts in America. Selvin further notes that the San Francisco chapter of the Hell’s Angels that the Grateful Dead worked with were much more benevolent than the “thugs” of the San Jose chapter of the Hell’s Angels who ended up committing the majority of the mayhem at the Altamont concert. The festival was so mismanaged that it never would have happened by today’s standards, due to all the present-day safety/insurance requirements and liability prevention policies that most U.S. cities, concert venues and promoters have. Plans to have the concert at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco were scrapped after the city refused a permit because the park wasn’t large enough for the expected audience size. The concert location was then changed to Sears Point Raceway in suburban Sonoma, but two days before the show, that concert site was cancelled after the Sears Point Raceway owners demanded exorbitant fees that the concert promoters weren’t willing to pay.

Out of sheer desperation, the concert was moved to the Altamont Speedway in suburban Livermore. The site, which was in a state of disrepair, was woefully ill-equipped to handle the crowd of an estimated 300,000 people who showed up. There were major problems with inadequate space, sanitation, food and medical facilities. Making matters worse, the stage was dangerously close to the crowd. At the Sears Point Raceway, the stage had been safely located at the top of a steep incline, so it was inaccessible to the audience. At the Altamont Speedway, the opposite was true—the stage had to be built at the bottom of an incline—so it was very easy for audience members to slide down the incline and reach the bottom of the landfill pit where the stage was located. Attempts to put barricades around the incline proved to be ineffective.

Even with these production problems and the large quantities of illegal drugs taken by the audience, people interviewed in the documentary say that the concert would have been relatively peaceful if there hadn’t been a bad group of Hell’s Angels inflicting an excessive and disturbing amount of violence on innocent people. The documentary has a harrowing account of the inescapable sounds of people being beaten with pipes and other weapons by the gang members. And a few band members weren’t spared from the violence either. Jefferson Airplane singer Marty Balin was beaten when he tried to stop a Hell’s Angels assault. Jagger, upon arriving at the concert site, was punched in the face by a drugged-out audience member. Band members pleaded several times on stage for the violence to stop, but those pleas were essentially ignored, and it wasn’t unusual for a Hell’s Angel member to get up on stage and threaten the performers.

The Grateful Dead got so freaked out by the violence that they refused to perform and immediately left the area. Schneider, a nephew of former Rolling Stones manager Klein, was one of the chief people responsible for promoting the concert, and he partially blames the Grateful Dead for the escalating Altamont violence, because the band abandoned the show. Schneider believes that if the Grateful Dead had played, the band’s laid-back jamming would have mellowed out the audience. Instead, there was nothing to fill the long time gap left by the abrupt departure of the Grateful Dead, and the audience had to wait for hours before the Stones arrived, further ramping up the tensions and violence.

There are graphic descriptions of what happened during and after the murder of audience member Hunter. According to eyewitnesses, his bloodied body was shockingly placed on stage and then backstage during the Rolling Stones’ performance, in order for his body not to be further violated by the angry and out-of-control Hell’s Angels. These descriptions are not in the “Gimme Shelter” documentary, which rightfully edited out the most disturbing footage of the murder. (Hell’s Angel member Alan Passaro, who was arrested for the stabbing, claimed self-defense because Hunter had pulled out a gun. Passaro was later tried and acquitted of the murder in 1971.) Some of the commentators, especially Selvin, want it to be known that the Rolling Stones perpetuated a myth that the band didn’t know about the murder until after their performance. Selvin said that the lights were so bright on stage (since the concert was being filmed) and the audience was so close to the stage that it was impossible for people on stage not to see all the violence being committed just a few feet in front of them.

The documentary also includes a photo of Jagger looking at a group of people standing around what is said to be Hunter’s dead body on stage. According to Selvin, it was Jagger’s decision for the Rolling Stones to continue performing, even after Jagger knew that someone had been murdered during the band’s set. Since Jagger has not publicly discussed the murder in detail, and he’s not interviewed for this documentary, his side of the story isn’t presented. However, the implication from the Rolling Stones insiders (Cutler and Schneider) who were at the Altamont concert and who were interviewed for this film is that Jagger probably thought that the violence would get worse if the Stones didn’t finish their performance.

Richards briefly told his memories of Altamont in his 2010 memoir, “Life,” but he did not go into any of the gruesome details. Wyman (who quit the band in 1993) ended his 1990 memoir, “Stone Alone,” with the death of Jones, who died six months before Altamont happened. Wyman barely mentioned Altamont in his 2019 biographical documentary “The Quiet One.” Taylor (who quit the Rolling Stones in 1974) and Watts have also not opened up publicly about how much of the murder and body disposal they saw.

Even if you’re a die-hard Rolling Stones fan who’s read numerous accounts of the Altamont concert or if you’ve seen “Gimme Shelter,” watching “Days of Rage” will still make an impact in showing how the peace and love dream of the ’60s counterculture turned into a sickening and brutal nightmare that’s also a cautionary and very tragic tale.

Vision Films released “Days of Rage: The Rolling Stones’ Road to Altamont” on VOD and digital on January 7, 2020.

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