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    SAG Award Nominations 2023: The Complete List, Snubs and Surprises

    “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” pick up important nods. Michelle Williams is shut out.The dark Irish comedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” and the sci-fi hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once” led this year’s nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which were announced on Wednesday morning. What’s more, both films tied a SAG record: Each scored four individual acting nominations plus an ensemble nod, a five-nomination tally that has only been managed in the past by “Shakespeare in Love,” “Chicago” and “Doubt.”Coming one day after a Golden Globes ceremony that also saw “Banshees” and “Everything Everywhere” reap significant rewards, both films can be considered top contenders as we enter the homestretch of Oscar season. Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical “The Fabelmans,” which took the Globes for best director and best drama, was dealt the most significant SAG snub when its star, Michelle Williams, failed to make the powerhouse best actress lineup.All three movies were nominated for SAG’s top ensemble award, though the category was filled out by the surprise appearances of “Babylon” and “Women Talking,” two films that could not muster a single individual acting nomination between them.As a predictor of eventual Oscar success, the SAG Awards can be hit or miss. Last year, even though all four of the actors who won SAGs went on to triumph at the Oscars, the two shows had very different lists of nominees: In the supporting actor and actress races, for example, just two of the SAG nominees in each category went on to receive an Oscar nomination.That means some of Wednesday’s snubbed actors could still break through with Oscar voters, just as SAG snubs like Kristen Stewart (“Spencer”) and Judi Dench (“Belfast”) managed last year. But it also means that your eventual Oscar winners will probably come from these SAG shortlists.The SAG Awards will be handed out on Feb. 26. Here is the complete list of nominees:FilmOutstanding Cast“Babylon”“The Banshees of Inisherin”“Everything Everywhere All at Once”“The Fabelmans”“Women Talking”Actor in a Leading RoleAustin Butler, “Elvis”Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Meet the Newer, Bolder Michelle Williams: Why she made the surprising choice to skip the supporting actress category and run for best actress.Best-Actress Battle Royal: A banner crop of leading ladies like Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett rule the Oscars’ deepest and most dynamic race.‘Glass Onion’ and Rian Johnson: The director explains why he sold the “Knives Out” franchise to Netflix, and how he feels about its theatrical test.Jostling for Best Picture: Weighing voter buzz, box office results and more, here’s an educated guess about the likely nominees for best picture.Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”Bill Nighy, “Living”Adam Sandler, “Hustle”Actress in a Leading RoleCate Blanchett, “Tár”Viola Davis, “The Woman King”Ana de Armas, “Blonde”Danielle Deadwyler, “Till”Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actor in a Supporting RolePaul Dano, “The Fabelmans”Brendan Gleeson, “The Banshees of Inisherin”Barry Keoghan, “The Banshees of Inisherin”Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Eddie Redmayne, “The Good Nurse”Actress in a Supporting RoleAngela Bassett, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”Hong Chau, “The Whale”Kerry Condon, “The Banshees of Inisherin”Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Stephanie Hsu, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Stunt Ensemble in a Movie“Avatar: The Way of Water”“The Batman”“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”“Top Gun: Maverick”“The Woman King”TelevisionEnsemble in a Comedy Series“Abbott Elementary”“Barry”“The Bear”“Hacks”“Only Murders in the Building”Ensemble in a Drama Series“Better Call Saul”“The Crown”“Ozark”“Severance”“The White Lotus”Actor in a Comedy SeriesAnthony Carrigan, “Barry”Bill Hader, “Barry”Steve Martin, “Only Murders in the Building”Martin Short, “Only Murders in the Building”Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”Actress in a Comedy SeriesChristina Applegate, “Dead to Me”Rachel Brosnahan, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”Jenna Ortega, “Wednesday”Jean Smart, “Hacks”Actor in a Drama SeriesJonathan Banks, “Better Call Saul”Jason Bateman, “Ozark”Jeff Bridges, “The Old Man”Bob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”Adam Scott, “Severance”Actress in a Drama SeriesJennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”Elizabeth Debicki, “The Crown”Julia Garner, “Ozark”Laura Linney, “Ozark”Zendaya, “Euphoria”Actor in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesSteve Carell, “The Patient”Taron Egerton, “Black Bird”Sam Elliott, “1883”Paul Walter Hauser, “Black Bird”Evan Peters, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”Actress in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesEmily Blunt, “The English”Jessica Chastain, “George & Tammy”Julia Garner, “Inventing Anna”Niecy Nash-Betts, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”Amanda Seyfried, “The Dropout”Stunt Ensemble in a TV Series“Andor“The Boys”“House of the Dragon”“Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”“Stranger Things” More

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    Eddie Murphy Gets Cecil B. DeMille Award at Golden Globes

    Eddie Murphy, the actor and comedian, accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.”“I’ve been in show business for 46 years, and I’ve been in the movie business for 41 years so this has been a long time in the making,” Murphy said while accepting the award.He didn’t waste the opportunity for a joke, telling all the young artists in the room that he had a blueprint for succeeding: “Pay your taxes, mind your business and keep Will Smith’s wife’s name out your mouth,” he said, adding the expletive that Smith used after slapping Chris Rock onstage at the Academy Awards last year.Murphy, 61, rose to fame in the 1980s as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live,” becoming a dynamic presence on the show. His stand-up specials from that decade, in which he famously performed in leather suits, cemented him as a singular comic talent. After appearing in a string of blockbuster comedies (“48 Hrs.,” “Trading Places,” “Beverly Hills Cop”), Murphy became one of the biggest movie stars in the world.His star kept rising with the 1996 comedy “​​The Nutty Professor,” after which he played a veterinarian who can converse with his patients in “Doctor Dolittle,” voiced Donkey in “Shrek” and appeared as part of the ensemble cast in the Oscar-winning adaptation “Dreamgirls,” which earned him a Golden Globe in 2007. In 2021, he reprised his role as Prince Akeem in the sequel to “Coming to America,” one of Murphy’s biggest hits.Chosen by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s board of directors, the honor has been given to Jane Fonda, Oprah Winfrey, Audrey Hepburn, Steven Spielberg, Denzel Washington and Robin Williams. More

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    Michelle Yeoh Wins Best Actress Golden Globe for ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’

    Michelle Yeoh’s star turn as a multiverse-cruising immigrant mother in the sci-fi comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was a hit with both critics and audiences, propelling her to her first Golden Globe. The martial arts star, who has performed in dozens of action films, took on a part that the writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert originally wrote for the actor Jackie Chan.Here is her full acceptance speech:Wooo, OK, I’m just going to stand here and take this all in. Forty years, not letting go of this. So just quickly, thank you Hollywood Foreign Press for giving me this honor. It’s been an amazing journey, an incredible fight to be here today. But I think it’s been worth it.I remember when I first came to Hollywood, it was a dream come true until I got here because — look at this face. I came here and was told, “You’re a minority” and I’m, like, “No, that’s not possible.” And then someone said to me [speaking slowly], “You speak English.” I mean, forget about them not knowing Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Asia, India. And then I said, “Yeah, the flight here was about 13 hours long, so I learned.”As time went by — I turned 60 last year. And I think all of you women understand this as the days, the years, and the numbers get bigger, it seems like opportunities start to get smaller as well. And it probably was at a time where I thought, “Hey, come on girl, you had a really, really good run, you worked with some of the best people, Steven Spielberg, Jim Cameron and Dan Boyle.” And so it’s good, it’s all good. Then along came the best gift, “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”[music starts]Shut up, please. [Laughter] I can beat you up. And that’s serious. I thank you A24 for believing in these two goofy, insanely smart, wonderful geniuses, the Daniels, who had the courage to write about a very ordinary immigrant, aging woman, mother, daughter, who was trying to do her audit; she was being audited by the I.R.S., played by the most amazing Jamie Lee Curtis. I love you.I was given this gift of playing this woman who resonated so deeply with me and with so many people because at the end of the day, in whatever universe she was at, she was just fighting, fighting for love for her family.And Evelyn Wang was no one without Ke Huy Quan — Raymond Wong — and there was no joy in her life without Stephanie Hsu. The most amazing Stephanie Hsu and my hot dog lover, Jamie Lee Curtis, to Jonathan Wong, my producer, thank you for being there with us every step of the way. My manager, David Unger, and Kit Wong, who believed in me. And this is also for all the shoulders that I stand on, all who came before me who looks like me, and all who are going on this journey with me forward. So thank you for believing in us. Thank you. Thank you so much. More

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    Kevin Costner Couldn’t Get His Golden Globe Due to California Storms

    When the Golden Globes returned to NBC on Tuesday night after last year’s telecast was canceled amid concerns about the organization that gives out the awards, it was an open question whether Hollywood’s biggest stars would come back. Plenty did, making the evening feel in many respects like a return to shows of the past.But a handful of winning actors and actresses were not there to collect their awards.Cate Blanchett, who won for her portrayal of a virtuosic conductor in “Tár,” was not on hand to accept her Globe for best actress in a motion picture drama; she was said to be filming in Britain. And Amanda Seyfried, who won for her portrayal of the failed biotech founder Elizabeth Holmes in “The Dropout,” was unable to accept her award; she was said to be working on a new musical.Kevin Costner could not pick up his statuette for best actor in a TV drama series for “Yellowstone” for another reason: he was prevented from driving to Beverly Hills from his home in Santa Barbara by the severe rainstorms and flooding that have hit California. Nearly 50,000 residents across California have received evacuation orders, and at least 17 people have died since December.“This is a sad story right now,” said Regina Hall, who accepted his award, as audience members laughed. “He’s stuck in Santa Barbara. Let’s pray, everyone.”Zendaya, who plays the troubled teen in “Euphoria,” won best actress in a TV drama series and was also absent from the award show. The actress apologized on Instagram for not being able to attend, thanked the Golden Globes and shared her admiration for her fellow nominees. More

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    Tarnished Golden Globes Return to TV, and Hollywood Plays Along

    The companies behind the tarnished Golden Globe Awards pushed forward with a rehabilitation effort on Tuesday, with Hollywood luminaries making their way through a waterlogged Los Angeles to accept trophies for film and television achievements.The stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael hosted the 80th Globes ceremony, foregoing the typical monologue (zingers about high-wattage attendees) for a subdued opening directly addressing the lack of diversity that kept the show off the air last year. In several moments, a quiet awkwardness fell over the room, as when he noted that the group that awards the Globes didn’t “have a single Black member until George Floyd died.”“One minute, you’re making mint tea at home, the next you’re invited to be the Black face of an embattled white organization,” he continued, explaining how he came to take the gig. “Life really comes at you fast, you know?” He cracked that a friend, upon learning that he would get paid $500,000, told him to “put on a good suit and take them white people’s money.”“The Fabelmans,” a semi-autobiographical family drama from Steven Spielberg, won the Globe for best film, drama, and the award for best director.“I’m really, really happy about this,” Spielberg said while accepting the directing prize. “I’ve been hiding from this story since I was 17 years old.” He joked that his mother, Leah Adler, was in heaven “kvelling about this.”“The Banshees of Inisherin,” a windswept tragicomedy about a moldered friendship, was named best film, musical or comedy, also picking up Globes for Martin McDonagh’s screenwriting and Colin Farrell’s acting.But behind the sharp jokes, fervent acceptance speeches, Champagne and couture lurked another sad truth: After two years of upheaval caused by an ethics, finance and diversity scandal — culminating with NBC’s refusal to broadcast the 2022 ceremony — Hollywood has dropped any pretense that the Globes are meaningful as markers of artistic excellence.The Globes are about business, plain and simple.Most movie studios view the Globes telecast and accompanying red carpet spectacle as crucial marketing opportunities for winter films, especially dramas, which have been struggling at the box office. In a study released in 2021, economists at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania found that, on average, films that win Globes earn an additional $16.5 million in ticket sales.“I’m really, really happy about this,” Steven Spielberg said while accepting the award for best director.Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty Images“The Fabelmans,” which cost $40 million to make, not including marketing, was one of the films with the most to gain. It has collected $13.4 million at the domestic box office since its release in November.James Cameron, a best director nominee for “Avatar: The Way of Water,” had received the memo. He turned a red carpet moment into a sales pitch. “We’re back to theaters — as a society we really need this,” he said. “Enough with the streaming already!”The lead acting Globes for dramas went to Austin Butler (“Elvis”) and Cate Blanchett (“Tár”). Ke Huy Quan was honored for his supporting performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” while Angela Bassett won the Globe for best supporting actress for her regal role in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”In a surprise, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” spinoff “House of the Dragon” won the Globe for best television drama. (Awards prognosticators had predicted that “Severance” on Apple TV+ would get the prize.) “Abbott Elementary,” the ABC comedy set in a Philadelphia school, was named best comedy.“Thank you for believing in this show,” Quinta Brunson, the “Abbott Elementary” star and producer, said earlier as she collected the trophy for best actress in a comedy. “It has resonated with the world in a way that I couldn’t even imagine it would have.”“The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Abbott Elementary” had the most nominations going into the night among movies and TV shows. “Banshees” was up for eight film prizes, while “Abbott Elementary” figured into five TV categories.Martin McDonagh, holding the trophy, and Graham Broadbent, a producer, are among the group accepting best film, musical or comedy, for “The Banshees of Inisherin.”Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty ImagesFarrell won the Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical for his baffled “Banshees” performance, taking time to thank studio executives, his co-stars, his family and the donkey that appeared in the film. Michelle Yeoh won best actress in a comedy or musical for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a zany twist on superhero movies.“I think all of you women understand this — as the days, the years and the numbers get bigger, it seems like opportunities start to get smaller,” Yeoh said, noting that she turned 60 last year and referencing the discrimination she has faced in Hollywood. She then started to say how grateful she was for the role when show producers started playing music to nudge her offstage. “Shut up, please,” she said, to cheers, before continuing.Michelle Yeoh won best actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy, for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty ImagesPeople who assist stars behind the scenes (agents, publicists, stylists) will tell you that very few were eager to attend the ceremony, either as nominees or presenters. At least 20 nominees did not attend, including Julia Roberts, Blanchett and Zendaya, who was named best actress in a television drama for “Euphoria.” Some of the no-shows cited work conflicts, but the weather didn’t help, with the event coming on the heels of what meteorologists said was the worst rainstorm to sweep through Los Angeles since 2005.Still, most nominees went through the motions — smiles! smiles! smiles! — because they care greatly about Oscar nominations, and voting by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences begins on Thursday.The Golden Globe Awards broadcast also generates tens of millions of dollars for various Hollywood businesses. Catering companies, party planners, chauffeurs, banquet workers, florists and spray tanners count on the show to generate a significant part of their winter income. “This is so exciting,” Marc Malkin, a senior Variety editor, said at the start of Variety’s red carpet preshow, sounding like he was still trying to convince himself. (Globes producers actually put down a gray carpet for stars to walk, explaining that it was part of a “new palette.” Some of the biggest stars walked the carpet but did not give interviews, perhaps to avoid awkward questions about why they decided to come.)Advertisers bought roughly $50.3 million worth of airtime during NBC’s most recent Globes telecast, according to Kantar, a media research firm. NBC paid about $40 million for rights to this year’s show, money that went to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the unorthodox nonprofit organization that bestows the Globes, and Dick Clark Productions, which mounted the telecast.As host, Carmichael veered from serious to lighthearted to boorish (vulgar language, a Whitney Houston joke) during a ceremony that was notable for the diversity of winners and those in contention. The show even made time for a taped message about freedom by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.Eddie Murphy and the television producer Ryan Murphy (“Pose,” “Glee,” “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”) received lifetime achievement awards. Growing up gay in Indiana, Ryan Murphy said, “I never saw a person like me getting an award or even being a character on a TV show.”Eddie Murphy received a lifetime achievement award.Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty ImagesNBC canceled the 2022 telecast amid an ethics, finance and diversity scandal involving the foreign press association. Citing extensive reforms by the group, NBC in September agreed to return the ceremony to its air — under a one-year trial. The press association has overhauled membership eligibility, recruited new members with an emphasis on diversity, enacted a stricter code of conduct and has moved to end its tax-exempt status and transform into a for-profit company with a philanthropic arm. The 96-member organization now has six Black members — up from zero — and has added 103 nonmember voters, a dozen or so of whom are Black.NBC billed the 2023 Globes as “the party of the year” in advertisements. In truth, however, Hollywood tried to pare back the glamour and excess, in part to send a signal — the Globes are still on probation — and in part because studios have been cutting costs and laying off staff to cope with setbacks at their streaming businesses. In the past, the Beverly Hilton has hosted as many as six separate after parties; this time around, there was one scheduled.Even so, the movie capital does not do austerity terribly well. Moët & Chandon was expected to supply more than 100 cases of Champagne, including its Rosé Impérial. Globes attendees were served Icelandic salmon with “citrus-scented celery purée, Maya Pura honey brulée, roasted watermelon radish” and “herb dust.” More

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    Golden Globes Winners 2023: The Complete List

    The winning films, TV shows, actors and production teams at the 2023 Golden Globe Awards.Going into a typical awards show, the big question is, of course, who and what will win the top honors. This year’s Golden Globes ceremony is not a typical awards show.The 80th Golden Globe Awards will be the first edition of the annual spectacle to be on TV since an ethics, finance and diversity scandal involving the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group behind the awards, led NBC to decide not to air the 2022 ceremony. So the biggest question is really whether the show’s organizers can win back the trust of viewers, the network and the Hollywood figures whose presence it relies on.Still, there will be formal winners. As in years past, the show will hand out honors in both film and TV categories. Nominees in the top film categories include “The Fabelmans,” “Tár,” “Elvis,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Banshees of Inisherin.” TV shows up for multiple awards include “Abbott Elementary,” “House of the Dragon,” “Better Call Saul” and “The Crown.”The ceremony is set to air on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time (5 p.m. Pacific time) on NBC, and to be streamed on NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock. Follow below for updates as winners are announced. More

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    Ruggero Deodato, Whose ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ Enraged, Dies at 83

    He directed a variety of movies in a variety of genres. But it was a gruesome found-footage film that brought him both fame and infamy.When you make the most infamous movie ever to come out of a genre sometimes called the cannibal vomitorium, you’ve achieved true cinematic notoriety.That distinction belongs to the Italian director Ruggero Deodato, whose “Cannibal Holocaust” is said to have gotten him briefly accused of murder because of death scenes that seemed a little too real, as well as generating complaints for obscenity and animal cruelty.The film, released in 1980 in Italy and later (sometimes after overcoming bans) in other countries, drew scalding comments from critics and some film scholars. In 1985 the “Phantom of the Movies” column in The Daily News of New York called it “the kind of brain-damaged, stomach-churning cinematic offal that gives junk movies a bad name.”And yet the movie also developed a cult following and is widely credited with influencing later films, especially “The Blair Witch Project” (1999), which, like “Cannibal Holocaust,” used a found-footage conceit intended to leave viewers asking, “Was it real?”Mr. Deodato died on Dec. 29 in Rome. He was 83.Eugenio Ercolani, a filmmaker and film historian who had interviewed Mr. Deodato extensively, confirmed the death. He said Mr. Deodato had pneumonia and had been experiencing kidney and liver failure.Mr. Deodato made a variety of movies in a career that began in the 1960s, as well as directing commercials and episodes of Italian television series. There was, for instance, “Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man” (1976), a crime thriller that Mr. Deodato said was one of his personal favorites. “Last Feelings” (1978), a romantic drama about a competitive swimmer who learns he has a terminal illness, drew comparisons (usually unfavorable) to “Love Story,” the 1970 American blockbuster.But his horror films of the late 1970s and ’80s overshadowed everything else. He directed in a subgenre that, generally speaking, featured encounters between modern Westerners and jungle dwellers, with the Westerners not faring well. Before “Cannibal Holocaust,” he worked the territory with “The Last Survivor” (1977, also released under assorted other titles), in which oil prospectors whose plane is damaged in a rough landing in the Philippines are greeted by cannibals.“Director Ruggero Deodato’s unselective barrage of torture and bloodletting includes termites eating human flesh, a python eating an iguana and a girl giving birth and tossing her infant to a hungry crocodile,” Linda Gross wrote in a 1978 review in The Los Angeles Times.“Promotion material claims ‘The Last Survivor’ was made among authentic tribes and that one crew member who disappeared during filmmaking is presumed to be a victim of cannibalistic rites,” she added. “Pity the cannibals didn’t eat the film instead.”And then came “Cannibal Holocaust.” Filmed in Leticia, in the rain forest of southern Colombia near the country’s borders with Peru and Brazil, it tells the story of an American professor who travels to the Amazon to investigate the disappearance of four journalists who had gone there to make a documentary on cannibal tribes. He finds their film, which recorded atrocities the journalists themselves committed as well as their brutal deaths.Me Me Lai and Massimo Foschi in Mr. Deodato’s “The Last Survivor” (1977), also released under other names, including “Jungle Holocaust,” which one reviewer called an “unselective barrage of torture and bloodletting.”Erre CinematograficaThough Mr. Deodato used local villagers for much of the cast, he brought in some young actors to play the Westerners and, he said, had them sign agreements to not appear in anything else for a year, to keep up the illusion that parts of the movie were real.That came back to haunt him. He said he was accused of actually murdering the actors — of, essentially, making a snuff film — and had to seek them out and produce them in public to get those charges dropped. Other charges, though, stuck, including ones stemming from the real deaths of several animals during the filming.“To confiscate the film the authorities applied a public health law banning the importing of Spanish bullfighting in Italy, and on the basis of this law they seized the film,” he told Starburst magazine years later. “I was fined millions of lira and given a four months suspended sentence.”Mr. Ercolani, who included an interview with Mr. Deodato in his book “Darkening the Italian Screen: Interviews With Genre and Exploitation Directors Who Debuted in the 1950s and 1960s” (2019) and produced the special features included in a recent rerelease of “Cannibal Holocaust,” said that Mr. Deodato “in many ways composed, rather than directed, ‘Cannibal Holocaust,’ as if in a long improvisational jazz session.”“Ruggero Deodato was a director who put himself at the service of the market’s needs,” Mr. Ercolani said by email. “He wasn’t an intellectual, but he was an acutely instinctive man and director. He loved the process of storytelling, may it be in films, TV series or commercials. He had a great sense of rhythm and could recognize a good story.”“This is not to say he wouldn’t put any thought into what he did,” he added, “but he was a man who gave priority to what he felt rather than what he thought. In many ways you could say he followed his gut right into film history with ‘Cannibal Holocaust.’”Mr. Deodato was born on May 7, 1939, in Potenza, in southern Italy. His family moved to the Parioli neighborhood of Rome when he was a child, and he got a taste of acting.“I participated in the early to mid-’50s in a handful of films,” he said in his interview for Mr. Ercolani’s book, “and I was even called by Federico Fellini to audition for a role — I don’t remember for which film — but in the meantime I had gone through puberty and I had lost my boyish charm. I wore glasses, had bad skin, and was discarded immediately.”As a teenager he befriended Renzo Rossellini, son of the director Roberto Rossellini, which provided him with more connections in the film world. In the 1960s he worked with a number of Italian directors on a variety of movies, including Antonio Margheriti’s horror and fantasy titles (“Horror Castle,” “Anthar l’Invincibile”) and Sergio Corbucci’s westerns (“Django”).“I was lucky enough to have been exposed to many different directors,” he said, “and each one of them has been essential to my growth. Margheriti taught me a lot about special effects, while from Sergio Corbucci I inherited a certain taste for violence and brutality.”Mr. Deodato was married to the actress Silvia Dionisio in the 1970s and since the 1990s had been in a relationship with the actress Valentina Lainati. He is also survived by a son, Saverio, and a daughter, Beatrice.Mr. Deodato’s movies after “Cannibal Holocaust” included “Cut and Run” (1985), which involved a cable news crew, drug smuggling and lots of corpses. “You can wait years for a movie as bad as ‘Cut and Run,’” Bill Cosford wrote in a review in The Miami Herald. He also acted occasionally, in his own movies and those of others; his credits included an appearance in “Hostel: Part II” (2007) by the director Eli Roth, a fan of “Cannibal Holocaust.”Mr. Deodato was still racking up minor directing credits until a few years ago. Throughout his career, he was constantly asked about his most famous creation.“He would at times embellish and build upon the numerous legends and myths that surround the complicated making of the film, often contradicting himself in the process,” Mr. Ercolani said. “What is evident is that ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ ended up being a gilded cage for its director.“I feel a large portion of Deodato’s life has been passed battling his own creature, trying to reason with it, or maybe simply trying to fully understand it, and fending off perceptions the film generated about him over the years while embracing the fame it brought him. Deodato was a fun-loving, womanizing, outrageous, egocentric man, larger than life in so many ways, who found himself living for decades with this dark, fascinatingly twisted creature that he tried to educate and direct but that would not listen.” More

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    Film Forum Director Karen Cooper to Step Down After 50 Years

    Karen Cooper, who took over the nonprofit cinema in 1972 and transformed it into a $6 million-a-year operation, will step down in July after five decades.When Karen Cooper took over Film Forum in 1972, the theater was a projector and 50 folding chairs in a loft on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, showing what were then known as underground films. The annual budget was $19,000. Cooper projected the films — sometimes herself — on a single 16-millimeter machine no larger than a microwave.“I’d say to someone, ‘I show independent films,’ and they’d say, ‘You mean pornography?’” Cooper, 74, recalled with a laugh in a recent conversation at the nonprofit art house cinema’s offices, now located across the street from the theater in Greenwich Village.But now, Cooper, who has become synonymous with Film Forum — which has grown into a four-screen space with a $6 million-a-year budget and an influence that reaches far beyond New York City — is stepping down from the director role she’s filled for half a century, the organization announced on Monday.“I’ve thought about this for years,” said Cooper, whose last day will be June 30, though she will remain on staff as an adviser. “I wanted to have a smooth transition.”Succeeding her will be Sonya Chung, 49, the theater’s deputy director, who began working at Film Forum in 2003 as the director of development. Chung, who has a master’s degree in fiction writing from the University of Washington, in Seattle, left in 2007 to write and publish two novels (she also taught literature and writing for three years at Columbia University and for nine years at Skidmore College, both in New York). She returned in 2018 as a programming consultant and a member of the advisory committee, and was hired as deputy director in February 2020.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Meet the Newer, Bolder Michelle Williams: Why she made the surprising choice to skip the supporting actress category and run for best actress.Best-Actress Battle Royal: A banner crop of leading ladies like Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett rule the Oscars’ deepest and most dynamic race.‘Glass Onion’ and Rian Johnson: The director explains why he sold the “Knives Out” franchise to Netflix, and how he feels about its theatrical test.Jostling for Best Picture: Weighing voter buzz, box office results and more, here’s an educated guess about the likely nominees for best picture.“Sonya has great taste and a way of articulating it,” Cooper said. “It immediately occurred to me when I met her — unbeknownst to Sonya — that she had the ability to be the director of the theater.”Cooper has been the director of Film Forum since 1972.Emma Howells/The New York TimesCooper was a newly minted 23-year-old Smith College graduate when she took over the theater founded by two film buffs, Peter Feinstein and Sandy Miller, in 1970. Over her 50-year tenure, she built a beloved cultural institution that has introduced the work of now-prominent filmmakers to American audiences, earning the affection of critics and patrons alike.She has led the theater through three relocations — Film Forum moved to its current space on West Houston Street in 1989 — and oversaw a $5 million expansion and renovation in 2018 that upgraded the seating, legroom and sightlines in all screening rooms and added a fourth, which increased the venue’s capacity to nearly 500 seats.Cooper said she was most proud of working to broaden the scope of Film Forum’s programming, introducing audiences to major German filmmakers of the 1970s like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders. She was also honored to have programmed the New York premieres of ambitious documentaries such as “Asylum,” Peter Robinson’s 1972 look inside the psychiatrist R.D. Laing’s therapeutic community of people with schizophrenia living together in a group home in London; and Spike Lee’s “Four Little Girls” (1997), about the children killed in the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala.It’s the meticulously curated slate of new films — which Cooper, Chung and the artistic director Mike Maggiore map out on a dry erase board in the cinema’s offices as far as six months in advance — that serves as part of the draw for Film Forum’s approximately 200,000 visitors each year, along with a robust lineup of classic films programmed by the repertory artistic director Bruce Goldstein, a concession stand menu of decadent baked goods and a robust lineup of talkbacks with filmmakers.Chung says the biggest challenge facing Film Forum, which is one of the few theaters regularly to feature independent movies in New York, is competition from streaming services. It can be tough, she said, to convince people who’ve become used to watching at home to bundle up, take the subway to the theater and pay $15 for a night out.One solution, she said, is creating a memorable experience that people can’t get anywhere else. They recently hosted Q. and A. events with the filmmaker Lizzie Gottlieb, who directed the documentary “Turn Every Page — The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb,” and the film’s subject, the book editor and her father Robert Gottlieb; as well as with the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, whose dark tale about the life of a donkey, “EO,” has been shortlisted for an Academy Award. Both events sold out, she said.“Especially post-pandemic, when we have so much streaming overload, younger people are antsy for an IRL experience,” she said, using the acronym for “in real life.”Chung also wants to cultivate a younger and more diverse audience, with a particular focus on people of color from outside the theater’s white, more affluent neighborhood. For the last several years, she has created a young members program and developed partnerships with cultural and community-based organizations like Girls Write Now, a creative writing and mentoring nonprofit for young people from underserved communities in New York City; and ArteEast, a nonprofit that presents work by contemporary artists from the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporas.And now, starting this month, the theater’s internship program — which places three college students each semester in roles in the theater’s repertory program, outreach and administration departments — will be paid.“We decided we should pay them in order to attract a more diverse group of young people to be able to work here,” Chung said.As for Cooper, a longtime resident of the far West Village who walks to work each day, she will remain an active member of the organization’s programming team. She’ll continue to represent Film Forum at the Berlin and Amsterdam film festivals. She intends to maintain her schedule of watching at least 500 films per year. She’ll continue to focus on fund-raising for the nonprofit, which raises approximately $3 million of its operating budget each year.“I never thought I’d stay here 50 years,” she said. “But where would I go? What do they say — the hedgehog knows one thing, the fox knows many things?“I’m a hedgehog,” she said. “I know one thing — how to run a movie theater.” More