LifeStyle

A closer look at the evolution and baked-in flaws of MTV's twice resurrected Video Music Awards category. By Sydney Urbanek When MTV hosted its inaugural VMAs ceremony in 1984, the channel had created the first major awards show expressly concerned with recognizing artistic achievement in music videos. And while the annual broadcast has since then become known as much as a site of celebrity unpredictability — a launchpad for anything from a new feud to a new baby — the show remains a valuable (if mostly symbolic, given MTV’s infamous move away from music video programming) monument to the format and the artists behind it.MTV’s founders deserve plenty of credit for seeing a future in short-form music video work, creating the infrastructure and hype necessary for an ostensible marketin...

By Andreas Wiseman EXCLUSIVE: French industry execs Naomi Denamur and Julie Billy are launching Paris-based independent production company June Films with a bustling film and TV slate. Scroll down for the company’s current lineup. After meeting at Celluloid Dreams 15 years ago, the duo have been putting together their first slate over the past 18 months and are now making movies with talent including Clémence Poésy (The Tunnel), Ariane Labed (Mary Magdalene) and Hafsia Herzi (Good Mother).The idea is to be director-driven and genre agnostic and the company will leverage the duo’s extensive experience in production and international distribution to elevate the prospects for their projects.Billy previously worked at Haut et Court where she produced more than a dozen films including Can...

According to the Hollywood News Press reporter, Ali Atshani, a well-known Iranian director who has previously directed the film "First Born” and “Loteria " in Hollywood, is going to start making the movie "Stars Don’t Shine Without Darkness" in Los Angeles, this July.Masoud Kimiaei, a prominent and famous Iranian filmmaker, who is one of the leading directors of Iranian cinema and the new wave of Middle Eastern cinema, is producing the new film by Ali Atshani, which is a product of the American Brightlight Film Productions.Polad Kimiaei, the son of Masoud Kimiaei, who has previously collaborated with him in one of Ali Atshani's previous films shot in Iran, is also one of the leading actors in this film. Earlier, the name of Majid Mirfakhraei, one of the veteran Iranian set designers, was a...

by HOLLYWOODNEWSPRESS with 'don't worry darling' coming out, Pugh is notably the strongest element of the movie, which centers on a seemingly happy young couple living in an idyllic corporate town circa the 1950s as secrets begin to get uncovered. The Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern praised the actress for being the most redeemable aspect of an otherwise messy movie, writing that it’s “more than anything a showcase for Pugh.” Indiewire’s Kate Erbland says that Pugh is the “film’s unmitigated highlight,” and Collider’s Brian Formo says that “none of Darling works at all without such a committed performance from Pugh.”Therefore , the HOLLYWOODNEWSPRESS announces the English actress as the first Artist of 2023.

The unofficial queen of Cannes on David Cronenberg’s twisted ‘Crimes of the Future’ (her 17th premiere at the fest), the terror and joy of working with auteurs while starring in top-grossing flicks, and the unreal expectations Hollywood puts on actresses: “You have to be desirable all the time.” BY MIA GALUPPO “Do you drink?” asks Léa Seydoux, five minutes into a conversation, upon learning that her interviewer is about to attend her first Cannes Film Festival. The risk, explains the French actress, is that at Cannes you drink, and then the rush of people, fashion and films is a stimulant in itself, keeping you awake longer and leaving you with more time on your hands. That time and those hands can be — and often are — filled with more drinks. On top of that, there’s the ostensibl...

A walk through the Quinault rainforest leads to a cascade of questions. photo by Amy Berenbeim / High Country News by Miyo Joy At first glance, everything in the Quinault rainforest on that early July day was exactly as it should be: mild and wet, 60 degrees, with a layer of pale gray clouds forming a high ceiling above the emerald forest. Droplets of last night’s rain beaded on the leaves, sparkling like jewels. My friend Squash and her girlfriend, Amanda, who were visiting from San Francisco, gaped at the towering Sitka spruces and shoulder-high sword ferns as we walked along the East Fork Quinault River trail. We were camping on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, where over 11 feet of rain falls each year, sustaining a sprawling temperate jungle.All three of us were taking...