‘Holdovers’ Star Downplays Oscar Hype After Latest Win at Spirit Awards

US actress Da'Vine Joy Randolph arrives for the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, February 24, 2024. (AFP)
US actress Da'Vine Joy Randolph arrives for the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, February 24, 2024. (AFP)
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‘Holdovers’ Star Downplays Oscar Hype After Latest Win at Spirit Awards

US actress Da'Vine Joy Randolph arrives for the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, February 24, 2024. (AFP)
US actress Da'Vine Joy Randolph arrives for the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, February 24, 2024. (AFP)

Da'Vine Joy Randolph has won every major prize going this film award season for her supporting role in "The Holdovers" -- but she insists she is taking nothing for granted as the Oscars loom.

Randolph, who stars in the 1970s-set indie drama as a cook and grieving mother stranded at a New England boarding school over the winter holidays, claimed her latest accolade Sunday at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Having already won a Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award, a BAFTA and much more, she now seems poised to collect the best supporting actress Oscar, which will be handed out in just two weeks.

"This has been a really surreal, powerful time for me to see dreams manifesting into reality one by one," she told AFP backstage at the Santa Monica award show, which honors low- and mid-budget movies.

"I don't expect anything. I'm not betting on anything. I'm just here present, and every single one surprises me.

"I take nothing for granted. In regards to the Oscars I don't, truthfully. I'm just happy to be invited into the building. No more, no less."

Randolph, 37, who grew up in Philadelphia, is a highly trained stage actor who attended Yale drama school after initially pursuing classical and opera singing.

After turns on Broadway and the West End, she has appeared on the big screen opposite stars such as Eddie Murphy in "Dolemite Is My Name" and Robin Williams in "The Angriest Man In Brooklyn."

But Alexander Payne's "The Holdovers" has propelled Randolph into Hollywood's A-list, with few if any pundits betting against her at the Oscars.

The film is in the running for five Academy Awards overall, including best picture, with Randolph's co-star Paul Giamatti also a strong contender for best actor.

"What am I expecting? I don't know!" she joked after her Spirit Award win.

"The process has been a beautiful one. It's been a really great time."



How the World’s Press Rated Paris’s Olympics Opening Ceremony

Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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How the World’s Press Rated Paris’s Olympics Opening Ceremony

Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Paris broke with tradition on Friday by turning the Olympic Opening Ceremony into a parade down the River Seine rather than a stadium-based show.

TV viewers around the world were treated to a spectacle performed on bridges, the riverbank and rooftops, culminating with French athletes Marie-Jose Perec and Teddy Riner lighting the Olympic cauldron and a performance from Canada's Celine Dion.

However, the 6,000-odd athletes, 3,000 performers, 300,000 spectators and dozens of world leaders had to endure heavy rain for much of the event.

Here's how the world's media judged Paris's ambitious ceremony:

FRANCE

Newspaper Le Monde wrote in a rave review that director Thomas Jolly "succeeded in his challenge of presenting an immersive show in a capital transformed into a gigantic stage".

Right-leaning Le Figaro said the show was "great but some of it was just too much". It said viewers "could have been spared" images including an apparent recreation of the painting of The Last Supper of Jesus and his apostles in front of a fashion show.

UNITED STATES

"Opening Ceremony Misses the Boat" headlined the New York Times's television review.

It wrote that the river parade "turned the ceremony into something bigger, more various and more intermittently entertaining. But it also turned it into something more ordinary — just another bloated made-for-TV spectacle".

The Washington Post was more glowing, noting that the organizer's "bold thinking" brought a shine back to an event that has seen its popularity wane in recent years.

CHINA

China's Xinhua state news agency said the ceremony succeeded in showcasing France.

"There were Can-Can girls, a homage to the reconstruction of Notre Dame and of course the French Revolution, with fireworks, heavy metal and singers who appeared to have lost a battle with the guillotine.

"If there was a downside to the ceremony, it is that any event performed over such a long distance has to struggle with continuity, and the big difference between this ceremony and others is that the parade of athletes was mixed in with the performances."

SOUTH KOREA

South Korean media noted the "impressive" imagination of using the whole city as the backdrop but the event was overshadowed by the country's team being misintroduced as North Korea.

South Korea's CBS radio said while the incident was no doubt an honest mistake, it was disappointing the Paris organizers failed at what should have been a very basic part of the event.

GERMANY

"As beautiful as it was mad," wrote Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine. "France revolutionized the opening ceremony ... by the end even the rain had been defeated."

Tabloid Bild was bowled over by Celine Dion's return to the stage after four years, defying illness to "sing just as in the best of times. She deserves a gold medal for this performance."

BRITAIN

British tabloid The Sun joked "Wet The Games Begin!" on its front page alongside an image of the Eiffel Tower surrounded by laser beams, and described the ceremony as spectacular.

The Daily Mail's headline read "La Farce!", mainly in reference to the train disruption earlier in the day, but the paper also judged Paris's gamble on the weather had "backfired spectacularly".

A writer for the Guardian newspaper described the parade of boats on the Seine as "like watching an endless series of weirdly nationalistic office parties" but concluded Celine Dion had rescued the event with a "jaw dropping" performance.

ITALY

La Gazzetta dello Sport said the ceremony was "something unprecedented, even extraordinary. A great show or a long, tedious work, depending on your point of view and sensibility."

The mainstream Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera likened the show to a contemporary art performance, noting that "some (spectators) were bored, others were amused, many found the spectacle disappointing".

The left-leaning Italian daily La Repubblica said the ceremony overshadowed the athletes.

"A lot of France, a lot of Paris, very little Olympics.... a mirror that the immortal Paris turned on herself and discovered that she was so much, too much and soaking wet".