Entertainment

Once again, the American Film Institute has made its picks for the year’s best in TV and film, and among this year’s honorees are Emmy winners Ted Lasso and Succession on the TV side, and the films Dune, and The Power of the Dog, and Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story. 

Each year, the organization singles out 10 entries for both the big and small screens, and a number of “special” honorees. Each of the 10 movies and 10 TV shows chosen, have been, “deemed culturally and artistically representative of this year’s most significant achievements in the art of the moving image.”

In addition, the AFI chose a handful of works, Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast, and Netflix’s smash Squid Game for its yearly Special Award, “designated for works of excellence that fall outside of the Institute’s criteria of American film and television.”

 The honorees will be celebrated at a private reception on January 7, 2022. On January 8, the AFI Movie Club will showcase them, along with new content exclusive to AFI.com.

Here are the 2021 AFI AWARDS Honorees: 

AFI MOVIES OF THE YEAR

Coda
Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
Tick Tick Boom
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story

AFI TELEVISION PROGRAMS OF THE YEAR

Hacks
Maid
Mare of Easttown
Reservation Dogs
Schimgadoon!
Succession
Ted Lasso
The Underground Railroad
WandaVision
The White Lotus

AFI SPECIAL AWARD

Belfast
Squid Game
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

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Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and Jamie Foxx, who played Spider-Man villains in three different films — respectively, 2002’s Spider-Man, 2004’s Spider-Man 2, and 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 — have reunited for a new promotional spot for Spider-Man: No Way Home. 

Dafoe reprises his role of Norman Osborn/Green Goblin; Molina returns as Dr. Otto Octavius/Doc Ock, and Foxx comes back as Maxwell Dillon/Electro — and unfortunately for Tom Holland‘s Spidey, a rip in the Multiverse sends them all into his reality. 

“We got another chance to stir things up,” Foxx says. 

“Doc Ock picks up where he left off,” Molina says. “He’s looking for revenge.”

Dafoe offers, “Goblin believes in a world of losers and winners, power is all that matters.” 

Foxx says of his lightning-throwing character, “Electro is like, ‘The world did me wrong. And now I got this energy, I’m about to go get mine.'”

What no promotional spot will confirm, however, is persistent rumors that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield will also return to lend Holland’s Spidey a hand in beating their movies’ baddies.

Spider-Man: No Way Home, a co-production of Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, swings into theaters December 17.

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Halle Berry received the Career Achievement award Monday night at the Celebration of Black Cinema and Television in Los Angeles, and the 55-year-old actress was honored to be surrounded by accomplished Black professionals at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel.

“To be in this room with so many of my peers and so many beautiful people of color just fills me up,” Berry said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “When I started 30 years ago there weren’t rooms like this where I could go and feel affirmed, esteemed. I was often alone; I was one of only a few Black people in the room searching to find my value and searching for my worth.”

Other winners included Ava DuVernay – Melvin Van Peebles Trailblazer Award; Anthony Anderson – Producers Award; Barry Jenkins – Director Award for Television, and Danielle Brooks – Actress Award for Television.

In other news, Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson announced he’s formed a production company, Artists for Artists, and his first project is with Mike Tyson, Deadline reports. The famed boxer, his wife Kiki Tyson, and his brother-in-law Azim Spicer, will produce Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth Part 2, a live stage tour, written by Kiki, that is a follow up to Tyson’s 2013 one-man show and HBO special.

Finally, Kandi Burruss and Kelly Price have joined the cast of the dating dramedy, A La Carte, which will debut in spring 2022 on AllBlk, according to Deadline.

 

 

 

 

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Star Wars fans are just weeks away from the Mandalorian spin-off series The Book of Boba Fett, and to keep them hanging on, Disney+ has released a new teaser.

Truth told, there’s not too much new footage in the sneak peek, but one cool sequence shows the bounty hunter suiting up in his trademark Mandalorian armor — with the help of some pit droids, the little skittish mechanics first seen in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

Also shown is Temuera Morrison scoping out the Tatooine palace of Jabba the Hutt in a scene apparently set before the events of Mando.

As that series’ second season finale showed, Fett and his fellow hunter, Ming-Na Wen‘s Fennec Shand, take over the palace headquarters of Jabba’s crime syndicate.

“Witness the return of the legend,” a title card reads. 

The Book of Boba Fett debuts December 29 on Disney+. 

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Sarah Hyland and fiancé Wells Adams woke up on Wednesday to people gushing over their adorable interactions at the People’s Choice Awards, such as Wells adjusting Sarah’s two-piece white Vera Wang dress as they walked the red carpet.

“There was a lot going on in that dress! Things needed to be poofed and fluffed,” Wells told ABC Audio. “If I’m known for anything, it’s my ability to poof and fluff… My gravestone is going to be, like, ‘Really good on red carpets, making sure things are poofed!'” 

The two are glad their innocuous exchange brought smiles to so many faces because, as the Bachelorette alum says, “It has been a tough year, but we’re ending it on such a positive and good vibe!”

Another positive vibe is Sarah’s new show, Play-Doh Squished, arriving Friday, December 10, on IMDb TV and Amazon Prime Video.

“It’s so stinking cute.  It’s a Play-Doh competition show… It is so freaking cute and is perfect for the holidays for families,” Sarah, who hosts the series, raved. “We have this one little girl in the show.  Her name is Dorothy and she’s a star.  If you watch it for anything, you watch it for Dorothy.”

Sarah and Wells are also looking forward to hosting their family — and their dogs — for Christmas.

“I think there will be one to three or at least five dogs, if not more at our house,” said the Modern Family alum — and Wells interjected, “And they’ll probably jump up on the table and eat all of our food, which happens every year.”

Speaking of pets, the couple is teaming with Petco for a Facebook Live holiday shopping event to share gift ideas and help find homeless animals their forever family.  It airs Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. PT.

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Neuroscientist and Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik and all-time Jeopardy! champ-turned consulting producer Ken Jennings will continue to host Jeopardy! through the season’s end next year.

The pair took the reins taking turns behind the podium after former host and executive producer Mike Richards left the show in August, following the exposure of controversial podcast content he’d made, and a guest host search that was later shown to have been skewed in his favor. 

Jeopardy!‘s producers also announced that interim executive producer Michael Davies will stay on as well. “We’re so pleased to have such an excellent and experienced team in front of and behind the camera as we head into 2022!” the announcement states.

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Vera Farmiga can be seen again today in the fourth episode of Hawkeye, which just dropped on Disney+. The Paranormal Activity series star had two big reasons to hop on board as the socialite Eleanor Bishop: One, to play True Grit Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld‘s mom, and also because she has a thing for bows and arrows. 

“Well, number one, I love archery, just hands down,” Vera revealed to her co-stars at a recent press event. “I am an archer, you guys don’t know this about me.”

She explained, “My first job, I played an archer with Heath Ledger in a series called Roar, right? I had my bow and arrow and I had my 40-pound pull weight arrow…and I’m good at it, to be honest with you. So I wasn’t going to be wielding that bow and arrow, I just wanted to be next to someone with ‘True Grit.'”

Farmiga says of her onscreen daughter, “To be honest with you, I have marveled at this young lady since that first movie and I also loved this sort of this very delicate and complex maternal relationship with daughters.”

She adds, “It is a tricky sport raising her successful daughter, you know, especially when the daughter and the mom have different ideas of what that success means. But yeah, just happy to be by Hailee’s side for this.”

Incidentally, while we won’t spoil the surprise, the new fourth episode reveals the first appearance from a big-screen MCU break-out star.

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The Conners‘ star John Goodman has been looking much thinner since his days on Roseanne, and now new red carpet photos on Page Six show the results: a reported 200 pounds down.

The 69-year-old actor posed with co-star Pete Davidson in New York City for the premiere of their new Tubi effort The Freak Brothers at the retailer Fred Segal on Monday, wearing jeans with a sports coat over an orange V-neck sweater.

Goodman revealed to ABC back in 2017 that he’d been embracing a healthier lifestyle for a decade. “In the old days, I would take three months out, lose 60 or 70 pounds, and then reward myself with a six-pack or whatever and just go back to my old habits,” he explained.

He decided to get healthy around 2007, when the 6′ 2″ actor tipped the scales at nearly 400 pounds.

“This time, I wanted to do it slowly,” Goodman told GMA. “Move, exercise. I’m getting to the age where I can’t afford to sit still anymore.”

The actor gave up booze completely, as he recently reminded ABC Audio, and in addition to being much more active, he adheres to a Mediterranean diet, which focuses on healthy fats and low carbohydrates. He also recruited the assistance of “sports performance manager” Mackie Shilstone, who has helped elite athletes like Serena Williams. 

Ironically, Goodman’s character on the animated Tubi show he was promoting is named Fat Freddy Freekowski.

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Peacock has dropped a trailer to its upcoming small-screen version of Will Forte‘s popular SNL sketch, MacGruber. 

Forte’s MacGyver-spoofing character is seen getting released “after rotting for a decade in prison,” according to the streaming service, tapped by a high-ranking military official, played by Laurence Fishburne, as the country’s only hope against your standard world-threatening madman.

Billy Zane plays the scenery-chewing baddie, who apparently murdered MacGruber’s mom at a childhood birthday party.

“This one is personal,” MacGruber hisses.

So tasked, MacGruber takes his Mazda Miata out of mothballs and gets to work. “My country has invited me to die for it, and I RSVP’d ‘Yass Kween,'” Forte tells his girlfriend, Vic, played by his former SNL co-star Kristen Wiig. 

Ryan Philippe also stars, as a buff hero who on the surface would be the actual person you’d want to try to save the world, rather than Forte’s feather-haired vest-wearing alternative.  

Along with some unprintable, potty-mouthed dialog, the trailer teases some ridiculously over-the-top action, like MacGruber’s leaping through the air, guns blazing, deliberately targeting a bunch of bad guys’ nether regions.

MacGruber was also made into a film in 2010, also starring Forte and Wiig, but it was a flop, earning just $9.3 million worldwide — not even enough to cover what it cost to make and market it.

The MacGruber series hits the streaming service December 16. 

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

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The new Disney+ series Welcome to Earth, out Wednesday, follows actor Will Smith on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure around the globe. Dwayne Fields, a polar explorer, is one of the experts who joins the actor, and he’s sharing all the details about their journey — like where they went, for starters. 

“So I got to take Will to Iceland, which is one of the most stunning places you can imagine,” Fields tells ABC Audio. “It’s this dynamic environment that’s constantly changing, so much so that one of the places that we went to nobody knew existed 10 years ago. That’s how much this place is changing.”

Although stunning, exploring some of the world’s greatest wonders can be pretty dangerous at times. So was Fields ever worried about killing the Oscar-nominated actor? He says he knew they’d be just fine, thanks to having “the best safety teams in the world around us.”

The explorer adds, “Equally, we were two capable adults who wanted to experience our own anxieties, especially Will, he wanted to push himself. And I think that’s what this series was very much about.”

Likewise, Erik Weihenmayer, a mountaineer who is blind and accompanied Smith inside of an erupting volcano, echoed that having “a very strong team around you, it’s one of the greatest ways of minimizing risk.” 

Being safe didn’t stop the fun though. Weihenmayer says it was “really cool” watching Smith have this experience for the first time.

“He was like a kid, you know, he was he was smiling and elated and terrified,” Weihenmayer shares. “And you know, and just like experiencing like this stuff like a child for the first time and it was really cool, you know, to be a part of that kind of enthusiasm.”  

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