Black Woman of the Day: Ava DuVernay - Award Winning Filmaker

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Black Woman of the Day: Ava DuVernay - Award Winning Filmmaker

ava-duvernay.jpg




Ava Marie DuVernay is an American filmmaker, marketer and film distributor. At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, DuVernay won the Best Director Prize for her second feature film Middle of Nowhere.

Filmography

Year Film Role Notes
2014 Selma Director/Writer Feature Film
2013 Scandal Director Television Episode
2013 Say Yes for Fashion Fair Director/Writer Branded Short
2013 Venus VS. Director/Writer Television Documentary
2013 The Door for Prada Director/Writer Branded Short
2012 Middle of Nowhere Director/Writer Narrative Feature Film
2011 I Will Follow Director/Writer Narrative Feature Film
2010 My Mic Sounds Nice Director/Executive Producer Television Documentary
2010 Essence Music Festival '10 Director/Writer Television Documentary
2010 Faith Through the Storm Director/Writer Television Documentary
2008 This Is the Life Director/Producer Feature Documentary
2007 Compton in C Minor Director/Producer Short Documentary
2006 Saturday Night Life Director/Writer Narrative Short



Ava%20DuVernay.jpg


 
Last edited:

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Re: Black Woman of the Day: Ava DuVernay - Award Winning Filmmaker

selma-poster.jpeg


 
Last edited:

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Re: Black Woman of the Day: Ava DuVernay - Award Winning Filmmaker

ScreenShot2013-02-28at73635AM.png


Ava+DuVernay+AFI+FEST+2010+Presented+Audi+UpNy0pgIOhZl.jpg


ava-duvernay.jpg
 
Last edited:

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Re: Black Woman of the Day: Ava DuVernay - Award Winning Filmmaker

 
Last edited:

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Re: Black Woman of the Day: Ava DuVernay - Award Winning Filmmaker

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/71992175" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/71992175">DuVernay | SAY YES</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/aaffrm">@AFFRM</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>​
 
Last edited:

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Ava DuVernay on ‘Selma,’ the Racist Sony Emails, and Making Golden Globes History

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...-emails-and-making-golden-globes-history.html

The director of the powerful Martin Luther King Jr. film Selma sat down with Marlow Stern to discuss the film, as well as race in America and Hollywood.
The road to Selma, the first studio biopic of legendary Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr., was a bumpy one.

Once British screenwriter Paul Webb finished his first draft of the screenplay in 2007, it passed through the hands of filmmakers Michael Mann and Stephen Frears, before landing on the lap of Lee Daniels. So, Daniels cast his Paperboy co-star David Oyelowo as Dr. King, and surrounded him with A-listers like Robert De Niro and Hugh Jackman. Then, in 2010, Daniels opted to helm The Butler instead and most of the supporting cast dropped out, leaving Selma on life support. In stepped Oyelowo, who handwrote a letter to the film’s financiers at Pathé begging them to consider an up-and-coming filmmaker by the name of Ava DuVernay for the director’s chair. DuVernay had worked with Oyelowo on Middle of Nowhere, a gripping drama about a woman struggling to come to terms with her husband’s pending eight-year prison stint. But that film was made for just $200,000, half of which came from the personal savings of DuVernay (a former publicist and Hollywood crisis consultant).

Oyelowo nonetheless sold the film’s French backers on the idea, and Tom Wilkinson (Lyndon B. Johnson), Carmen Ejogo (Coretta Scott King), Tim Roth (George Wallace), and a host of others joined the cast. Earlier this year, Oprah Winfrey joined Brad Pitt as a producer on the film, and also stepped into the role of activist Annie Lee Cooper.

“He’s my muse,” DuVernay says of Oyelowo. “Usually muses are hot, young things for some old-man director, so he’s my hot blond. He inspires my imagination because I know he can do anything I can think of.”

Selma tells the story of the 1965 voting rights marches led by Dr. King, which began with the brutal “Bloody Sunday,” where police attacked peaceful marchers on their way from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and ended with King’s famous speech on the steps of the State Capitol. “How long? Not long! Because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” King proclaimed.

The film is garnering plenty of deserved awards buzz—including for its maker, DuVernay, who last week became the first black woman to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director.

Congratulations on your Golden Globe nomination for Best Director.

Oh, thank you.

I wasn’t aware that you were the first black woman to ever be nominated for it, and hearing that factoid struck me as, well, pretty crazy. And I also read that you were only the second black female director to be accepted into the directing branch of AMPAS.

I didn’t know that was the case with the Globes until afterwards. I thank the journalists that are in it now that decided to include me with such a wonderful list of directors, but yeah, the organization’s been around since 1943 so there’s a lack of progress there. It’s nice that they’re catching up to it, but I know that I’m not the first black woman deserving of this honor, so I stand with a lot of women behind me who helped this moment happen.

As far as “awards season” goes, it’s great that Selma is getting the appreciation is deserves, but it’s also the only film by or featuring people of color that’s even in the awards conversation.

Not enough black films are being made to warrant a piece of the pie. You can’t have four films and expect real change, or real integration to happen. We’ve had lovely films in Belle, Beyond the Lights, and Dear White People, and Ryan Coogler is working on Creed, and Dee Rees just finished a film for HBO. These are all by people whom I know and admire, but it’s a very small group of people. The expectation that those things are going to be lauded or that accolades will be put on them isn’t the reason why they’re being done. We all keep in constant contact and conversation with one-another because we know that it’s vital to not just our community, but to the culture. It cannot be that the images that move around the world are just of one kind of person. That’s the reason we do it.

Right. The most troubling thing about those racist Sony emails that leaked was that these high-powered film executives were “othering” these films and considering them to be their own separate category, when they were all very different films whose only connecting tissue was that they featured black actors. And it was such casual racism by people in the halls of power.

I heard about that and read the emails as they were published on the day of the Golden Globe nominations, and I thought it was a great gift to me to be reminded of that kind of sad, limited, crass view of the work that people do in this industry who are not from the dominant culture. It was a gift to me to be reminded on that in that moment when there were a lot of shining lights on me and hoopla around the Globes. It was sobering, and it provided a moment of clarity that I’m thankful for as I move forward.

1418650858995.cached.jpg


It’s pretty serendipitous that you’re promoting a film about the life of Martin Luther King Jr. just one day after Million March NYC, where thousands took to the streets protesting police brutality in the wake of the Eric Garner ruling.

Yeah, absolutely. We were junketing all day and heard people marching outside. It was poignant, and we so wanted to leave and be out there. It was kind of extraordinary. Protest is still very much alive and well in this country, and it’s such a poignant moment for people who have been traumatized by these issues for so long to have a groundswell of emotion, with people taking to the streets with such a fierce desire to be heard. It so oddly equates to our film, and the cultural moment we were in in 1965. It’s jaw-dropping and weird that it’s happening at the same time.

And there were no riots at Million March NYC, and very few arrests. Like the “Bloody Sunday” sequence in Selma, it seems like the presence of a militarized, imposing police force—such as those blocking the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965 or those in present-day Ferguson—can lead to increased tension and a far greater likelihood of violence.

The violence emanates from the other side far more often than not. We know that even with COINTELPRO and all the surveillance that was enacted on the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, and many other movements in the 1960s, that infighting was encouraged, and emotional violence—as well as physical violence—that was all constructed, and manufactured. So much of that is what that aggressive police presence is. When you saw it out in Ferguson, there was a baiting going on.

The media isn’t completely faultless, either. That CNN split-screen they do juxtaposing talking heads in the newsroom with protesters drives me nuts.

Media manipulation is a big part of it, but if you look at King, Malcolm, and the Panthers, to be able to use the media right back was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. And today, when you look at social media, you see that the narrative can be overtaken by people just from Twitter and Instagram. I know when Ferguson was going down those first few nights, I was watching feeds on the ground on Twitter, not CNN.

Right. And the Eric Garner episode wouldn’t have even been such a huge news story if it weren’t for a bystander who caught the whole thing on camera.

He would be one in a long line of black bodies broken every day in this country that don’t get the headlines. This aggression is ambient, it’s all-around, and it’s the atmosphere of people of color in this country. It gets amplified when these incidents happen, but it’s not the first or the last time. And with Selma, it just proves it’s on a continuum that’s very painful.

It’s insane to me that there hasn’t been a biopic of Martin Luther King Jr. yet.

It’s a jaw-dropper. No film with Dr. King at the center in the 46 years since his assassination. And the film came together in the way it was steeped in the brother/sister relationship I have with David [Oyelowo] and his desire to keep this project alive when the previous director [Lee Daniels] stepped aside. David’s the unsung hero, because at that point, the project was dead, but David kept it alive by suggesting me, pitching me, and making a very strong case for me to the producers.

It is troubling that it proved so difficult to put together a $20 million biopic of one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century. What does that say about the film industry?

It was financed by Pathé, a French company—which I think is very telling. They always had the money in hand, but the challenge is that [the budget] should’ve been more.

We live in a world where a J. Edgar Hoover biopic got made before a Martin Luther King Jr. one.

And for more money. That’s the case, and it’s an ongoing thing. Yes, it deserved more, but that was what was on the table, and my producer cracked the budget and figured out a way to do it for that amount.

The framing of the film seemed very relevant today, having the scrolls of FBI surveillance updates on King, tracking his every movement. And of course, he was even spied on by the NSA under Project MINARET.

The FBI’s COINTELPRO program, and the level of surveillance, and the level of infiltration, when you look at it along with today’s issues of spying on citizens, they definitely speak to each other. It’s part of the legacy of this country, unfortunately, and I don’t see it stopping anytime soon.

I imagine one of the more delicate things to tackle in the film, which you did very well, were the rumors of King’s extramarital affairs. The way you had his wife, Coretta, play him the audio threats and alleged sounds of King’s tapped hotel room tryst that accompanied the FBI’s infamous “Suicide Letter” was very affective.

No, it wasn’t difficult. It was exactly what was necessary to have happen. None of us were interested in making a film about a speech, a statue, or all that good stuff; it was about getting underneath it. I’m really allergic to historical dramas. I just don’t like them and when I have free time, it’s not the first thing I’m looking to watch, and so to be charged with making one, I had to build a true character and a large part of that are those intimate moments that color in between the lines.

I tend to have issues with historical dramas too—especially race-relations ones—because whether it’s Schindler’s List or The Blind Side, we’re almost always fed the “white savior” narrative.

Yeah, it’s the “white savior” story, which is certainly not anything I’m interested in making. So we reject that. We know there needs to be diversity in storytellers telling their own stories. I think there’s a beautiful forward movement in that direction with McQueen telling 12 Years A Slave, with Coogler telling Fruitvale, and with Daniels telling The Butler. Especially when we’re dealing with issues of race, culture, identity, and history, the time has passed for the “white savior” holding the black person’s hand through their own history. And I think audiences are more mature now, too. You see this Egyptian movie [Exodus] with no black people in it. That time has passed. It’s an antiquated way of thinking, the world has changed, and Hollywood has to change with it.

Now on a lighter note, with Selma, you did get Oprah to throw a mean haymaker.

Well, according to her, everyone gets her to throw it! She says that every film she makes, she has to hit someone—The Color Purple, The Butler, and Selma.

Good point! Although I think the one with the most on it was in Selma. How nerve-wracking was it to shoot that sequence of Oprah being slammed on the ground by the racist sheriff? I mean… it is Oprah.

A little bit. The day we shot that scene, it was her first day on set and Maya Angelou had died that morning. I told her, “We don’t have to do this today,” and Oprah told me, “No, I’m going to do this for her.” It was a very emotional day. But Oprah is all-in, and such an amazing actor. She’s so flexible and open to ideas. And she throws a good punch.

This is admittedly a loaded question, but do you feel James Earl Ray really killed Martin Luther King Jr.? I understand the King family doesn’t, and there are so many conspiracy theories.

Oh gosh. I don’t know… probably not. I think it was probably deeper than that. But the bottom line is a great man was taken from us, and it retarded a movement that was afoot. Imagine what could have been. If he were still alive to day, with all the Ferguson stuff, I imagine Dr. King would be right out there with the marchers.
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Ava DuVernay responds to LBJ aide's criticisms of 'Selma'

SELMA.jpg


http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/12/29/ava-duvernay-responds-to-lbj-aides-criticisms-of-selma/

In the wake of criticisms of Selma’s characterization of President Lyndon B. Johnson, director Ava DuVernay argued that people should “interrogate history.”

In a Dec. 26 opinion piece for The Washington Post, Joseph A. Califano Jr., who was Johnson’s top assistant for domestic affairs, wrote that Selma “falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr. and even using the FBI to discredit him, as only reluctantly behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and as opposed to the Selma march itself.” Califano argued that “Selma was LBJ’s idea” and concluded that “the movie should be ruled out this Christmas and during the ensuing awards season.”

On Sunday, Selma director DuVernay took to Twitter to combat Califano’s claims. She wrote that the “notion that Selma was LBJ’s idea is jaw dropping and offensive to SNCC, SCLC and black citizens who made it so.” She added:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>More detail here. LBJ's stall on voting in favor of War on Poverty isn't fantasy made up for a film. “<a href="https://twitter.com/donnabrazile">@donnabrazile</a>: <a href="http://t.co/dT4Mp4Em5j">http://t.co/dT4Mp4Em5j</a>.</p>&mdash; Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AVAETC/status/549236980551151616">December 28, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Bottom line is folks should interrogate history. Don't take my word for it or LBJ rep's word for it. Let it come alive for yourself. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Selma?src=hash">#Selma</a></p>&mdash; Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AVAETC/status/549237321648705537">December 28, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


SELMA.jpg

Image Credit: Atsushi Nishijima

Comments 62

In the wake of criticisms of Selma’s characterization of President Lyndon B. Johnson, director Ava DuVernay argued that people should “interrogate history.”
Related
Review: 'Selma'

In a Dec. 26 opinion piece for The Washington Post, Joseph A. Califano Jr., who was Johnson’s top assistant for domestic affairs, wrote that Selma “falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr. and even using the FBI to discredit him, as only reluctantly behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and as opposed to the Selma march itself.” Califano argued that “Selma was LBJ’s idea” and concluded that “the movie should be ruled out this Christmas and during the ensuing awards season.”

On Sunday, Selma director DuVernay took to Twitter to combat Califano’s claims. She wrote that the “notion that Selma was LBJ’s idea is jaw dropping and offensive to SNCC, SCLC and black citizens who made it so.” She added:

As The Huffington Post notes, Mark Updegrove, the director of the LBJ Presidential Library, also took issue with how Johnson appeared in the film, telling the AP that the president became something of a composite character. “When racial tension is so high, it does no good to suggest that the president of the U.S. himself stood in the way of progress a half-century ago. It flies in the face of history,” he told the AP.

A new clip from Selma (via Vulture) showcases this controversial depiction of the dynamic between King and Johnson. King approaches Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) to talk about federal legislation ensuring voting rights for black citizens. Though the clip begins with Johnson telling King that he wants to help, Johnson resists. “This voting thing is just going to have to wait,” he says.

Selma focuses on King’s leadership during the Alabama marches originating in Selma, which led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “DuVernay brilliantly uses a micro event as a way into a larger, more compelling macro story,” Chris Nashawaty wrote in his review for EW. “She makes the backroom drudgery of compromise, gamesmanship, and veiled threats burn with intimacy and intensity.”
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Selma Director Ava DuVernay: Don’t Reduce This Movie to a Single Talking Point

Like many Best Picture contenders that have come before, Selma is being dinged for its supposed historical inaccuracies, with director Ava DuVernay being criticized by Lyndon B. Johnson scholars and his former aides for depicting the president as being pressured by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into introducing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, instead of the other way around.

There’s also some uproar over the film’s possible suggestion — if you’re reading a lot into the editing of a particular scene — that LBJ was involved in the FBI disparaging King. Yesterday, the uproar seemed to have won, with Selma getting snubbed by the Producer’s Guild, perhaps the best predictor of which film will eventually take home Hollywood’s top prize.

How is it possible that the conversation surrounding the only major film to have been made about Dr. King’s legacy is now centered on someone who is not King?

“Every historical film has poetic licenses. I mean, this is not a documentary,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr. at a luncheon today for the film held at the once-male-only Metropolitan Club on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

“This is a feature film, and I think both the script and the direction are masterpieces, and any attempt to make this about the Great White Father is misdirected.” Gates thinks the issue is that no one, including African-Americans, are used to seeing black people represented onscreen as heroes in historical dramas, and that there seems to be an instinct to try to shift that focus back onto typical historical figures and back to the traditional storytelling, which in this case means railroading the perspective of a black female director telling the story of black activists.

“I mean, nobody’s given Steven Spielberg shit about what he changed in the actual Schindler story,” said Gates. “And no one should. Or Lincoln. There are all kinds of things that happened in the film that didn’t actually happen in reality.” And, Gates points, out, historical accuracy in film is impossible.

“Only God knows what literally happened in an historical event,” he said. “I think actually it’s a compliment to the film because it’s so powerful it’s forcing people to think about it and they’re debating about it and that’s all to the good. This will pass. It’s a tempest in a teapot.”

Common, who performed his Oscar-contender original song “Glory,” with John Legend, was more diplomatic, saying that he respected the opinions of LBJ’s defenders, but said about the accusations, “I understand that they’ve got to be addressed, but I wouldn’t focus on it too long, because this film is a positive force in the world.”

For her part, DuVernay also tried to stay on an even-keel, but did defend her film during a Q&A with moderator Gayle King, Selma star David Oyelowo, and Gay Talese, who covered Selma for the New York Times in 1965: “For the film to be, I think, reduced — reduced is really what all this is — to one talking point of a small contingent of people who don’t like one thing, I think is unfortunate.”

Here are her full remarks:

I think everyone sees history through their own lens and I don’t begrudge anyone from wanting to see what they want to see. This is what I see, this is what we see. And that should be valid. I’m not gonna argue history. I could, but I won’t. I’m just gonna say that my voice, David’s voice, the voice of all the artists that gathered to do this, [and] Paramount Pictures which allows us to amplify this story to the world, [are] really focused on issues of justice and dignity. And for this to be I think reduced—reduced is really what all this is—to one talking point of a small contingent of people who don’t like one thing, I think is unfortunate, because this film is a celebration of people, a celebration of people who gathered to lift their voices, black, white, otherwise, all classes, nationalities, faiths, to do something amazing. And if there’s anything that we should be talking about in terms of legacy, it is really the destruction of the legacy of the Voting Rights Act and the fact that that very act is no more in the way that it should be protecting all voices to be able to be heard and participate in the electoral process. That is at risk right now. There’s been violence done to that act that we chronicle its creation in our film. So I would just invite people to keep their eyes on the prize and really focus on the beautiful positives of the film. And that was our intention.
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
<div id="fb-root"></div> <script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>
<div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/RegalEntertainmentGroup/photos/a.161225899198.149136.109497419198/10153545211559199/?type=1" data-width="466"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/RegalEntertainmentGroup/photos/a.161225899198.149136.109497419198/10153545211559199/?type=1">Post</a> by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RegalEntertainmentGroup">Regal Cinemas</a>.</div></div>

https://www.facebook.com/SelmaMovie
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs on Selma Snubs, Lack of Diversity

For a while there, it looked like Selma director Ava DuVernay would make history this year as the first black woman nominated for Best Director, but while the film itself managed to score a Best Picture nomination today, DuVernay was snubbed.

What's more, Selma's powerhouse star David Oyelowo couldn't manage to break into the Best Actor category in a year when all 20 acting nominees were white.

With those sober facts in mind, we had to ask Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs whether the organization has a problem with recognizing diversity.

"Not at all. Not at all," she told Vulture this morning, after reading the nominations out loud with Chris Pine. "The good news is that the wealth of talent is there, and it's being discussed, and it's helpful so much for talent — whether in front of the camera or behind the camera — to have this recognition, to have this period of time where there is a lot of publicity, a lot of chitter-chatter."

But had Isaacs, herself the first African-American to preside over the Academy, expected more nominations from the well-reviewed Selma?

"Well, it's a terrific motion picture, and that we can never and should not take away from it, the fact that it is a terrific motion picture," she said.

"There are a lot of terrific motion pictures, it's a very competitive time, and there's a lot of great work that has been done. I am very happy that Selma is included in our eight terrific motion-picture [nominations]."
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Selma Was Robbed, and Other Unforgivable Oscar Crimes

a_560x375.jpg

It’s that special day of the year when — after scores of lesser awards events, millions of screeners, and billions of prognostications — we say good-bye to so many of the actors who didn’t play characters with wasting diseases or got martyred or didn’t campaign enough or campaign in the right way or have enough money for a proper campaign or weren’t Daniel Day Lewis or Meryl Streep. We say good-bye to great artists who didn’t luck out in the horse race that cinema — like everything else — has become.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. David Oyelowo gave the best male performance of the year but lost out along with the rest of the folks from Selma — which got what I can only call a “token” Best Picture nod. People will likely cite the not-entirely unfair denunciation of the film’s representation of LBJ, which began with former Johnson aide Joseph Califano in the Washington Post. Others will say the DVD screeners weren’t in the mail soon enough — which, if true, is almost too depressing to contemplate. Next year, screeners will either be hand-delivered or cars will be hired to transport voters to and from special screenings. I tend to think that the Academy collectively thought it had discharged its duty to the African-American experience with 12 Years a Slave. How else, in a year in which black people confronted inequality with greater urgency than any time in the last 50 years, can you account for the omission? You say it wasn’t a very good movie? You’re wrong. Selma has scale and depth. Ava DuVernay was robbed.

Bennett Miller and his ponderous Foxcatcher benefited. What can one say about this dim, drawn-out, uninsightful movie except that it wore its artistic credentials so ostentatiously that some Academy voters fell for it? I don’t want to complain too much about the nomination of Steve Carell, whose transformation was — at least before he began to repeat himself — impressive, and Mark Ruffalo grounded the film in something halfway human. But with Selma and the magnificent Mr. Turner — brisk, glancingly penetrating, one of the least artsy films about a major artist ever made — available, the tackiness is breathtaking. Timothy Spall, we hardly knew ye.

At least Marion Cotillard slipped in for Two Days, One Night — though she was even better in The Immigrant. If the too-glum Jennifer Aniston had brought more comic energy to Cake, she might have made the grade. It’s a much better script than the draggy film suggests. Anyway, Julianne Moore is a lock for the victim of early-onset Alzheimer’s in Still Alice, and here’s to her. She’s one of our most fearless, hard-charging actors and has earned — after years of toiling in mostly indie projects — Hollywood’s ultimate accolade.

American Sniper did amazingly well given how despicable it is, but its strong box-office showing and the well-organized hate campaign against anyone who protested its flagrant inaccuracies and the way it affirmed the nonexistent connection between 9/11 and the cataclysmic U.S. invasion of Iraq evidently counted for much. It was also a tribute to the bizarre standing of Clint Eastwood, whose omission from the Best Director category was probably the result of his semi-demented monologue to an empty chair at the last Republican National Convention. A curious split vote, but explicable.

Birdman was expected to do well, and did, very, very — and I can’t imagine how the Brits Cumberbatch and Redmayne won’t cancel each other out and throw the award to Michael Keaton for his furiously self-pitying turn as a washed-up superstar. I love Keaton — always have — and when he wins here, it will be further proof that lesser performances of major performers are often the ones that win awards. I expect the contest will come down to Boyhood (the year’s best movie) versus Birdman (the year’s most overrated) and, alas, give the latter the edge. Keaton and Edward Norton — who brilliantly sent up his own reputation for being a colossal dick — will likely win, and the movie’s jabs at critics won’t hurt. For the former, only dear Patricia Arquette and the screenplay seem like locks.

That The Theory of Everything — an increasingly aimless mess — won a screenplay nomination is high hilarity. Almost as off is the nomination for Felicity Jones, who is meltingly, maddeningly beautiful in the film and potentially a major actress but can’t elevate a dud part. Emily Blunt — who carries much of Into the Woods with her marvelous farcical energy — evidently never had a shot.

I was surprised by every documentary nomination apart from Citizenfour, which will deservedly win, and rather pleased by the inclusion of The Last Days in Vietnam. But I am happy to see more life for Finding Vivian Maier for entirely corrupt reasons, having bought two of her photos. I’d like to thank the Academy ... (Perhaps some members made similar purchases.)

The lack of a nod for The Lego Movie is a head-scratcher, but I admit that after an hour of being dazzled by its incessant invention, I fell off a cliff into fatigue and boredom. Look for Big Hero 6 to walk away with this award for all the obvious reasons. (It’s fun, not too artsy, not Japanese, and not a sequel.)

Big kudos to Damien Chazelle — whose low-low-budget first feature, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, more people should see — for his great Whiplash showing. And a tip of the beanie for Wes Anderson for doing it His Way and finally cracking the Hollywood code with The Grand Budapest Hotel. I’m not a Wes groupie but we need to treasure the artists who can attract both money and good actors while continuing to live in a hermetically sealed solipsistic bubble. And it is a sweet, sad film, which is the most important thing. Isn’t it?
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Al Sharpton Calls For Emergency Meeting To Address 'Appalling' All-White Oscar Nominees

AP/John Minchillo The Rev. Al Sharpton. The Rev. Al Sharpton was left fuming mad after the Oscars revealed its all-white list of nominees for this year's Oscar awards on Thursday.

"The movie industry is like the Rocky Mountains, the higher you get, the whiter it gets," Sharpton quipped in a statement released later in the afternoon.

Sharpton, a critic of the lack of diversity in Hollywood, also announced he was holding an "emergency meeting" next week to address the issue.

"I have called an emergency meeting early next week in Hollywood with the task force to discuss possible action around the Academy Awards," he said.

The prestigious awards ceremony was widely criticized after its nominees for best actor, best actress, and best director were all white. In the past two decades this has happened only one other time, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Sharpton praised the Oscars for nominating the civil-rights film "Selma" for best picture, but said it was "ironic" because the film is based on Dr. Martin Luther King's marches.

Said Sharpton: "The lack of diversity in today's Oscar nominations is appalling and while it is good that Selma was nominated for 'Best Picture,' it's ironic that they nominated a story about the racial shutout around voting while there is a racial shutout around the Oscar nominations. With all of the talent in Selma and other Black movies this year, it is hard to believe that we have less diversity in the nominations today than in recent history."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/al-sharpton-calls-emergency-meeting-210136185.html
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Happy Birthday, Dr. King. An Oscar gift for you. To SELMA cast + crew led by our miracle David Oyelowo! To Common + Legend! Kudos! March on!</p>&mdash; Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AVAETC/status/555731849905844226">January 15, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>​
 

Jay_from_dade

RawStrippers&Nut N Models
Certified Pussy Poster
I've been posting about her for weeks...

really talented well spoken sister.

Yeah she did her thing on Selma.

As far as getting snubbed, It wasn't really that many great movies to choose from this year.

But I definitely think it should have won over "Boyhood".

Gone girl and birdman maybe not so much.
 

raze

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
tumblr_ni1f0q9II21r9pt1so1_500.png


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Good morning. Here are some inspiring words from <a href="https://twitter.com/AVAETC">@AVAETC</a> on The Business with <a href="https://twitter.com/kimmasters">@kimmasters</a> <a href="http://t.co/Wwlyo8TAW0">http://t.co/Wwlyo8TAW0</a> <a href="http://t.co/Sld5AnqSiE">pic.twitter.com/Sld5AnqSiE</a></p>&mdash; KCRW (@kcrw) <a href="https://twitter.com/kcrw/status/555421671331733506">January 14, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>​
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Oprah Winfrey and Selma Cast Mates Marched in Alabama for MLK Day

a_560x375.jpg

Oprah Winfrey, along with other cast and crew members from the movie Selma, gathered near Alabama's Edmund Pettus Bridge yesterday to march with local residents in memory of Bloody Sunday. Winfrey kicked off her address by yelling "Selma!" then explaining that the event was intended to pay homage to both Martin Luther King, Jr. and all who marched. "We stand here today in honor of you all, in honor of them, not just in memory of them, not just in memory of Martin Luther King, or in memory of Selma and what happened on the bridge," she said, speaking in front of Selma City Hall, "but to memorialize Martin Luther King as an idea, and Selma as an idea of what can happen with strategy, with discipline, and with love."

Winfrey marched with Selma director Ava DuVernay, star David Oyelowo, and rapper Common. The AP reported that Common and John Legend performed their Academy Award–nominated song "Glory" from Selma's bridge during the march. Afterward, Winfrey reportedly added:

The idea is that hope and possibility is real. ... Look at what they were able to do with so little, and look at how we now have so much. If they could do that, imagine what now can be accomplished with the opportunity through social media and connection, the opportunity through understanding that absolutely we are more alike than we are different.

Here's a clip of Oprah's pre-march speech:



http://www.bgol.us/board/showthread.php?p=15122713#post15122713
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Spike Lee Blasts ‘Selma’ Oscar Snubs: ‘You Know What? F*ck ’Em’

On the day the Oscar nominations were announced, The Daily Beast hung out with Spike Lee at his Brooklyn office to discuss awards politics and how Selma was overlooked.
A few hours after the nominations for the 87th Academy Awards were announced, I took a pre-planned trip to the Brooklyn office of Spike Lee to profile the Oscar-nominated filmmaker for his latest Kickstarter-funded movie, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, which is now available online on Vimeo on Demand and will be released theatrically February 13.

The coincidence wasn’t lost on either of us. Lee’s films have been on the receiving end of several egregious Academy snubs, from his 1989 classic Do the Right Thing failing to receive a Best Picture nod—the racially problematic Driving Miss Daisy ended up winning that year—to Lee not receiving any nominations for his ambitious biopic Malcolm X, though it later landed on both Roger Ebert’s and Martin Scorsese’s lists of the best movies of the ’90s.

As they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The biggest Oscar news Thursday was that the powerful Martin Luther King Jr. biopic Selma managed nominations only for Best Picture and Best Song while being snubbed in all the other major categories, most notably Best Director (Ava DuVernay) and Best Actor (David Oyelowo). Lee, who said Selma and Birdman were the two best films he saw last year, seemed annoyed but not surprised.

“Join the club!” Lee chuckled, before getting serious. “But that doesn’t diminish the film. Nobody’s talking about motherfuckin’ Driving Miss Daisy. That film is not being taught in film schools all across the world like Do the Right Thing is. Nobody’s discussing Driving Miss Motherfuckin’ Daisy. So if I saw Ava today I’d say, ‘You know what? Fuck ’em. You made a very good film, so feel good about that and start working on the next one.”
But it wasn’t just Selma. This year’s Oscars is the whitest since 1998, with no person of color receiving an acting nomination. It’s a far cry from last year, when 12 Years a Slave took home Best Picture, Lupita Nyong’o won Best Supporting Actress, and Steve McQueen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Barkhad Abdi garnered nods for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor, respectively.

1421367482537.cached.jpg


“Anyone who thinks this year was gonna be like last year is retarded,” said Lee. “There were a lot of black folks up there with 12 Years a Slave, Steve [McQueen], Lupita [Nyong’o], Pharrell. It’s in cycles of every 10 years. Once every 10 years or so I get calls from journalists about how people are finally accepting black films. Before last year, it was the year [in 2002] with Halle Berry, Denzel [Washington], and Sidney Poitier. It’s a 10-year cycle. So I don’t start doing backflips when it happens.”

One of the major problems, according to Lee, is the composition of the Academy voting body, which is 94 percent white and an average of 63 years old. In other words, it’s a different generation of people and thinking, which could explain why most Oscar-winning characters portrayed by African-Americans are subservient—from the slave (12 Years a Slave) to the maid (The Help).

“Let’s be honest. I know they’re trying to become more diverse, but when you look at the Academy and Do the Right Thing or Driving Miss Daisy, are they going to choose a film where you have the relatively passive black servant, or are they going to choose a film with a menacing ‘Radio Raheem?’” asked Lee. “A lot of times, people are going to vote for what they’re comfortable with, and anything that’s threatening to them they won’t.”

But Lee, who also expressed shock that the Roger Ebert documentary Life Itself failed to be recognized, said he was optimistic about the Academy’s trajectory under Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the first black president in Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences history.

“The Academy is trying to be more diverse,” he said. “Cheryl is trying to open it up and have more diversity amongst the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But with Selma, it’s not the first time it’s happened, and every time it does I say, ‘You can’t go to awards like the Oscars or the Grammys for validation. The validation is if your work still stands 25 years later.’”
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Oprah, Ava DuVernay Teaming Up for Drama Series on OWN

Selma director Ava DuVernay and Oprah are reteaming for DuVernay's first TV drama project, OWN announced today. DuVernay will write, direct, and executive-produce a drama series for OWN based on Natalie Baszile's book Queen Sugar, with Oprah executive-producing and appearing in a recurring role. Queen Sugar (which was an O magazine book of the week) is about a young widow who packs up her Los Angeles life and moves, with her tween daughter, to the Louisiana sugarcane farm she just inherited from her father. Would you believe it's a rocky transition? No word yet on additional casting, but the show is scheduled to go into production later this year.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/oprah-ava-duvernay-teaming-up-for-drama-series.html
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
sbiffdavido2_large.jpg

sbiffdavido1_large.jpg


DAVID OYELOWO

-What did you have for dinner tonight? “A maui-maui wrap.”

-Brad Pitt, producer, sang his name at the Palm Springs Film Festival. ”I've endured a 16 year career of people butchering my name, but there's no excuse now. The biggest movie star of the world has sung my name!”

-First read the script in 2007 and back then it was more about LBJ than MLK.

-“The original director didn't want me. He shall remain nameless, Stephen Frears. I'm here now and can say whatever I want!”

-The producers kept Oyelowo onboard and were looking for another director after Frears left. Oyelowo had worked with Ava Duvernay before and suggested her and she got the gig. ”I went from being rejected to helping hire the director.”

-He said it was incredibly liberating that they couldn't use any of Dr. King's actual speeches. “I can't imagine anything worse for an actor than having to deliver the I Have A Dream speech.” He compared it to the To Be Or Not To Be speech in Hamlet. It's the part of the play where the actor can see the audience mouthing along.

-The moderator: “You're a slim guy. How did you get fuller in the face for the role?” Oyelowo: “Macaroni and cheese.” He said the secret was to wait until 11:30 at night and eat. Then when you wake up your face is fuller!

-On the Oscar snub for director and performance. ”Historically, and this is truly my feeling... Generally speaking, we, as black people, have been celebrated more for when we are subservient, when we are not being leaders or kings or at the center of our narrative, driving it forward. To me, Denzel Washington should have won for Malcolm X. We've just got to come to the point whereby there isn't a notion of who black people are that feeds into what we are celebrated as. Not just in the Academy, but in life as well. We have been slaves, we have been servants, but we've also been kings and have changed the world.”

-Credits 12 Years A Slave and The Butler's financial success for getting Selma greenlighted. They both made $200m each worldwide.​
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Marvel Reportedly Wants Ava DuVernay To Direct Superhero Movie

Director Ava DuVernay may be headed to Marvel.

The studio is considering DuVernay, nominated for a Best Director Golden Globe for "Selma," for an upcoming superhero film, according to The Wrap. Marvel apparently wants DuVernay to direct either “Black Panther” or “Captain Marvel," both due out in 2018. She would be the first black woman to direct a major superhero movie.

HitFix in February asked DuVernay if she had any interest in directing a Marvel film. She responded with a laugh and said, "I'm not a big comic book fan, but I know I love to deconstruct heroes, deconstruct myths. I probably want to do some origin story." DuVernay admitted that she didn't know much about Marvel's properties, but added, "everything is possible."

The Wrap's report comes as the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday called for an investigation into what it called Hollywood's "systemic failure" to hire female directors. Ariela Migdal, a senior attorney with the ACLU Women's Rights Project, said the failure to hire women directors is "a pretty solid sign there's discrimination going on."

It's worth noting that Patty Jenkins will be the first female director on a major superhero movie. Jenkins, who was originally optioned to direct "Thor: The Dark World," is directing the upcoming "Wonder Woman" film.

Reps for Marvel and DuVernay weren't immediately available for comment.
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
avaduvernayselma_large.jpg

In the very same THR interview where Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige dished about Spider-Man stuff, he also was asked about the rumor of Ava DuVernay being in consideration for either Black Panther or Captain Marvel.

He confirmed they've met with her and also confirmed that by end of the summer they'll have locked and announced their director for Black Panther (and possibly also Captain Marvel), but oddly was ambiguous about which project they've actually met with her on.

The line of questioning was about Black Panther and the assumption is that the studio will want to go with a person of color as director of that movie, but it could just as easily have been about Captain Marvel, which will be the studio's first solo female superhero film.

With Selma, DuVernay proved she has a knack for character drama and creating palpable tension, so I think she's a good fit for either story.

Anyway, that's the tiny update. Yes, Marvel has met with Ava, no they haven't locked in a director yet for either Black Panther or Captain Marvel.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ant-man-saga-paul-rudd-804566
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Ava DuVernay tweets support for Bree Newsome, 'a black superhero I admire'

ava-duvernay_0.jpg


Activist Bree Newsome was arrested on Saturday morning in Columbia, South Carolina, after removing the Confederate flag from in front of the State Capital building.

“We removed the flag today because we can’t wait any longer,” Newsome said in a statement. “We can’t continue like this another day. It’s time for a new chapter where we are sincere about dismantling white supremacy and building toward true racial justice and equality.”

Support for Newsome’s act of protest was strong on social media – the hashtag #FreeBree began trending shortly after her arrest – including from members of the Hollywood community. Michael Moore, Empire co-creator Danny Strong, and Selma director Ava DuVernay tweeted about Newsome on Saturday, with DuVernay referencing her recent connections to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“I hope I get the call to direct the motion picture about a black superhero I admire. Her name is @BreeNewsome,” DuVernay wrote.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Yes. I hope I get the call to direct the motion picture about a black superhero I admire. Her name is <a href="https://twitter.com/BreeNewsome">@BreeNewsome</a>. <a href="http://t.co/BgMeaNsbYk">pic.twitter.com/BgMeaNsbYk</a></p>&mdash; Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AVAETC/status/614803521351725056">June 27, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige confirmed this week that he had met with DuVernay about the possibility of directing the studio’s Black Panther.

“I mean, is it a huge goal that I’m thinking about and striving for? No. But if there was the right story, absolutely,” DuVernay told EW earlier this year when asked about directing superhero movies. “I think it’s important that our heroes reflect more than one kind of person.”

Newsome and another man were charged with defacing a monument, a misdemeanor offense.
 
Top