“Licorice Pizza” — Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc.
The National Board of Review, which annually acknowledges excellence in film in a variety of categories, has announced its picks for its 2021 honorees, with its top awards going to Will Smith in the Best Actor category for King Richard, Rachel Zegler as Best Actress for West Side Story, and Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Licorice Pizza named Best Film.
Anderson was also hailed as Best Director for this year.
The honorees will be feted at the NBR Awards Gala, hosted by Willie Geist, on Tuesday, January 11, 2022.
National Board of Review President Annie Schulhof commented in a statement, “In a moment of transition and uncertainty, there is nothing like Licorice Pizza to remind us of the joy, hope, and exhilaration that great cinema can inspire.”
Other movies hailed by the organization as one of its “Top Films” of the year included Dune, The Last Duel, the Netflix environmental disaster movie Don’t Look Up with Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, and The Tragedy of Macbeth, which stars Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand.
Here is a list of the winners in the major categories:
Best Film: Licorice Pizza
Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
Best Actor: Will Smith, King Richard
Best Actress: Rachel Zegler, West Side Story
Best Supporting Actor: Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
Best Supporting Actress: Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Best Original Screenplay: Asghar Farhadi, A Hero
Best Adapted Screenplay: Joel Coen, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Breakthrough Performance: Alana Haim & Cooper Hoffman, Licorice Pizza
Best Directorial Debut: Michael Sarnoski, Pig
Best Animated Feature: Encanto
Best Foreign Language Film: A Hero
Best Documentary: Summer of Soul (Or…When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Best Ensemble: The Harder They Fall
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Freedom of Expression Award: Flee
Top Films (in alphabetical order)
Belfast Don’t Look Up Dune King Richard The Last Duel Nightmare Alley Red Rocket The Tragedy of Macbeth West Side Story
Top 5 Foreign Language Films (in alphabetical order)
Benedetta Lamb Lingui, The Sacred Bonds Titane The Worst Person in the World
Peace may sell, but what about Megadeth-branded cryptocurrency?
Dave Mustaine‘s certainly hoping it will with the launch of $MEGA, described as the “official cryptocurrency of Megadeth and our community.”
“By buying, holding, and transacting with $MEGA, fans will gain access to exclusives and premium benefits,” reads a statement. Members of the Cyber Army fan club will also be able to “unlock additional exclusives, access, and offers.”
Beverly Hills police announced Thursday that they have arrested a suspect in Wednesday’s Beverly Hills, California home invasion murder of 81-year-old Jacqueline Avant, wife of famed music executive Clarence Avant.
Beverly Hills Police Chief Mark Stainbrook announced that a separate burglary was reported to Los Angeles police at 3:30 a.m. Thursday. When police arrived, they found a male in the backyard of the residence, suffering from a gunshot wound to his foot, which officials determined was the result of the suspect accidentally shooting himself. Authorities identified the suspect, identified as 29-year-old Aariel Maynor of Los Angeles, as the same person recorded by surveillance cameras leaving the Jacqueline Avant murder Wednesday.
Maynor was arrested by the LAPD and transported to a local hospital and has been in law enforcement custody since. Police believe that Maynor is the only suspect in Mrs. Avant’s murder.
Following news of the arrest, the Avant family released a statement, declaring: “Our deepest gratitude to The City of Beverly Hills, the BHPD and all law enforcement for their diligence on this matter. Now, let justice be served.”
While “Omicron” sounds like a name that would be at home at an expo dedicated to anime, officials in New York say the less-fun version, the COVID-19 variant of the same name, may have paid a visit to the recent AnimeNYC convention, which ran from November 19 through 21.
In a statement, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio noted that a visitor to the festival who returned home to Minnesota had tested positive for the latest variant. That person’s symptoms were mild and have since resolved, the mayor said.
The 53,000 people who attended the convention at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center — home to the annual New York Auto Show and New York Comic Con, among others — are being urged to get tested “immediately.”
“We are working closely with the State and the CDC, as well as the Javits Center’s event organizers, and our Test and Trace Corps will be contacting conference attendees,” De Blasio’s statement said.
As part of his controversial Key2NYC program, everyone attending the event — or basically any other event in the Big Apple — had to be masked and double vaccinated.
Incidentally, Peter Tatara,the founder of AnimeNYC, recently sent an apology to guests for long lines and crowded conditions at the event. “Everything was packed much, much more,” he said. “We underestimated how many fans would come early and spend every moment of the weekend in the convention center….This was Anime NYC’s plan failing to meet our fans’ demand.”
Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman celebrated 15 years of marriage earlier this year, and even after so much time together, Nicole says that her country superstar husband is still her best friend.
“I mean, he’s my favorite person,” the actor says during a recent appearance on ABC’s Live with Kelly and Ryan. “And [we] just love hanging out.”
For the cross-continental couple, “hanging out” often entails lengthy international flights. But that’s okay by Keith and Nicole: On multiple occasions, he’s taken a break from work in LA or Nashville to hop on a flight to Australia, just to have dinner or spend a few hours with his wife.
Nicole goes on to recount a time during her pregnancy with their oldest daughter, the now-13-year-old Sunday Rose.
“When I was pregnant with Sunday, he got on a plane to fly to Australia to see the first ultrasound, and was there for six hours. Saw the heartbeat, and then had to fly back to do a show,” she remembers.
Next year, Keith and Nicole will put their expert-level skills at making time for each other to good use. The country superstar’s booked for a lengthy world tour in support of his latest album, The Speed of Now Part 1.
The singer joins YouTuber NikkieTutorials for the latest installment of the Dutch beauty guru’s “Power of Makeup” series, where Adele gets glam on one side of her face and leaves the other side makeup free.
As she gets her makeup done — complete with that famous winged liner — Adele answers a series of questions from Nikkie. Among other things, we learn she’s not a fan of The Real Housewives franchise, the one celeb she’s dying to meet is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and the decade in history she’d love to go back to is the ‘60s, so she can see The Beatles live.
Adele also teased the upcoming music video for “I Drink Wine,” saying, “The music video was shot a while ago but it’s just f****** hilarious. It’s the campiest thing you’ll ever see and I feel like everyone might be dressed up [for] Halloween [as] it next year.”
Nikkie has previously featured Kim Kardashian and Drew Barrymore in the “Power of Makeup” series, but has long said Adele was her dream collaborator.
Demi Lovato has entered a new chapter in their sobriety journey. On Thursday, the “Confident” singer revealed they have cut alcohol and marijuana completely out of their life and said “it’s the only way to be.”
Demi shared to their Instagram story, “I no longer support my ‘California sober’ ways. Sober sober is the only way to be.” Their definition of California sober was cutting everything out except marijuana and alcohol, which they would consume in moderation.
Demi detailed why they initially chose to go California sober in their YouTube docu-series Dancing with the Devil. Following the singer’s near-fatal overdose in 2018, Demi felt quitting everything cold turkey was not the best solution and worked with a recovery manager to determine the best plan for them.
The Grammy nominee stressed at the time that recovery isn’t a “one-size-fits-all solution” and also going “California sober” isn’t for everyone. But, of Thursday, it appears that no longer is for Demi, either.
Demi’s decision to go completely sober comes shortly after the singer honored their late friend, Thomas Trussell III, on his birthday. Thomas died of drug overdose in 2019. Demi showed off their tattoo of the letter T and wrote, “Happy bday @sirtruss. You’re unforgettable. We miss and love you.”
(WASHINGTON) — Competitive races across the country are expected to disappear as states begin to submit their re-drawn maps for this decade’s round of redistricting.
While only 18 states have finished their gerrymandering process, nearly half a dozen highly competitive seats have been slashed from the last batch of congressional maps according to data tracked by FiveThirtyEight. Instead, swing and lightly safe districts are being transformed into incumbent safe havens, giving Republicans a competitive edge over Democrats in the map overall, with 55 seats leaning Democratic and 90 seats leaning Republican.
On the old maps, drawn in 2011, Republicans had 21 competitive seats and 67 solid seats; this go around, only 12 competitive seats remain while 78 are solidly GOP. Democrats can’t bank on the same certainty. Instead, many Democrat-drawn maps have so far added competition, creating six new competitive left-leaning seats and creating no additional safe races.
“There’s concern about competition because Republicans don’t view their ability to compete in a competitive race as very durable,” Doug Spencer, redistricting expert at the University of Colorado’s Bryon White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law, told ABC News. “Republicans did a very good job at gerrymandering in 2010, so they don’t have a lot of room to grow, and they do have a lot of room to lose, so they’re shoring up now as many of these seats as safely as possible.”
Rapidly shifting racial demographics, especially in key swing suburban counties within red states, is one of the motivating factors for GOP-led legislatures to propose redrawn boundaries as to not lose out on seats in future elections to a more diverse voting bloc, even if it means delivering safe seats to Democrats in exchange. Compared with old maps, Democrats so far have picked up six safe seats, while Republicans have two additional ones. This shift can be seen clearly in highly coveted Georgia, where a proposed map pushes two critically competitive Atlanta-area counties, GA-6 and GA-7, squeezing Democrat Rep. Lucy McBath into a heavily conservative district, effectively creating a safe GOP challenge and placing Rep. Carolyn Bourdeux in a secure Democratic seat, respectively. McBath has since announced she will be running for Congress in Bourdeux’s district instead.
“I refuse to let (Gov.) Brian Kemp, the (National Rifle Association) and the Republican Party keep me from fighting,” McBath told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “They are not going to have the last word.”
Gwinnett County, a portion of which is in GA’s seventh district, had nearly 90% white residents in 1990. Now, it’s only 35% — a clear threat to potential conservative candidates down ballot, likely to be a part of this round of gerrymandering calculus, redistricting expert Michael Li explained to ABC News.
“The suburbs are becoming much more multiracial than they were in the past and also at the same time, suburban white voters have proven to be much more volatile much more less automatically supportive of Republicans than in the past ad that’s created uncertainty for Republicans,” said Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “Suburbs are dangerous to Republicans in a way that they weren’t before. And so the best play under those circumstances is to circle the wagons and try to hang on to what you have, and to make your districts ultra Republican.”
Such buffer building is present in Texas, a state with rapidly diversifying population growth. New maps in the Lone Star State show a net loss of five competitive seats, with Democrats picking up five safe seats and Republicans picking up two. According to data tracked by 538, Republicans were able to flip seven “light-red seats” (or slightly safe) as well as a Republican-held swing seat into safe seats. Only one race in Texas remains competitive with the newly approved map, a much more advantageous map for Republicans in the state than in years past.
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan analysis tool that measures political advantage in redistricting maps state by state, gave Georgia a grade of “C” in partisan fairness, competitiveness and geography. Texas received an “F.”
Midterm competition elimination present in the new maps is likely to “piss off Democrats” says Spencer. He suggested that it’s possible that Democrats may be able to harness the collective anger to spike turnout in the few key competitive races that remain, though it’s unlikely to know this early if impassioned messaging alone is enough to rally in impactful numbers. He agreed that lack of durability, especially in the suburbs, has motivated Republicans to draw districts with incumbency protection in mind.
The immediate impact of less competition is uncertain. Yet Spencer said he is concerned that more safe seats may negatively impact voter engagement and the fundamentals of the democratic system.
“You’re now basically muting the voices of a lot of people who just feel like politics is dead to them,” Spencer said. “If we live in a country where you can’t unelect the people that you don’t support, it’s not a democracy. The core fundamental idea of democracy is elections are a check on the government and without competitive seats it’s just not true.”
December just started, but Billboard has already crunched the numbers and released its 2021 year-end charts, based on airplay, sales and streaming data and other metrics. The big winners overall? Dua Lipa,The Weeknd and Olivia Rodrigo.
Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” was the year’s number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100, followed by two songs by The Weeknd: “Save Your Tears” and “Blinding Lights.”
Regarding “Levitating’s” success, Dua tells Billboard,”‘Levitating’ doing its thing on the Billboard chart is absolutely surreal. That song has been my baby for so long, and to have it out in the world, and for people’s response to be the way that it is, it’s just absolutely mind-blowing to me. I’m really, really, really grateful for it all.”
To give you an idea of how successful the song has been, “Levitating” has appeared in the Hot 100’s top 40 every week of the past chart year, and for 41 of those weeks, it was in the top 10. While it never reached number one, it did peak at number two.
Olivia, meanwhile, is Billboard‘s Top New Artist of 2021 — beating out The Kid LAROI — as well as its Top Streaming Songs Artist of 2021. She’s also the overall Top Female Artist of 2021, beating out her idol, Taylor Swift, who’s number two. Her debut album, SOUR, is the number-two album of the year, behind country star Morgan Wallen‘s Dangerous: The Double Album.
The Top Artist of 2021 is Drake, followed by Olivia, The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen, Ariana Grande, Doja Cat and Justin Bieber.
The Top Duo/Group of 2021 is, of course, BTS, followed by Glass Animals and Dan + Shay.
Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
R. Kelly is facing even more legal problems.
After the Chicago singer was convicted on nine criminal counts by a federal jury in New York City in September, he and his manager now are being sued for allegedly threatening his accusers.
Lizette Martinez, Lisa Van Allen and Faith Rogers, who claim they were sexually abused by the 54-year-old convict, filed the lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court this week, alleging that “Kelly and his inner circle…began an orchestrated effort to silence, harass, bribe and intimidate those brave young women and their friends and family,” as reported by Page Six.
They claim that Kelly’s manager, Donnell Russell, tried to prevent the 2018 premiere of the docuseries Surviving R. Kelly at a New York City theater by anonymously calling in a shooting threat at the venue.
Russell was arrested last year for allegedly making the anonymous threat to the Neuehouse theater on December 4, 2018, which caused an evacuation. The case is pending trial.
Russell and two other men, Richard Arline and Michael Williams, were also accused of trying to intimidate and bribe Kelly’s victims. Both Arline and Williams pleaded guilty in the case.
“This lawsuit in no way connects Mr. Kelly to the alleged intentional acts of Donnell Russell,” Kelly’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, told Page Six.
As previously reported, R. Kelly is set to go in trial again on August 1, 2022, this time in his native Chicago, in a federal case that includes charges of child pornography, obstruction of justice and sexual abuse.
