Category Archives: Arts and Culture

52nd Saturn Awards Nominations Announced

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The 52nd Annual Saturn Awards nominations have been announced, with some high profile blockbusters leading the list.

Warner Bros. received 35 total nominations in the Film category, with its film Dune: Part Two topping the overall nominations with 14. This includes Best Science Fiction Film and acting noms for Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya. Beetlejuice 2 received 13 noms including Best Fantasy Films.

“The Saturn Awards organization is the official awards group of The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. The Academy was founded in 1972 and is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.”

On the TV front, video game adaptation Fallout led with five nominations including Best Science Fiction Television Series, Best Actor on Television (Walton Goggins) and Best Actress on Television (Ella Purnell).

The winners are set to be announced during an awards ceremony in Los Angeles on February 2, 2025. It is also set to be streamed on The Roku Channel and ElectricNOW.

Here is the complete list of nominees:

Best Science Fiction Film
Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros./Legendary)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros. Pictures)
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (Lionsgate Films)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Studios)
Megalopolis (Lionsgate Films/American Zoetrope)
Venom: The Last Dance (Sony Pictures/Marvel)

Best Fantasy Film
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony Pictures)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Warner Bros. Pictures/Legendary)
My Old Ass (Amazon/MGM)
Poor Things (Searchlight)
Wonka (Warner Bros. Pictures)
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Werner Herzog’s THEATER OF THOUGHT, A Bracing Exploration of the Brain | Opens December 13 at Film Forum

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Herzog-THEATER-OF-THOUGHTFilm Forum is set to present the US theatrical premiere of Werner Herzog’s THEATER OF THOUGHT opening Friday, December 13.

After 50+ years exploring the far corners of the world, Werner Herzog focuses inward — on the human brain, via the cutting-edge field of neuroscience, with its attendant ethical quandaries. Joined by Columbia professor Rafael Yuste (the film’s science advisor), the two cross the country querying innovators in cerebral research and bioethics: Can computers help people communicate telepathically? How can the brain be stimulated to curb depression, pain, or the effects of Parkinson’s? Is thought control possible? Can fear be located in the brain? And — as only the beguiling Herzog could inquire — will a scientist be able to read his mind and see his film before he’s made it? Herzog’s curiosity is at its peak in this romp through technological advances once only the stuff of science fiction.

The film had its world premiere at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival and went on to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival, as well as DOC NYC, where Herzog was awarded the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

THEATER OF THOUGHT will be the 17th of Herzog’s films to debut at Film Forum, making him the second most-premiered filmmaker in the theater’s 54-year history.

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Academy Award Nominated Costume Designer Arianne Phillips Honored with “Creative Visionary Award”

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Costume Designer Arianne Phillips;
Photo Credit: Frank Ockenfels

The 25th Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) and NBFF Premiere Partner, Fashion Island will be honoring 3x Academy Award-nominated costume designer, Arianne Phillips with the esteemed Creative Visionary Award during Fashion Island’s 13th Annual StyleWeekOC on October 19. This accolade recognizes artists for exceptional creative leadership and impact within their field. The award will be presented by actress Aubrey Plaza (“Megalopolis,” “The White Lotus”) followed by a panel moderated by Costume Designer Guild’s communications director Anna Wyckoff, where they will explore Arianne’s unique perspectives on the intersection of fashion and film.

“I’m so thankful to the Newport Beach Film Festival and Fashion Island for this wonderful honor and for acknowledging the art of costume design and our contribution to filmmaking. I am especially grateful to be recognized for my work this year on “Joker: Folie á Deux” and “A Complete Unknown.” I’m humbled to be included alongside such exciting talent at the festival this year,” said Arianne.

On October 28, Arianne will be attending the SCAD Savannah Film Festival where she will join Variety Artisans Editor, Jazz Tangcay for the festival’s annual “Behind Her Lens” panel along with a conversation following a screening of Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux on October 29.

On November 1, Arianne is set to receive the Precious Gem Award at Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival GEMS. The Precious Gem Award is the festival’s signature award, reserved for one-of-a-kind artists whose contributions to cinema are lasting and unforgettable.
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Andrei Tarkovsky’s “The Sacrifice”, New 4K Restoration Opens October 25 at Film Forum

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Andrei-Tarkovsky-THE-SACRIFICETHE SACRIFICE (1986), Russian expat master Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, will run at Film Forum in a new 4K restoration from Friday, October 25 through Thursday, October 31.

Opening with a small group of familiar players in a tense isolated situation, THE SACRIFICE unfolds to encompass the director’s cosmic view as, faced with nuclear holocaust, a mystic sacrifice must be offered to restore the world — with unforeseen results.

Produced in Sweden with a cast headed by Bergman star Erland Josephson (Scenes from a Marriage, Cries and Whispers) the film was shot by Bergman’s longtime cinematographer, two-time Oscar winner Sven Nykvist. The director’s last work – made as he was dying of cancer – THE SACRIFICE is Tarkovsky’s personal statement, a profoundly moving, redemptive tragedy steeped in unforgettable imagery, including an astounding long take at the film’s finale.

The film was awarded the Grand Prix and a prize for artistic contribution (in recognition of Nykvist’s cinematography) at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival, and won the 1988 BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film.

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Japan Society Announces First North American Retrospective on Kaizo Hayashi

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Kaizo-Hayashi

To Sleep So as to Dream © Video Detective Agency

Japan Society Announces First North American Retrospective on Kaizo Hayashi, Independent Luminary of 80s and 90s Cinema

Japan Society has announced the first North American retrospective on director Kaizo Hayashi, one of the great luminaries of independent Japanese cinema in the 1980s and 1990s.

The world of Kaizo Hayashi is one of cinematic reverie and enchantment, whose reverence for film history—transposing genre and stylistic conventions from benshi and silent era serials to jidaigeki and hardboiled noir—results in one of the most imaginative and inspiring filmographies of the post-studio era. Invoking the mystery and intrigue of the moving image, amidst the flutter of celluloid frames, his cinema of the past brims with ingenuity and far-flung imagination, conjuring fantasies of what dreams may come.
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SDCC 2024: The National Association of Voice Actors Returns to San Diego Comic-Con

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NAVANAVA is returning to SDCC after a successful panel last year. NAVA is the leading advocate for voice actors and AI protections, will lead a discussion on how new standards need to be built for artists, performers, and producers to collaborate on great products, while still protecting individual rights to intellectual property, performance, and publicity.

One issues that is ever looming is the threat of AI, and very likely to be a major panel issue. “Entertainment performers and artists of all kinds must adapt to this groundbreaking technology that can not only replicate their words, art, images, voices, and movements but also feed machine learning to create entirely new content,” according to the release.

Moderated by voice actor Linsay Rousseau (Transformers: War for Cybertron, media affairs director for NAVA), panelists include voice actors Tim Friedlander (president/founder of NAVA, Like a Dragon), JP Karliak (founder/president of QueerVox, X-Men ’97), Carin Gilfry (co-founder of NAVA, Starfield), Matthew “Reazon” Parham (director of operations for NAVA, Marvel’s MechStrike), and lawyer Scott Mortman (founder/CEO of global business consulting and legal advisory services AREDA Ventures, council for NAVA).

“AI in Entertainment: The Threat to Performers Writers and Artists” will be on Saturday July 27, 2024 4:00pm – 5:00pm PDT, at Omni San Diego Hotel, Omni Grand Ballroom DE, 4th Floor.

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Film Forum Set To Premiere Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border”

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green-borderWinner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, “Green Border” immediately drew controversy from the Polish government for its depiction of the European migrant crisis on the Poland-Belarus border.

Shot in stark black-and-white, this riveting thriller explores the intractable conflict from multiple perspectives: a Syrian family fleeing ISIS caught between cruel border guards in both countries; young guards instructed to brutally reject the migrants; and activists who, at great risk, aid the refugees.

Holland (three-time Academy Award® nominee for Angry Harvest, Europa Europa, and In Darkness) brings an unflinching eye and deep compassion to this blistering critique of a humanitarian calamity that continues to unfold.

The Museum of the Moving Image will present a series of films by Agnieszka Holland from June 7–21, 2024.

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Japan Society Announces May Screening Events: Sans Soleil, Lumberjack the Monster, and Tampopo

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tampopo-janus-filmsJapan Society, a 116-year-old nonprofit organization bridging the U.S. and Japan, today announced it will host three special screenings in May spanning classic Japanese cinema, a lauded documentary, and a major North American premiere. Japan Society is a storied institution that has presented Japanese art and culture for over a century, and its robust Film Program presents over 60 screenings from the silent era through to contemporary cinema all across the year.

Japan Society’s May events begin on May 1 with French filmmaker Chris Marker’s influential 1983 documentary Sans Soleil presented on rare imported 35mm. Driven by the desire to “capture life in the process of becoming history,” Marker traveled the globe and made a sprawling body of work that ruminates on the nature of memory and time. Of the several films he made in Japan, Sans Soleil remains the late director’s greatest achievement.

An unnamed woman narrates the poetic letters and philosophical reflections of an invisible world traveler accompanied by footage of Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Iceland, Paris, San Francisco, and, most significantly, Tokyo—a city whose people, streets, malls, and temples inspire the traveler’s richest observations.
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Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative Spotlights Three SFFILM Festival Titles

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SFFILM-2024Today, SFFILM announced the program slate of the Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative at the 67th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival) which runs April 24–28. Presented in partnership between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and SFFILM, this year’s programs include three films and participation by Sloan Fellows and grant recipients at events throughout the Festival. 

“We are thrilled to partner with SFFILM on our continuing Science in Cinema initiatives,” said Doron Weber, Vice President and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “This year’s program features three original films, each of which recounts a very personal journey that links to broader scientific themes and addresses universal questions. We’ll be joined on the ground by the 2023 SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Fellows, and recipients of our Stories of Science Development Fund grantees who are all at the screenwriting phase of filmmaking. I am excited to have filmmakers from every part of the process together to benefit from each other and from audience interaction.”

Curated programs include three titles, selected by Jessie Fairbanks, SFFILM’s Director of Programming. “It is thrilling to present such a strong slate of Sloan titles at the festival.
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Comic Book Legend Rob Liefeld to Release Memoir “Robservations” in Early 2025

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Comic-Book-Legend-Rob-LiefeldComic book legend Rob Liefeld, known for his groundbreaking contributions to Marvel and the revolutionary formation of Image Comics, is set to unveil his highly anticipated memoir, “Robservations,” in early 2025 through BenBella Publishing. Offering a rare peek into his remarkable career, Liefeld’s memoir promises to provide readers with an intimate look at his journey from a pastor’s son in Orange County, CA, to becoming one of the most celebrated figures in the comic book industry.

From his beginnings as a teen sensation at DC Comics to becoming one of the industry’s most celebrated figures, Liefeld’s journey has been nothing short of legendary. In the early 90’s at Marvel Comics, he introduced the world to iconic characters such as Deadpool, Cable, and X-Force, catapulting sales to unprecedented heights with record-shattering single book sales of 5 million copies of X-Force #1.
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