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David Harris, the actor best known for playing Cochise in Walter Hill’s pulpy 1979 thriller The Warriors, has died. He was 75.

Harris died Friday at his home in New York City after suffering from cancer, his daughter Davina Harris told the New York Times.

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Harris’ Cochise is an integral member of the street gang at the center of the 1979 cult classic The Warriors. Based on Sol Yurick’s 1965 novel...

David Harris, the actor known for his role as Cochise in the 1979 cult classic “The Warriors,” has died. He was 75.

Harris died Friday at his home in New York City after a battle with cancer, his daughter Davina Harris told the New York Times.

In “The Warriors,” Harris played Cochise, an integral member of the eponymous red vest-wearing gang. Based on Sol Yurick’s 1965 novel of the same name, the Walter Hill-directed film follows a New York city gang that is framed for murder and thus decides to travel from the Bronx to Coney Island. Harris’ character Cochise was set apart from the others by his unique choice of fashion style that included on a headband and a big turquoise necklace as a sign of rebellion.

“The Warriors” was critically panned when it was originally released, but eventually attained cult status. “We thought it was a little film that...

David Harris, the actor best known for portraying Cochise in the 1979 cult classic film “The Warriors,” recently passed away from cancer at his home in New York City. He was 75 years old. Harris’s daughter Davina confirmed the cause of death to the New York Times.

Harris found widespread fame for his portrayal of Cochise, the leader of a street gang distinguished by turquoise jewelry and a headband. In the film, adapted from a 1965 novel, Harris’s character helps guide a gang through perilous circumstances after they are falsely accused of murder. Though “The Warriors” faced initial criticism, it has since gained a large following that appreciates on Rotten Tomatoes.

Harris began acting while in high school at the High School of Performing Arts. An encouraging English teacher helped spark his interest in drama. One of his breakthrough roles came in the 1976 Emmy-nominated television film “Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys.

David Harris, the actor known for playing Cochise in the 1979 cult classic The Warriors, has died. He was 75.

Harris died of cancer on Friday at his home in New York City, his daughter Davina Harris told the New York Times.

Based on Sol Yurick’s 1965 novel of the same name, The Warriors told the story of a New York City street gang tasked with traveling from the Bronx to Coney Island after they are framed for murder. Harris’ Cochise was a gang member with a defiant fashion sense, punctuated by a heavy turquoise necklace and headband.

The film was critically panned after its premiere, but later grew to be embraced by a fervent fanbase and now holds an 88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

“I was in Hong Kong, I was in the Philippines, I was in Tokyo,” Harris said in a 2019 interview. “I’ve done a lot of movies, but I...

Stars: Jackie Chan, Wei Xiang, Han Yanbo, Temur Mamisashvili, Shi Ce | Written by Meng Yida, Xu Wei | Directed by Zhang Luan

Panda Plan (aka Xiong Mao Ji Hua) opens on a highly meta note as action star Jackie Chan, played by Jackie Chan takes out an entire squad of terrorists while filming a scene for his latest film. After wondering if he’s supposed to be playing a superhero, he and his agent David review a list of possible off-screen activities. That list includes a housewarming party at Stallone’s new mansion and a celebrity golf tournament.

Jackie passes on all of them to accept an offer from the Noah Zoo to adopt Big Babe, their media star baby panda. What they don’t know is that the leader of what appears to be the evil equivalent of The Untouchables has been offered $100,000,000 to pandanap Big Babe.

With his right hand man James in charge,...

Early in his career, Denzel Washington received some crucial advice from Sidney Poitier, the gist of which was that, as a young Black actor attempting to make his mark in the early 1980s, Hollywood would only give him three or four roles before passing judgment on his value as performer. There weren't many non-comedic Black stars to begin with at the time (especially with the then 50-something Poitier in the midst of a lengthy on-screen hiatus that lasted from 1977's "A Piece of the Action" to 1988's "Shoot to Kill"), so Washington's margin of error must've felt particularly slim, regardless of his undeniable talent.

He took the message to heart. There was a lot working against him in the white-dominated industry. And even if he "made it," the paucity of opportunities meant the competition to remain a prominent actor would always be fierce.

After the commercial and critical failure of his debut feature,...

Norman Jewison was the Oscar-nominated filmmaker who has tackled a number of controversial topics and social issues in his work, crafting mainstream entertainments with a political point of view. But how many of his titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1926 in Toronto, Jewison cut his teeth in television before moving into directing with a number of light farces, including the Doris Day vehicles “The Thrill of It All” (1963) and “Send Me No Flowers” (1964), her last collaboration with Rock Hudson. His career took a turning point with his first drama, “The Cincinnati Kid” (1965), which also kicked off his collaborations with film editor Hal Ashby, himself a future director. His next film, the darkly comedic “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!” (1966), earned him his first Oscar nomination in Best Picture.

He hit the Oscar jackpot the...

Tubi, Fox’s free streaming service, has announced its list of May titles. The May 2024 slate features new Tubi Originals as well as numerous action, art house, Black cinema, comedy, documentary, drama, horror, kids and family, romance, sci-fi and fantasy, thriller, and Western titles.

As a leading ad-supported video-on-demand service, Tubi engages diverse audiences through a personalized experience and the world’s largest content library, which includes over 200,000 movies and TV episodes, a growing collection of Tubi Originals, and nearly 250 Fast channels.

You can watch the Tubi May 2024 lineup for free on Android and iOS mobile devices, Amazon Echo Show, Google Nest Hub Max, Comcast Xfinity X1, and Cox Contour.

You can also watch the service on connected television devices such as Amazon Fire TV, Vizio TVs, Sony TVs, Samsung TVs, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and on the Tubi site.

Tubi Originals

Action...

Prime Video’s big February drop is Mr. & Mrs. Smith! No, not the 2005 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie action movie, but a new TV series kinda based on it starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine. The set up for the show version? Glover and Erskine are two strangers who both get jobs at a shady spy agency and are asked to get married so that they can pretend to be a couple undercover, but things get more complicated when they start falling in love for real. Uh oh!

If you’re in the mood for a movie or two this month, you can also check out the Prime debuts of Strays, Bottoms, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. In the meantime, here’s everything coming to Amazon Prime Video and Freevee this month. Amazon Originals are accompanied by an asterisk!

New on Amazon Prime Video – February 2024

February 1

12 Angry Men...

Get ready to watch more Freevee this February! Most of the free streamer's new additions will come all at once on the first of the month, including the three-time Oscar nominee "A Soldier’s Story" directed by the recently departed Norman Jewison, the franchise-launching "How to Train Your Dragon," and more classics of the past four decades.

Check out The Streamable’s top picks for Freevee’s February additions, and continue below to see the full list!

Watch Now Free amazonfreevee.com What are the 5 Best Shows and Movies Coming to Freevee in February 2024? “A Soldier’s Story” | Thursday, Feb. 1

Early-career Denzel Washington appears in a supporting role in this Oscar-nominated adaptation of Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Soldier’s Play.” But it’s Howard E. Rollings Jr. who leads the cast here as Captain Richard Davenport, a Black Army investigator who travels to a remote military base to look into...

Norman Jewison made movies that mattered.

“Timing is everything,” the director told me the one time we met. I’d been enlisted to host a long Q&a with Jewison at the American Cinematheque — and I was more than a little intimidated.

From “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” in 1966 to “Other People’s Money” in 1991, Jewison had an astonishing quarter-century run behind the camera, directing movies that impacted the culture when they came out (none more than “In the Heat of the Night”), a great many of which are still watched today. Turns out, this legendary talent couldn’t have been sweeter.

Jewison liked to tell the story of how he met Bobby Kennedy before making the landmark Sidney Poitier picture. He and Kennedy crossed paths while on vacation skiing, where both of their kids wound up in the hospital.

Still developing “In the Heat of the Night” at the time,...

Norman Jewison, the prolific, award-winning movie director of “Rollerball” and “In The Heat of the Night” has died:

Jewison directed numerous feature films and was Oscar-nominated 3 times as ‘Best Director’, for “In the Heat of the Night” (1967), “Fiddler on the Roof” (1971) and “Moonstruck” (1987).

Other films include “The Cincinnati Kid” (1965), “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” (1966), “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1968), “Jesus Christ Superstar” (1973), “Rollerball” (1975)…

… “F.I.S.T.” (1978), “...And Justice for All” (1979), “Best Friends” (1982), “A Soldier's Story” (1984), “Agnes of God” (1985), “Other People's Money” (1991), “Only You” (1994), “The Hurricane” (1999), and “The Statement” (2003.

Click the images to enlarge…...

Norman Jewison, a seven-time Academy Award nominee who directed the 1968 Best Picture Oscar winner “In the Heat of the Night” as well as Oscar winners “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Moonstruck” and numerous other iconic films, is dead. He died peacefully on Saturday at his home.

A filmmaking giant in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, Jewison was undeniably one of the most prominent producer-directors never to have won an Oscar – though he was honored with the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award at the Academy Awards in 1999. He was nominated three times for his directing: “In the Heat of the Night” in ’68 (losing to Mike Nichols for “The Graduate”), “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1972 (William Friedkin won for “The French Connection”) and “Moonstruck” in 1988 (won by Bernardo Bertolucci for “The Last Emperor”). He was also nominated for producing a quartet of Best Picture contenders: “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming...

Norman Jewison, the celebrated film director, has died. He was 97. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the filmmaker passed away at his home on Saturday, January 20, 2024.

Jewison had a long and varied directing and producing career that was peppered with accolades. His films "Moonstruck," "A Soldier's Story," "Fiddler on the Roof," "In the Heat of the Night," and "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" were nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1987, 1984, 1971, 1967, and 1966 respectively, with "Heat of the Night" winning. Jewison also helmed dozens of other notable dramas and musicals besides, including "The Thomas Crown Affair", "Gaily, Gaily" (nominated for three Oscars), "Jesus Christ Superstar" (nominated for one Oscar), "...And Justice for All" (two), "Agnes of God" (three), and "The Hurricane" (one). 

All told, Jewison's films were nominated for 41 Oscars, winning 12. He also directed the sci-fi thriller "Rollerball," the comedy "Bogus," the romance "Only You," the Stallone drama "F.I.S.T.,...

Norman Jewison, the versatile, acclaimed filmmaker behind movies like Fiddler on the Roof and In the Heat of the Night, died Saturday at home, his publicist announced Monday. He was 97.

Jewison was a seven-time Oscar nominee and earned the Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 1999. He earned both Best Director and Best Picture nods for the 1971 musical Fiddler on the Roof and the 1987 rom-com Moonstruck, starring Cher.

He also was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture for 1976’s In the Heat of the Night.

The virtuoso Canadian helped craft much of postwar Hollywood cinema, directing Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night, Topol in Fiddler on the Roof and Cher in Moonstruck

For five extraordinary decades, Norman Jewison’s film-making was the beating heart of Hollywood drama: he could do anything and supercharged it with idealism, confidence and style. Jewison has been behind an extraordinary array of classics and hits: for half the time the cinema has been in existence, Norman Jewison was the gold standard of a night at the movies.

The 60s saw his fizzy Doris Day comedies, the sexy Steve McQueen thriller-capers The Cincinnati Kid and The Thomas Crown Affair, the mould-breaking In the Heat of the Night, with Sidney Poitier as the black cop in the US south. Then in the 70s we had his epic Broadway adaptation Fiddler on the Roof with Topol’s iconic performance as...

Oscar-nominated film director and producer Norman Jewison, who steered the 1967 racial drama “In the Heat of the Night” to a best picture Oscar and also helmed such popular films as “Moonstruck,” “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and “The Thomas Crown Affair,” as well as film musicals “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Jesus Christ Superstar,” died Saturday at his Los Angeles residence. He was 97.

His film career began with fluffy Doris Day comedies like “The Thrill of It All.” But Jewison’s social conscience began to surface with “In the Heat of the Night” and, later, the labor union drama “F.I.S.T.” and other films focusing on racial tensions such as “A Soldier’s Story” and “The Landlord” (the latter of which he only produced), though he never abandoned comedies and romances.

Jewison had his share of box office hits and was usually attuned to the audience pulse, but did...

Norman Jewison is dead at the age of 97. For over four decades he sustained a career of films that became major box office hits as well as others that presented current social issues in a Hollywood context (with some combining the two). He died peacefully at his home on Saturday January 20.

“In the Heat of the Night,” which beat “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate” for the Best Picture Oscar for 1967, is the most obvious example of Jewison’s talent for turning tough subjects into hit movies. It grossed (adjusted to current prices) over $200 million, with it already having become a major success before it won five Oscars. Ironically, the racially-charged story about a Northern Black detective (Sidney Poitier) investigating a murder and confronting a racist Southern police chief wons its Oscars in a ceremony delayed by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Norman Frederick Jewison was born on July 21, 1926 in Toronto,...

Norman Jewison, who directed Best Picture Oscar winner In the Heat of the Night and nominees Fiddler on the Roof, A Soldier’s Story, Moonstruck and The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, also producing the latter four, died peacefully Saturday, January 20. He was 97.

Jewison’s film career spanned more than four decades and seven Oscar nominations — three for Best Director and the four for Best Picture. His films received a total of 46 nominations and 12 Academy Awards. In 1999, Jewison was honored with the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award at the Academy Awards. He also collected three Emmy Awards for his work in television.

A smattering of his other wide-ranging work includes The Hurricane, Agnes of God, Rollerball (1975) and Jesus Christ Superstar, all of which he also produced. As a producer, Jewison had an eye for talent, as well.

Norman Jewison, the multifaceted filmmaker who could direct a racial drama (In the Heat of the Night), stylish thriller (The Thomas Crown Affair), musical (Fiddler on the Roof) or romantic comedy (Moonstruck) with the best of them, has died. He was 97.

Jewison died Saturday at home — his family does not want to specify exactly where — publicist Jeff Sanderson announced.

A seven-time Oscar nominee, Jewison received the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences in 1999.

Known for his ability to coax great performances out of his actors — 12 of his players were nominated for Oscars, while five of his features made the cut for best picture — the most distinguished film director in Canadian history often used conventional genre plots to take on social injustice.

Improbably, he got his start directing musical specials on television.

Jewison earned best director and best picture nominations for Fiddler on the Roof...

This Veterans Day, we’re celebrating the importance of Veterans as storytellers. Film Independent is inviting 100 U.S. Military Veteran (working or aspiring) filmmakers or actors in the entertainment industry to receive a Film Independent Membership, for a contribution of just $1.00!

Veterans Day is a federal public holiday that always falls on the 11th of November – but why is that? The day’s origins date back to World War I. At 11:00 am Paris local time on November 11, 1918, the Armistice of Compiègne was signed to officially end WWI. In honor of this special day, we’ve curated 10 films (and one limited series!) that embody the values and spirit of the service members across all five branches: the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy.

Patton (1970)

Branch: U.S. Army

Director: Franklin J. Schaffner

Cast: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young, Michael Strong, Carey Loftin

Where to Watch: VOD rental,...

Toronto’s Hazelton Hotel will pay permanent tribute to Oscar-winning film director and producer Norman Jewison by changing the name of its screening room to honor the iconic Canadian filmmaker.

The Hazelton, located in upscale Yorkville, will rename its 25-seat auditorium as the Norman Jewison Cinema. Since launching in 2007, the hotel has been an uptown hub for the Toronto Film Festival as visiting celebrities, including those at work on local Hollywood movie and TV series shoots year round, stay there, well cloistered away from the local paparazzi and other distractions.

“I am pleased to have this beautiful cinema at the Hazelton Hotel in Toronto named in my honor. There is nothing better than watching a film on the big screen! I’d like to thank everyone at the Hazelton Hotel for this generous tribute,” Jewison said in a statement, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, of the recognition.

The Norman Jewison Cinema has digital projection,...

July brings new channels to Pluto TV, including the Godzilla Channel, which features 30 films, such as “Godzilla Vs. King Chidorah” and “Godzilla vs. Biollante,” as well as the 1998-2000 animated adventure “Godzilla: The Series.” The Hollywood Squares Channel is also debuting. Celebrities in nine separate tic-tac-toe boxes provide right — and wrong — answers to contestants longing to hear “circle gets the square!”

July continues the streamer’s Summer Popcorn Movies with the “Mission Impossible” franchise starring Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, an agent of the Impossible Missions Force (Imf). Cruise has played the super-fit spy since 1996, as well as produced the series. The seventh iteration, “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1,” has a theatrical release date of July 12.

Check out the first “Mission Impossible” trailer

“The Soldier’s Story,” a gripping 1984 drama nominated for three Academy Awards, is a jarring mystery about the death of a black sergeant stationed at a...

This article first appeared as part of Jenelle Riley’s Acting Up newsletter – to subscribe for early content and weekly updates on all things acting, visit the Acting Up signup page.

In “A Soldier’s Play,” Captain Richard Davenport isn’t meant to sing. But when you cast legendary baritone Norm Lewis in the role, you take advantage of his talents. Lewis can be seen in the national touring production, currently playing at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre — and it’s thanks to director Kenny Leon that audiences get to hear Davenport sing at certain points it the show.

Written by Charles Fuller, “A Soldier’s Play” is set on an Army base in 1944, when the military is still segregated. Captain Davenport, a rare Black officer, is sent to investigate the shooting of Sergeant Vernon Waters. Though Black himself, Waters despises and persecutes Black men who he feels perpetuate old-fashioned stereotypes.

After years of paying the bills with commercial gigs and extra work, by the mid ’80s, Robert Townsend was making a decent living performing in comedy clubs and appearing in small roles in big movies like “A Soldier’s Story,” “American Flyers,” and Walter Hill’s action-musical extravaganza “Streets of Fire.” Most of his auditions, however, were still for stereotypical roles as pimps, slaves, and gangbangers; his agent told him that Hollywood only made one decent Black film a year, and “A Soldier’s Story” was it for 1984.

Frustrated by the lack of opportunities, Townsend and Keenan Ivory Wayans created their own by co-writing the movie industry satire “Hollywood Shuffle,” which Townsend directed and self-financed on savings and credit cards. The 1987 comedy —now part of the Criterion Collection — stands alongside “Stranger Than Paradise,” “She’s Gotta Have It,” and “sex, lies, and videotape” as a touchstone of the ’80s independent film movement, and...

Every generation has a Robert Townsend movie for them, whether it’s his acerbic examination of Black actors in the film industry with 1987’s “Hollywood Shuffle,” his attempt to crack the superhero genre with 1993’s “Meteor Man” or his spin on Disney Channel fare with the 2000s feature “Up, Up, and Away!” And don’t forget his 2001 adaptation of Bizet’s “Carmen” starring Beyoncé Knowles-Carter: “Carmen: A Hip Hopera.” The multihyphenate actor, director, comedian and writer has seen and done it all.

Nearly 50 years into his Hollywood career, Townshend is still working today. Most recently, he directed for the Netflix series “Kaleidoscope” and participated as a guest during TCM’s Black History Month celebration.

But it’s only in the last few years — aided by screenings of 1975’s “Cooley High,” 1984’s “A Soldier’s Story,” and “Hollywood Shuffle” on TCM — that Townsend’s legacy as a Black artist has begun getting the appreciation it deserves.

(Welcome to Best Actor Ever, an ongoing series where we explore the careers and performances of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen.)

If the young Denzel Washington had his way, the now 68-year-old Mount Vernon native would have a bust in Canton's Pro Football Hall of Fame. The man who would be Malcolm X, Rubin Carter, and Alonzo Harris initially had his sights trained on the gridiron before he enrolled at Fordham University in 1977, where he was a skilled enough athlete to play under Coach P.J. Carlesimo for the school's junior varsity team. "He would run us all day, and make us work," Washington told the New York Times in 1998. "But you know what? We were always prepared for the fourth quarter, and we hardly ever lost. Some of the things I learned from him, I still apply myself."

Washington knew by this point that a pro sports...

Though the confusingly named initiative “FX on Hulu” is on its way out, FX is still bringing premium television to Hulu in the meantime.

Hulu’s list of new releases for April 2022 is highlighted by FX limited series Under the Banner of Heaven. This adaptation of the non-fiction book by John Krakauer stars Andrew Garfield as a Mormon police detective whose faith is shaken when investigating a murder involving the church.

It’s not all just FX on the TV side of things for Hulu this month, however. The streamer is debuting second seasons of its series The Hardy Boys (April 6) and Woke (April 8). There isn’t much to report from Hulu’s original movies arm aside from true crime documentary Captive Audience on April 21. But that doc about one family’s 50-year journey for justice sounds like a must-watch.

April 1 sees the usual arrival of library film titles. Looper,...

Francis Ford Coppola won his first Oscar in 1971 for writing "Patton," but he was not involved with the film's production and it came as a surprise when he first learned that it had been made. Coppola wrote the script for the movie in 1963, based on two books, Omar Bradley's "A Soldier's Story" and Ladislas Farago's "Patton: Ordeal and Triumph." The latter was a biography of U.S. World War II General George S. Patton which had been published that year. It was not until several years later, however, that the script would make it through development and become a movie starring George C. Scott.

By that...

The post Francis Ford Coppola Found His Patton Script Was Used in the Most Unusual Way appeared first on /Film.

Exclusive: Elle Johnson (Bosch) has been tapped to write, executive produce and serve as showrunner on A Soldier’s Story, a limited series adaptation of the award-winning A Soldier’s Play, which has been in development at Sony Pictures Television with the play’s Tony winner David Alan Grier attached to star and executive produce.

Grier, who won the 2021 Tony Award for his role as Sgt. Vernon Waters in the Broadway play, will play the character’s father in the series adaptation, which spans multiple wars and several decades and centers on Sgt. Vernon Waters and the emotional impact he is subjected to as a soldier in the 1940s.

The Pulitzer-winning A Soldier’s Play, written by Charles Fuller, is set at a Black army base in the segregated Louisiana of 1944. Sergeant Waters has been murdered, and Army captain Davenport – played by Blair Underwood in the Broadway play — arrives at...

Exclusive: David Alan Grier is set for a major recurring role opposite Steve Carell and Domhnall Gleeson The Patient, FX’s 10-episode half-hour limited series from The Americans creative duo Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, and FX Productions.

Co-written by Fields and Weisberg, in The Patient, a psychotherapist (Carell) finds himself held prisoner by a serial killer (Gleeson) with an unusual request: curb his homicidal urges. But unwinding the mind of this man while also dealing with the waves of his own repressed troubles creates a journey perhaps as treacherous as his captivity.

Details of Grier’s role are being kept under wraps.

Cast also includes Linda Emond, Laura Niemi and Andrew Leeds.

Fields and Weisberg executive produce along with Carell, Caroline Moore, Victor Hsu and Chris Long, who directs the first two episodes. Kevin Bray also directs on the series.

Grier recently won a Tony Award for A Soldier...

Kristina “Red” Tanner has been promoted to Partner at the full-service music and talent management firm Activist Artists Management, with Chris Ruff joining the company in the newly created role of Head of Global Marketing.

Tanner joined the Activist team as a manager in 2010 and subsequently launched its Ticketing, Commerce and Sustainability Department to optimize clients’ ancillary revenue streams. She’s an authority on all aspects of producing and executing special events and festivals whose specific areas of expertise include ticketing, merchandise, sponsorship activation, fan clubs and VIP programs. As a Partner at Activist, alongside Bernie Cahill, Greg Suess, Matt Maher, Liz Norris, Caitlin Stone and Tony Khan, she will continue to amplify the company’s ongoing environmental commitment by working closely with all clients to neutralize the carbon emissions for tours, management offices and travel.

In his role, Ruff will oversee, architect and implement global marketing campaigns, as well...

When you’re a streaming service, there’s only one way to celebrate the New Year. And that’s by IP mining to bring back a franchise that had no business in coming back!

With its list of new releases for January 2022, Hulu is raiding CBS’s closet and premiering How I Met Your Father, a continuation of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Complaints about unnecessary rebooting aside, perhaps its worth giving the Hillary Duff starring series a chance. If nothing else, telling a story about 2022 from a future perspective might play well.

Aside from Himyf, there aren’t any other Hulu original series to speak of. Instead, Hulu is opting to once again beef up its film library. January 1 sees the arrival of Master and Commander, Seven, and a whole bunch of Star Treks. Hulu will also be the streaming home of some recently released film Indies,...

Almost 30 years after earning his first Tony Awards nomination for portraying Jackie Robinson in the musical “The First,” David Alan Grier may finally take home his first trophy. Nominated this year for his work in the Broadway debut of Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “A Soldier’s Play,” Grier currently leads our odds in the Featured Actor category.

Grier earned some of the best notices of his career for his role in the revival, which ran at the American Airlines Theater from January to March 2020. Set on a segregated military base in Louisiana in 1944, the play starred Grier as the vicious Sergeant Vernon C. Waters, whose murder gives the play its central mystery and plot. Helen Shaw (Vulture) wrote that Grier “machines each of his scenes to the inch, developing his portrait from a comic tinpot bellower into villainy and then, remarkably, something more tragic,” while Vinson Cunningham (New Yorker) said,...

Exclusive: A Soldier’s Play, which is heading into Sunday’s Tony Awards with seven nominations, is getting a TV adaptation as a limited series by Sony Pictures Television. David Alan Grier, a Tony nominee for his role in the play, is set to star and executive produce the limited series, which will be titled A Soldier’s Story.

The series adaptation, spanning multiple wars and several decades, will center on Sgt. Vernon Waters and the emotional impact he is subjected to as a soldier in the 1940s. Grier, who plays Sgt. Waters in the play, will play the character’s father in the limited series.

The Pulitzer-winning A Soldier’s Play, written Charles Fuller, is set at a Black army base in the segregated Louisiana of 1944. Sergeant Waters – played on Broadway by Grier in a production directed by Kenny Leon – has been murdered, and Army captain Davenport – played by Blair Underwood...

Since the first ceremony, Oscar voters have honored the importance of the first step in the filmmaking process by awarding screenwriters on an annual basis. The Best Adapted Screenplay award is given in recognition of each year’s most outstanding script derived from an existing work. Academy rules allow for a variety of source materials, including fiction and nonfiction books, plays, and even previous short and feature films.

The films in contention for the 2021 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar are “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” “The Father,” “Nomadland,” “One Night in Miami,” and “The White Tiger.” Our odds currently indicate that “Nomadland” (82/25) will win the award, followed in order by “The Father” (37/10), “One Night in Miami” (9/2), “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” (9/2), and “The White Tiger” (9/2).

In adapting his play “The Father” from stage to screen, Florian Zeller teamed with Christopher Hampton, who previously won this award in 1989 for “Dangerous Liaisons.” Hampton is now one of...

Training Day’s “King Kong” monologue stands tall among the great speeches of cinema. Denzel Washington elevates the iambic pentameter of Iago, the villain of William Shakespeare’s Othello, to syncopated street rhythms. It is on par with Marlon Brando’s reflections on the horrors of war as Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, it is the inverse of Gregory Peck’s monologues as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, and it ranks with Joe Pesci’s “Do you think I’m funny?” scene in Goodfellas or Groucho Marx’s breakdown in the middle of reconciliation in Duck Soup. But the single line of dialogue which hits it home wasn’t in David Ayer’s screenplay. It was pure Denzel.

“King Kong ain’t got shit on me,” LAPD Det. Sgt. Alonzo Harris declares in the most memorable scene in Training Day. Washington improvised the line in the heat of the moment.

Douglas Turner Ward, the director, actor and playwright who co-founded the landmark, influential Off Broadway Black theater group the Negro Ensemble Company, died Saturday, Feb. 20, at his home in New York City. He was 90.

His death was announced by his wife Diana Ward.

Ward had already begun a solid New York stage acting career in the 1950s and ’60s – including Off Broadway roles in The Iceman Cometh and on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun – when, according to The New York Times, he wrote a 1966 editorial for that newspaper headlined “American Theater: For Whites Only?” The article called for the establishment of a Black repertory theater company. Turner wrote, “Not in the future…but now!”

A year later the Ford Foundation awarded a $434,000 grant to create the Negro Ensemble Company with Ward as artistic director, along with Robert Hooks and Gerald S. Krone in other leadership roles.

The Company...

Let’s take a closer look at the three nominees for Best Play Revival: “Betrayal,” “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” and “A Solider’s Play.” Our exclusive odds give the edge to “A Soldier’s Play,” but this only remains to be one of the closest races at this year’s virtual awards. Remember, only those Tony voters who saw all three nominees can vote in this category. Tony watchers theorize that this new rule helped “The Boys in the Band” win this race last year despite being the first production of the season to have opened.

The first nominee is the third Broadway revival of Harold Pinter’s 1978 award-winning play, “Betrayal.” The story chronicles a seven-year affair in reverse chronological order. The original Broadway edition earned Tony nominations for star Blythe Danner and director Peter Hall.

This edition came to town after a successful run in...

Ronald L. Schwary, who won the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People,” died on July 2 in West Hollywood, Calif. He was 76.

Schwary, an Oregon native, had broken into the entertainment business through his friendship with John Wayne while working as a manager of the USC football team. Wayne assisted Schwary in getting work as a stand-in for Dustin Hoffman on “The Graduate” and as an extra in “Planet of the Apes.”

Schwary also became a DGA Trainee, which led to the start of his career as an assistant

director in the early 1970s. He began working with Jerry Lewis, Elvis, Peter Fonda, Ann-Margret, Jack Lemmon, and Walter Matthau and eventually became a production

manager with the assistance of director Bob Butler, and producer Ray Stark.

Schwary was hired by Redford as the sole producer on “Ordinary People” after Schwary had worked as an associate...

Ronald L. Schwary, Oscar-winning producer of Robert Redford’s 1980 drama “Ordinary People,” died on July 2 at age 76, his family announced.

He was forced into retirement in 2015 due to a rare neurological autonomic disorder that he had been struggling with. His death was due to complications of his disorder. He passed away peacefully surrounded by his sons.

Schwary’s extensive career as a producer took off in 1978 after serving as an associate producer on the film adaptation of the Neil Simon play “California Suite,” starring Jane Fonda, Alan Alda, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and many others. That same year, he also served as associate producer and production manager for the Sydney Pollack-directed film “The Electric Horseman,” starring Fonda and Robert Redford.

Also Read: Bettina Gilois, 'McFarland USA' and 'Bessie' Screenwriter, Dies at 58

The following year, Redford hired Schwary as the sole producer for his directorial debut, “Ordinary People.” That film...

Ronald Schwary, who won an Oscar as the producer of Ordinary People and whose other major film successes include A Soldier’s Story, Absence of Malice, Scent of a Woman and Tootsie, has died. He was 76. He passed away Thursday in West Hollywood, according to his sons.

No cause of death was provided, but reports indicate Schwary had struggled with a rare neurological autonomic disorder.

Schwary was the producer on six Sydney Pollack-directed films: The Electric Horseman (1979) and Havana (1990), with Robert Redford; Absence of Malice (1981), starring Paul Newman; Best Picture nominee Tootsie (1982), with Dustin Hoffman; Sabrina (1995), featuring Harrison Ford, and Random Hearts (1999), also starring Ford.

Even though the films were nominated for Best Picture, Schwary did not receive a nomination for either Tootsie or Scent of a Woman or because he was not credited as “Producer.”

On Tootsie, there was a dispute between Columbia and the production regarding the number of credited producers.

Ronald Schwary, the Oscar-winning producer of Ordinary People who guided other acclaimed films including A Soldier's Story, Absence of Malice, Scent of a Woman and Tootsie, has died. He was 76.

Schwary died Thursday in West Hollywood, his sons, Neil and Brian, announced. In 2015, he was forced to retire after struggling with a rare neurological autonomic disorder.

"Over the years, he fought hard to be the best version of himself that he could be, still constantly joking and laughing no matter how hard the day was," Neil said in a statement. "His zest for life still ...

Ronald Schwary, the Oscar-winning producer of Ordinary People who guided other acclaimed films including A Soldier's Story, Absence of Malice, Scent of a Woman and Tootsie, has died. He was 76.

Schwary died Thursday in West Hollywood, his sons, Neil and Brian, announced. In 2015, he was forced to retire after struggling with a rare neurological autonomic disorder.

"Over the years, he fought hard to be the best version of himself that he could be, still constantly joking and laughing no matter how hard the day was," Neil said in a statement. "His zest for life still ...

Else Blangsted, a Holocaust survivor who went on to a 35-year career as a film music editor who worked with some of the industry’s most successful directors, producers and composers – Robert Redford, Steven Spielberg, Quincy Jones, Dave Grusin, Sydney Pollack, among others – died Friday, May 1, from natural causes at her home in Los Angeles. She was 99.

Blangsted’s death, which occurred just three weeks short of her 100th birthday, was confirmed by her cousin, the Oscar–winning filmmaker and producer Deborah Oppenheimer.

Though she occasionally worked in TV throughout the years – Hazel, Dennis the Menace, Apple’s Way and the 1976 miniseries Helter Skelter, among others – it was in film that Blangsted left her most indelible professional mark. A partial roster of her film credits, spanning 1955’s Picnic to 1990’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, includes On Golden Pond, The Great Santini, Ordinary People, The Color Purple, The Goonies, In Cold Blood,...

With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.

Decades before Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” squashed box-office expectations en route to a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, Robert Townsend and Keenan Ivory Wayans struck a similar chord in 1987 with “Hollywood Shuffle,” a biting satire about the dearth of roles for black actors in Hollywood. Unlike “Get Out,” the approach to racial comedy in “Shuffle” is much more flagrant. However, it remains an essential piece of black Hollywood history that still has something to say about the industry today.

More from IndieWireStream of the Day: 'God's Own Country' Deserves to Be a 'Call Me by Your Name' SensationStream of the Day: People Have Been Watching 'Bicycle Thieves' the Wrong Way for Decades

The loosely autobiographical film follows aspiring...

“You like me!” It’s been 35 years since Sally Field‘s memorable Oscar speech. Hosted by Jack Lemmon, the 57th Academy Awards ceremony in March of 1985 saw several significant nominees and winners, and a film about a classic composer was the big winner.

She’s been mimicked, parodied and accused of extreme sappiest. But it cannot be denied that Field gave one of the most enduring Oscar speeches in the history of the awards show. Although she had won five years before for “Norma Rae,” Field expressed that the first time around, she was so stunned she couldn’t take it all in. However, this time she exuded pure joy, and many of us at some point have said something to the effect of “. . . this time I feel it. And I can’t deny the fact you like me. Right now, you like me!”

SEESally Field movies: 15 greatest films ranked...

As we are now about halfway through the Broadway season, and there are currently 12 productions of plays set to open this spring. Could we be seeing any of them contend at this year’s Tony Awards? Below, we recap the plot of each play as well as the awards history of its author, cast, creative types, the opening, and (where applicable) closing dates.

“My Name is Lucy Barton” (opens January 15; closes February 29)

In this stage adaptation of Elizabeth Strout’s 2016 novel of the same name, the story follows the title character, who, unsteady after an operation, awakens to find her mother sitting at the foot of her bed. She hasn’t seen her in years, and her visit brings Lucy back to her desperate rural childhood and her escape to New York. As she begins to find herself as a writer, she is still gripped by the urgent complexities of family life.

Nearly 40 years after its celebrated Off Broadway debut and subsequent hit movie adaptation, Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier’s Play, opening tonight on Broadway at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre, has lost little of its power. Even in a Broadway landscape that could give home to the explosive Slave Play, Fuller’s 1981 mystery remains a bracing slap of a drama, a thoughtful examination of American bigotry and the many tolls it exacts.

With three-time Tony nominee David Alan Grier and a commanding Blair Underwood leading a first-rate, 12-member cast, this Soldier’s Play (adapted as A Soldier’s Story for the 1984 film) moves with all the precision of a military cadence. The production is not without its missteps – a few self-conscious moments seem like gratuitous elbow jabs to make sure we understand the contemporary relevance – but director Kenny Leon drives the narrative with a solid feel for momentum.

TCM and African-American Film Critics Association has partnered for a monthlong program, The Black Experience on Film.

Thirteen different members of Aafca will host programming that showcases portrayals of African-Americans throughout cinematic history, including 32 seminal films. The series begins Sept. 4 and continues every Tuesday and Thursday in primetime.

Programming includes specials like “Hollywood Confronts Racism” that will include a discussion with film critic Shawn Edwards and HipHollywood.com’s Jasmine Simpkins as they examine films such as 1961’s A Raisin in the Sun and 1984’s A Soldier's Story.

“It is both an honor and ...