Movies: 2023 Oscar (Academy Awards) nominations announced: See the full list

playahaitian

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I holla'd at Tom Cruise and he had a message for you:

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Hi @playahaitian I'm Tom Cruise,

You may or may not know me but I make movies.

Some have been blockbusters, wait many have been blockbusters and many have been films that I just wanted to do.

Let's cut to the chase. I just googled my net worth and they say that I'm worth 620 million...

But I'm really worth more, that's our secret just don't tell the IRS.

I wanted to let you know why I didn't attend the Oscars on Sunday.

I have better things to do than to watch some wanna be funny faggit talk about me and my religion. And you may not know this about me but I hate shitty jokes like I hate shitty food.

Also I'm an actor but I'm a person first. And I'll be damned if a fucking talk show host tells his struggle jokes about me while I struggle to keep a fake smile while wanting to slap the smug smile and skin off of his face.

So in short, I saw what happened to Will Smith last year and one joke about my religion would've had me stomping a mudhole in that sack of shit Kimmel.

That's why I wasn't there.

And if you haven't seen it go watch Top Gun: Maverick!

And if you have seen it, then go see it again because it's fucking great fuck a critic and an Oscar voter!

We're in a safe space and a judgement free zone right? I mean this is BGOL, right?

Maverick should've won best picture! I'm tired of getting robbed by these shitty files that no one likes except people that don't get pussy!

Those bitchass niggas always trying to hold a real nigga back!

My movie was about planes!

Fucking planes!

No jets, that fly real fucking fast!

You're pissing me off by having me think about some nigga named Oscar so fuck Oscar and fuck Jimmy I'm out!

T Cruise!

Post of the Week

:cheers:
 

playahaitian

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Dwayne Johnson Posts Brendan Fraser Reunion Video and Celebrates His Oscar Win, 22 Years After ‘Mummy Returns’: ‘Enjoy Your Flowers’

By Zack Sharf


The highlight of Brendan Fraser’s Oscars night was winning the Academy Award for best actor thanks to his acclaimed performance in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” but perhaps in second place was a long overdue reunion with megastar Dwayne Johnson. The two actors starred together nearly 22 years ago in “The Mummy Returns,” the sequel to Fraser’s 1999 blockbuster “The Mummy” that marked Johnson’s film acting debut in Hollywood.
“Very cool full circle moment here with my long time buddy Brendan Fraser and his sons,” Johnson wrote on Instagram along with a video of the two actors reuniting backstage at the 2023 Oscars. “My very first film of my Hollywood career was ‘The Mummy Returns,’ which Brendan was the star. Lots of critics and cynics betting against me at that time, but Brendan welcomed me with open arms and was very supportive. I never forget kind people.”



Johnson added, “Now years later, Brendan wins his Oscar for best actor in ‘The Whale’ and I went on to become famous for wearing a fanny pack. Congratulations, brother — enjoy your flowers.”
Johnson made his Hollywood debut in “The Mummy Returns” as Mathayus of Akkad/The Scorpion King. The sequel earned $435 million at the worldwide box office and led to Johnson’s own spinoff movie “The Scorpion King” in 2002. “The Scorpion King” was the first Hollywood movie to be headlined by Johnson, who has since become a billion-dollar grossing box office star.
Fraser’s emotional best actor acceptance speech was one of the highlights of the 2023 Oscars. “I started in this business 30 years ago, things didn’t come easy to me but there was a facility that I didn’t appreciate at the time, until it stopped,” he noted. “I just want to say thank you for this acknowledgement.”
Johnson, who presented at the 2023 Oscars, was championing Fraser throughout the awards season. Back in September following the world premiere of “The Whale” at the Venice Film Festival, Johnson shared a video of Fraser choking up during a standing ovation for the film and wrote, “Man, this makes me so happy to see this beautiful ovation for Brendan. He supported me coming into his ‘Mummy Returns’ franchise for my first ever role, which kicked off my Hollywood career. Rooting for all your success, brother.”
Johnson and Fraser also share a second Hollywood connection thanks to Warner Bros.’ “Journey to the Center of the Earth” franchise. Fraser headlined the 2008 original, while Johnson took over as the star of the 2012 sequel “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.”
 

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After the Oscars’ Controversial ‘Naatu Naatu’ Performance, South Asian Dancers Are Fighting for Representation

By Manori Ravindran


Nearly a week after the Oscars, the hurt and disappointment of a missed opportunity still weighs heavily on the minds of some South Asian American dancers, who are setting out to ensure it never happens again.
Many in the South Asian dance community were dismayed by the astonishing dearth of South Asian representation in the “Naatu Naatu” performance at Sunday’s Academy Awards. While singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava were on hand to perform their hit tune from Tollywood smash “RRR” — which made history for India that night by winning best original song — they were joined on stage by not a single dancer of South Asian heritage.
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How could the Academy have gotten this so wrong? Especially when, 14 years ago, they nailed it with the staging of A.R. Rahman’s “Slumdog Millionaire” hit “Jai Ho” at the 2009 Oscars as part of a widely celebrated four-minute medley.


“[The 2009 Oscars] had Indian singers and it was a multi-racial group of dancers and musicians,” explains Shilpa Davé, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia who specializes in the history of representations of race and gender in the media. “They were really showing that music has this global force. That’s why people didn’t have an issue at that time.”
While Sunday night did mark a historic turning point for India, which also won best documentary short for Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga’s “The Elephant Whisperers,” the glaring absence of South Asian performers on Hollywood’s biggest stage was the “last straw” for dancers like Achinta S. McDaniel.
“Some people say, ‘Just be happy with what we got,’ and that’s part of [the problem] — this idea of just accepting the scraps that are thrown to you,” McDaniel, the founder and artistic director of the Los Angeles-based Blue13 Dance Company, tells Variety. “Just be happy an Indian song was nominated [and won]. Don’t be mad about the overwhelming racism that appeared in the performance.”
McDaniel’s agent put her forward to serve as an associate consultant for the performance two weeks before the Oscars, but her rep was told that the AMPAS-selected choreographers Tabitha and Napoleon D’uomo — the Los Angeles-based duo known as NappyTabs — had already hired their team. (Variety understands that “RRR” choreographer Prem Rakshith was advising on the Oscars performance, but that NappyTabs were the primary choreographers.)
“[Equity is] a big part of what I’m interested in, and this has galvanized so many of my colleagues in the field,” says McDaniel. “Now it’s enough. This is the last straw.”
McDaniel is hosting a Zoom on Saturday for South Asians in the dance community to unpack the events of the Oscars and plan ahead for a South Asian Summit this summer — an event she hopes to stage in conjunction with national organization Dance/USA’s annual conference.
“This really lit a fire,” says McDaniel. “So many people are joining this Zoom so we can start to make an actual change. It’s been too long that we’ve been quiet.”


Vikas Arun, a New York-based dancer and teacher specializing in forms of Western and Indian rhythmic and percussive dance, tells Variety there have also been conversations this week about building a cross-functional advocacy group that can rally on behalf of South Asian entertainers in moments of crisis.
“When other minorities face [incidents like this], they have organizations they can go to,” says Arun. “Our community is poor at having organized advocacy because there are so few of us. We’re individually fighting our own fight, and there’s no central organization. It also makes it frustrating for new South Asian artists who aren’t at our level [and don’t have the connections].”
Davé, who authored the 2013 book “Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film,” agrees the “next step” in the conversation is to further interrogate the advocacy of South Asian entertainers.
“It’s about thinking of representation and advocacy for not just directors, writers and actors, but also performers on the larger scale as well,” says Davé. “I think dancers have been left out of this conversation. So when we’re looking at casting agencies and talent agencies, [we need to ask] where are the agents that are advocating to the establishment?”
According to talent such as Ramita Ravi, another professional dancer and choreographer whose agent put her forward for the Academy Awards, situations like the Oscars performance “unfortunately happen all the time.”
“I can name a handful of personal experiences that follow the same thread,” she tells Variety over email. “But the beauty of us coming together is that supporting each other and building a collective, inclusive voice can create change such that this doesn’t continue happening in the future.”
Interestingly, five days on from the awards, there still remains some confusion about how the production transpired in the first place. It was initially thought that “RRR” actors NTR Jr. and Ram Charan would perform the dance themselves, but Oscars producer Raj Kapoor detailed in an AMPAS blog that the actors declined, as they weren’t comfortable doing so with the time constraints. As such, their characters were represented on stage by Lebanese Canadian dancer Billy Mustapha and American dancer Jason Glover, whom many wrongly assumed was of South Asian heritage.
One source tells Variety that AMPAS then intended to fly over dancers from India to support the performance, but their work visas fell through, prompting NappyTabs to hire their own dancers. (This claim has been contested by several dancers.)
While a source close to the production says AMPAS tried to ensure the original team from India was looped in on every creative decision — a team that included the film’s public relations team, S.S. Rajamouli’s son Karthikeya Rajamouli, “RRR” producers and composer M.M. Keeravaani — the outrage at the resulting performance also highlights the divergence in what representation means for nationals versus those who are part of a diaspora.
“For many South Asian Americans in the U.S., we were born and raised in America and feel a very large sense of belonging here,” explains Ravi. “For other generations, and especially immigrants or folks living in India, it’s a bit of a different equation — they might be excited to be invited to the table, while the diaspora wants to be part of building the table. In that way, I think the idea of representation sits very differently across the diaspora.”
Davé adds: “The Indian cinema industry is the largest in the world, and when you’re coming from that background and environment, you don’t see the injustices that are happening in the diaspora and in Hollywood. So [the ‘RRR’ team] was thrilled to win an Oscar — and rightly so.”
But for those in the diaspora, representation matters greatly, says Davé.
“We’re seeing the inequity in the main industries of America, and what it does is reinforce that idea that South Asians are foreigners who live on the other side of the world, and they aren’t a part of the culture and the history of Hollywood and the United States, which is not true. South Asians have been in Hollywood, and for many years have been forced into roles that were minuscule or forced to hide [altogether]. So, to try and diminish that, in an era in which we have seen so many strides — that is problematic.”
 
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