‘Poor Things,’ ‘Past Lives,’ ‘The Bear’ Among 2024 ACE Awards nominees

Whitney Houston.Every time I hear someone on “American Idol” or “The Voice” attempt the impossible by singing one of her songs.Every time I hear “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” in a bar or club and watch generations of women and men — both gay and straight — shimmy and sing at the top of their lungs.And every Grammys since I was there in Los Angeles that weekend when she shockingly passed — at age 48 — the day before music’s biggest night on Feb. 11, 2012.But perhaps I miss Houston the most every single time that someone steps up to the mic to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl.

The Taste Of Things, a meditation on turn-of-the-century French cooking — no chicken wings or nachos in sight — is stirring up a nice weekend for IFC Films with $126k and the best per-theater opening of the year so far on Super Bowl weekend.

A handful of indies bow or expand this weekend as Oscar hopefuls from Poor Things to The Holdovers and American Fiction crowd theaters after nominations earlier this week. Anatomy Of A Fall is getting a big bump. Oppenheimer is back on Imax.

There are just a few hours to go until the all-important final of The Traitors after an entertaining second series. Tonight (January 26) viewers will find out if the remaining Traitors, Harry and Andrew, will be victorious and steal the money, or if the final Faithfuls, Evie, Jaz and Mollie, will suss them out in time to win the prize pot.

Annika Pham Banijay Benelux’s Belgian banner Jonnydepony has set rising star Willem De Schryver from Netflix’s YA hit show” High Tides” (“Knokke Off”) for the title role of “I Was a Cop in the 80s,” ordered by Amazon Prime Netherlands and Flemish streamer Streamz. The period crime drama in development will be pitched by seasoned showrunner Philippe De Schepper (“Arcadia,” “Missing Persons Unit”), co-writer Bas Adriaensen and producer Helen Perquy (“Tabula Rasa”) as part of a Focus on Flanders at Göteborg’s forthcoming TV Drama Vision (Jan. 30-31).

EXCLUSIVE: The Ford Foundation is coming through for documentary filmmakers in a big way.  

The Strangers’ Case from American filmmaker Brandt Andersen and starring French actor Omar Sy will make its world premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. 

Jaden Thompson Ramy Youssef will return to HBO with the new comedy special “Ramy Youssef: More Feelings,” debuting on the network in March before it streams on Max. Youssef is set to tape the special on Feb. 2 and Feb.

Siddhant Adlakha Modeled on a late-’80s/early-’90s American family sitcom — which soon transitions to a midnight splatterfest — the tongue-in-cheek Dutch production “Krazy House” has all the transgressive stylings of a 15 year-old’s Reddit post on an atheism forum in 2010. Directors Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil offer ideas of subversion that feel both long-outdated in concept and completely dull in execution, to the point that merely describing the film feels irresponsible, lest its premise accidentally lure curious viewers to the cinema.

Before making Past Lives, writer-director Celina Song says with a laugh, she didn’t even know how to read a call sheet. Flash forward a year, though, from the A24 romantic drama’s world premiere at Sundance, and she’s landed an Original Screenplay nom for her debut feature.

The nominations for the 2024 Oscars are finally here, and we have the full list for you to see!

Jordan Moreau The countdown to the 2024 Oscars has officially started. All of the nominations for the 96th annual Academy Awards were announced Tuesday morning.

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER “Blue Bag Life” — Lisa Selby (Director), Rebecca Lloyd-Evans (Director, Producer), Alex Fry (Producer) “Bobi Wine: The People’s President” — Christopher Sharp (Director) [also directed Moses Bwayo] “Earth Mama” — Savanah Leaf (Writer, Director, Producer), Shirley O’Connor (Producer), Medb Riordan (Producer) “How to Have Sex” — Molly Manning Walker (Writer, Director) “Is There Anybody Out There?” — Ella Glendining (Director) ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY “Anatomy of a Fall” — Justine Triet, Arthur Harari “Barbie” — Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach “The Holdovers” — David Hemingson “Maestro” — Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer “Past Lives” — Celine Song ADAPTED SCREENPLAY “All of Us Strangers,” Andrew Haigh “American Fiction,” Cord Jefferson “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan “Poor Things,” Tony McNamara “The Zone of Interest,” Jonathan Glazer FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE “20 Days in Mariupol” — Mstyslav Chernov, Raney Aronson Rath “Anatomy of a Fall” — Justine Triet, Marie-Ange Luciani, David Thion “Past Lives” — Celine Song, David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon “Society of the Snow” — J.A. Bayona, Belen Atienza “The Zone of Interest” — Jonathan Glazer ANIMATED FILM “The Boy and the Heron” — Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” — Sam Fell, Leyla Hobart, Steve Pegram “Elemental” — Peter Sohn, Denise Ream “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” — Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K.

The BAFTA nominations are in less than 24 hours and the Oscar nominations are in less than a week, but there are still other adjacent awards season nominations to unveil. This morning, The USC Libraries revealed the honorees for the 2024 USC Scripter Awards rewarding the best in adapted screenplays for television and film.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor The finalists for the 36th USC Libraries Script Awards, honoring the most accomplished films and episodic series adaptations, have been announced. Among the selected are “American Fiction,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Oppenheimer” and “Poor Things,” all top-tier contenders for Oscar attention.

Danny Brown has shared the music video for his recent track ‘Y.B.P.’ and announced a UK and European tour for 2024.‘Y.B.P.’ featuring Bruiser Wolf appeared on the US rapper and singer’s 2023 album ‘Quaranta’, his first full-length solo outing in four years.Brown and Bruiser Wolf star in the new music video as a claymation versions of themselves roaming around their home city, as they reflect on being “young, black and poor being raised in Detroit”.The video was created by UK-based directors and animators Edem Wornoo and Will Child. Check it out below.‘Quaranta’ was released digitally in November and will be available on vinyl from Friday (January 19) via Warp Records.Alongside the video drop, Brown has announced a 21-date tour of the UK and Europe in support of the new album, which follows the previously announced North American tour taking place in March.Brown will kick off the UK leg at John Dee in Oslo, Norway, before stopping off in Copenhagen, Berlin, Vienna, Prague and more.

The Bear is one of the most celebrated television shows of the decade so far, picking up multiple Emmys and Golden Globes in the last two weeks.The hit TV series follows chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (played by Jeremy Allen White) from kitchens of fine dining restaurants back to his family’s sandwich shop – The Original Beef Of Chicagoland – after the death of his brother.NME named the show the best series of 2023, writing: “No other series has since proved better at showing the shit endlessly hitting the fan, but it was the flashbacks, side-steps and breath-catching across these 10 perfect episodes that charred, sliced and tenderised harder than any of the kitchen chaos.”The Bear picked up six Emmys on Monday (January 15), including Outstanding Comedy Series, as well as Lead Actor for Jeremy Allen White, Supporting Actor for Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Supporting Actress for Ayo Edebiri. It also won three Golden Globes Awards earlier this month, including for White and Edebiri again.Both seasons of The Bear are currently streaming in the UK on Disney+, while it is available to watch on Hulu in the US.

Succession and The Bear both scored major success with six wins during the Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony, closely followed by Beef which received five on-stage awards. Hollywood stars descended at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles for the annual awards on Monday, 15 January, which were pushed back from September due to the US actors' and writers' strikes, to celebrate the best in television.

Caroline Brew editor The 35th Annual Palm Spring International Film Festival, which took place from Jan. 4 to 15, has announced this year’s jury award winners.

One night, writer-director Celine Song found herself in an East Village bar in New York. On one side of her sat her husband, on the other her childhood sweetheart from Korea. As she translated the words between the two, she realized she was translating between two versions of her own life: what she had chosen and what might have been; her Korean self and her American self.