عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Entertainment

Five Things to Watch for at the Oscars

Michelle Yeoh attends the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California, US, February 26, 2023. (Reuters)
Michelle Yeoh attends the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California, US, February 26, 2023. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Five Things to Watch for at the Oscars

Michelle Yeoh attends the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California, US, February 26, 2023. (Reuters)
Michelle Yeoh attends the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California, US, February 26, 2023. (Reuters)

The 95th Academy Awards take place Sunday, with wacky multiverse movie "Everything Everywhere All at Once" leading the nominations with 11.

Late night funnyman Jimmy Kimmel returns to host the Oscars for a third time. His first stint ended with the infamous mix-up that saw "La La Land" accidentally named best picture in 2017.

Assuming the correct envelopes are handed out this year, here are five other things to watch out for on Hollywood's biggest night:

Rihanna and 'RRR' but no Gaga

All five best song nominees are invited to perform live at the Oscars.

That means pop superstar Rihanna will grace the stage, just weeks after her long-awaited Super Bowl halftime show, at which she revealed she is pregnant.

She will sing "Lift Me Up" from "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," while Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and "Everything Everywhere" star Stephanie Hsu will perform "This Is A Life."

Perhaps the biggest spectacle will be "Naatu Naatu," the infectious showstopper from India's "RRR," which has recently had audiences dancing in their seats in Hollywood movie theaters.

Sadly, there will be no Lady Gaga. Nominated for "Hold My Hand" from "Top Gun: Maverick," she is unavailable as she is "in the middle of shooting a movie," Oscars producers say.

Lenny Kravitz will bring further stardust to the gala, performing music to accompany the annual "In Memoriam" tribute.

Best actress history?

This closely fought category is likely to buck tradition and break records.

If Michelle Yeoh ("Everything Everywhere") beats Cate Blanchett ("Tar"), she will become the first Asian woman to claim the best actress prize.

Should Blanchett win, she will become just the eighth actor in history to win three Oscars.

Meanwhile, Andrea Riseborough would surely be the most unlikely ever winner, having earned her nomination for obscure indie film "To Leslie" thanks to a controversial campaign by celebrity pals of the film's cast and crew.

Finally, there is the question of who presents the award.

Traditionally, it is the previous year's best actor winner.

Given Will Smith is serving a decade-long Oscar ban (see below), that doesn't seem very likely.

Slap chat

Just as it is impossible to write an Oscars preview this year without mentioning "The Slap," expect the ceremony to address the incident.

For those living under a rock, Will Smith assaulted Chris Rock on stage during last year's Oscars for cracking a joke about his wife.

Rock himself got the ball rolling last weekend, joking in a live Netflix special that he recently rooted for the slave master who beats Smith's character in his latest movie "Emancipation."

Oscars organizers say the plan is to "acknowledge it" -- presumably in Kimmel's opening monologue -- and then swiftly "move on."

But will the various presenters and winners be able to keep Smith's name out of their mouths?

Marvel-ous Bassett

Will Angela Bassett "do the thing?"

Before she became the subject of a viral meme -- courtesy of Ariana DeBose's cringeworthy rap lyrics at the BAFTAs -- Bassett was best known for her enviable acting CV.

With acclaimed films like "What's Love Got to Do with It" and "Boyz n the Hood," to name a few, it is surprising she has never won an Oscar.

It would be even more surprising if her first win came for a superhero movie.

But that appears a likely outcome, after her role as Queen Ramonda in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" earned the first-ever Oscar acting nomination for a Marvel film.

She will have to see off Jamie Lee Curtis ("Everything Everywhere") and Kerry Condon ("The Banshees of Inisherin") to pull off the win.

'All Quiet' makes noise

Karl Marx said history repeats itself -- the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

He probably wasn't talking about the Oscars, but if "All Quiet on the Western Front" wins best picture, it will be the first film to essentially win Hollywood's biggest prize twice.

The original, English-language screen adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's anti-war novel won top honors way back in 1930, at just the third-ever Oscars.

Should this year's German-language version win, it will be Netflix's first best picture win -- just a year after Apple pipped it to become the first streamer to collect Hollywood's biggest prize.

If there is any film that can stop the "Everything Everywhere" juggernaut on Sunday, it's probably this one.

Most Viewed

 
 
Entertainment

Sundance Film Festival Hits Utah, One Last Time

From Hollywood's biggest stars to breakthrough newcomers, the cinema world has descended on Sundance. Valerie MACON / AFP/File
From Hollywood's biggest stars to breakthrough newcomers, the cinema world has descended on Sundance. Valerie MACON / AFP/File
TT
TT

Sundance Film Festival Hits Utah, One Last Time

From Hollywood's biggest stars to breakthrough newcomers, the cinema world has descended on Sundance. Valerie MACON / AFP/File
From Hollywood's biggest stars to breakthrough newcomers, the cinema world has descended on Sundance. Valerie MACON / AFP/File

The first Sundance Film Festival since the death of founder Robert Redford begins in Park City Thursday -- the final time it will be held in the mountains of Utah.

Hollywood A-listers Olivia Wilde, Natalie Portman and Ethan Hawke are expected to walk the red carpet at the snowcapped Rocky Mountain resort, along with a host of lesser-known filmmakers at one of the most important gatherings in the global movie calendar.

Amy Redford, daughter of the "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" star who created the festival in 1978, said this year's get-together would be an emotional experience, just four months after her father's death.

"Very proud," she said, when asked how she felt about her father's legacy.

"He was somebody that created from the field, not from on high," she told AFP.

"He never meant to be the center of focus for this whole organization. The center of focus was always the storytellers."

Line-up

Among the dozens of feature-length films and documentaries on show over the coming days will be "The Invite" directed by and starring Wilde, opposite Seth Rogen and Edward Norton.

The script, co-written by Rashida Jones ("Parks and Recreation"), deals with a couple whose mysterious neighbors come over for dinner.

"Mad Men" stars Jon Hamm and John Slattery reunite in "Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass," where a Midwestern bride-to-be rampages through Hollywood in an effort to even the score after her fiance uses the couple's "free celebrity pass" on his famous crush.

In "The Gallerist" -- starring Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Da'Vine Joy Randolph, along with Jenna Ortega and Sterling K. Brown -- a desperate curator tries to sell a dead body at Art Basel Miami.

Among the most hotly anticipated non-celebrity films premiering at the festival is "The History of Concrete," a sideways look by John Wilson about how to sell a film about building materials.

A strong international lineup includes director Molly Manners debut feature "Extra Geography" from the UK and queer genre film "Leviticus" from Australia.

"Hanging by a Wire" tells the story of the nail-biting race to save schoolboys dangling from a stranded cable car in the Himalayan foothills.

"Hold On to Me" from Cyprus traces the efforts of an 11-year-old tracking down her estranged father, while documentary "Kikuyu Land" from Kenya examines how powerful outside forces use local corruption to dispossess a people.

All of them will offer something special, Amy Redford said.

"I think the look on the faces of people that premiere their films and realize they're looking out into an audience who understand what they were trying to say...it always just is kind of a stunning experience," she said.

Moving on

The festival moves next year to Boulder, Colorado, having outgrown its current host city.

For festival programmer John Nein, who has been at every edition since 1996, leaving Park City will be bittersweet.

"It's a special place," he told AFP.

"It's a place that has been so tied to how the festival works in terms of people coming to this place. It's not particularly convenient. It's really cold."

"But in a weird way, that's what brings people here and it's what creates the audience that we have here. So I feel like that's part of what made it special."

Festival director Eugene Hernandez said the Sundance Institute will continue to have roots in Utah, even as the festival moves to Colorado.

But this year's program will be one to remember.

"There's going to be a lot of laughter, there will probably also be some tears, there will be joy, there will be connection, there will be community," he said.

"I think those are all aspects that make a festival."

Entertainment

Brooklyn Beckham Accuses David and Victoria of Putting Branding Before Family and Sabotaging Wedding

03 September 2019, United Kingdom, London: David Beckham (L), Victoria Beckham and Brooklyn Beckham arrive at the GQ Men of the Year Awards 2019 in association with Hugo Boss at the Tate Modern. (dpa)
03 September 2019, United Kingdom, London: David Beckham (L), Victoria Beckham and Brooklyn Beckham arrive at the GQ Men of the Year Awards 2019 in association with Hugo Boss at the Tate Modern. (dpa)
TT
TT

Brooklyn Beckham Accuses David and Victoria of Putting Branding Before Family and Sabotaging Wedding

03 September 2019, United Kingdom, London: David Beckham (L), Victoria Beckham and Brooklyn Beckham arrive at the GQ Men of the Year Awards 2019 in association with Hugo Boss at the Tate Modern. (dpa)
03 September 2019, United Kingdom, London: David Beckham (L), Victoria Beckham and Brooklyn Beckham arrive at the GQ Men of the Year Awards 2019 in association with Hugo Boss at the Tate Modern. (dpa)

A Beckham family falling-out has spilled further into public view in a series of social media posts from Brooklyn Beckham alleging that his parents David and Victoria Beckham have tried to sabotage his marriage and have always prioritized public branding over their family relationships.

“For my entire life, my parents have controlled narratives in the press about our family. The performative social media posts, family events and inauthentic relationships have been a fixture of the life I was born into,” Brooklyn Beckham wrote in several pages of text posted via Instagram stories.

At 26, he's the eldest of the four children of the retired English football superstar and former Spice Girl-turned-fashion designer and has worked as a model and photographer, even aspiring to be a chef. He married American actor Nicola Peltz, daughter of activist investor Nelson Peltz, in 2022.

“Recently, I have seen with my own eyes the lengths that they’ll go through to place countless lies in the media, mostly at the expense of innocent people, to preserve their own facade. But I believe the truth always comes out,” the posts said.

The posts make public a barely veiled feud that had been brewing in anonymously sourced stories in tabloids for months. Younger brother Cruz Beckham said on Instagram in December that Brooklyn had blocked family members on social media.

“I do not want to reconcile with my family.” Brooklyn Beckham wrote. “I’m not being controlled, I’m standing up for myself for the first time in my life.”

Unlike his three younger siblings, Brooklyn Beckham did not appear in his mother's recent Netflix docuseries, “Victoria Beckham,” and did not show up at the October premiere as he and Peltz had for the London premiere in 2023 of the one centered on his father, called just “Beckham."

Many of the grievances described in the Instagram stories stem from the Peltz-Beckham wedding in Florida. He accused his mother of bailing at the last minute on designing Peltz's wedding dress, and said she “hijacked” the first dance he was supposed to have with his wife to music performed by Marc Anthony.

“She danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone,” Brooklyn Beckham wrote. “I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life.”

Without giving specifics he also wrote that before the wedding his parents “repeatedly pressured and attempted to bribe me into signing away the rights to my name.”

David and Victoria Beckham did not have an immediate public response to the posts, and messages to representatives from The Associated Press were not immediately answered.

In a Tuesday appearance on CNBC, David Beckham, who is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, did not directly address his son's statements, but said that children make mistakes on social media and should be allowed to.

“That’s what I try to teach my kids. But you know, you have to sometimes let them make those mistakes as well,” he said.

Married since 1999, David and Victoria Beckham have three other children, 23-year-old Romeo, 20-year-old Cruz and 14-year-old Harper.

Entertainment

‘Snow White’ and ‘War of the Worlds’ Lead Razzie Nominations

Cast member Rachel Zegler attends a premiere for the film "Snow White", in Los Angeles, California, US, March 15, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member Rachel Zegler attends a premiere for the film "Snow White", in Los Angeles, California, US, March 15, 2025. (Reuters)
TT
TT

‘Snow White’ and ‘War of the Worlds’ Lead Razzie Nominations

Cast member Rachel Zegler attends a premiere for the film "Snow White", in Los Angeles, California, US, March 15, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member Rachel Zegler attends a premiere for the film "Snow White", in Los Angeles, California, US, March 15, 2025. (Reuters)

With Oscar nominations a day away, Hollywood’s annual reckoning with its film failures took shape on ​Wednesday as Disney’s live-action “Snow White” and the remake “War of the Worlds” tied for six nods for the Golden Raspberry Awards.

Popularly known as the Razzies, the awards are an annual Oscar spoof that spotlights what voters deem Hollywood’s worst performances. The 46th ‌Golden Raspberry ‌Awards are set for ‌March 14, ⁠the ​day ‌before the Oscar awards.

Disney’s "Snow White," a 2025 remake of the 1937 animated classic, scored a worst picture nod along with nominations for worst remake, director and screenplay. The fantasy film stars Rachel Zegler as Snow White ⁠and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, and its seven ‌computer-generated dwarf characters were ‍also cited for both ‍worst supporting actors and screen combo.

Tying with “Snow ‍White,” the 2025 science fiction film "War of the Worlds," starring rapper Ice Cube and actor Eva Longoria, based on H. G. Wells' 1898 ​novel, also scored six nominations, including worst picture, actors, remake, director, screenplay and screen ⁠combo.

Other nominees include the psychological thriller “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” science fiction film “Star Trek: Section 31,” and the action-adventure Netflix film “The Electric State,” starring “Stranger Things” lead Millie Bobby Brown.

More than 1,100 Razzie members from across the United States and about two dozen other countries vote on the awards, according to the Razzie website. Voters are members of the Golden Raspberry Foundation ‌that consists of film critics and movie experts.