SHOWBIZ IN BRIEF
Jojo Rabbit star named top young performer
SANTA MONICA — Roman Griffin Davis, the young star or the black comedy “Jojo Rabbit,” won the Critics Choice Movie Award for best young actor/actress.
Awards were presented earlier this week in Santa Monica.
The winners, chosen by a large panel of film critics, are now in their
25th year.
The young artist award is considered the most prestigious for juvenile performers.
Also nominated were
Julia Butters (“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood:), Shahdi Wright Joseph (“Us”), Noah Jupe (“Honey Boy”), Thomasin McKenzie (“Jojo Rabbit”) and Archie Yates (“Jojo Rabbit”).
Winners of the major awards were predictable:
Best Picture:
Hollywood”
Best Director:
Boon Joon-ho (“Parasite”) tied with Sam Mendes (“1917”) Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”) Renee Zellweger (“Judy”) Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”)
Laura Dern
Best Actor: Best Actress: Best Supporting Actor: Best Supporting Actress:
(“Marriage Story”)
Best Acting Ensemble: Best Original Screenplay:
“The Irishman” Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”)
Best Adapted Screenplay:
(“Little Women”)
“Once Upon a Time ... in
Best Original Song:
“Glasgow No Place Like Home” (“Wild Rose”) tied with “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” (“Rocketman”) Eddie Murphy The next major awards ceremony will be Sunday with the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Lifetime achievement:
Greta Gerwig
Jacob Tremblay teams up with Meryl Streep
NEW YORK — Meryl Streep is getting animated: The Oscar-winner will lend her voice to a short illustrated film celebrating the Earth.
Apple TV Plus said Friday Streep will join Chris O’Dowd, Jacob Tremblay and Ruth Negga to give life to Oliver Jeffers’ picture book “Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth.” The 36minute film will premiere on the streaming service April 17.
In the film, Tremblay will voice a 7-year-old boy who over the course of a day learns about the wonders of the planet from his parents, played by O’Dowd and Negga. Streep will narrate.
Streep is no stranger to lending just her voice to films, having done so in “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “A.I. Artificial Intelligence.”
Tremblay, who hails from Vancouver, has starred in “Good Boys,” “Wonder,” and “Room”, which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.
Parnas interview gets record ratings
NEW YORK — There’s no apparent impeachment fatigue among viewers of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Her prime-time show, which has been on for more than 11 years, had its largest audience ever when 4.5 million people watched Maddow’s interview on Wednesday with Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.
The Nielsen company said Maddow topped Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, who usually has the top-rated cable news show. He had 3.7 million viewers that night.
Parnas, who Maddow had frequently talked about on her show, spoke about his belief of Trump’s knowledge about what Giuliani was doing in the Ukraine.
Tolkien’s son kept father’s legacy alive
LONDON — Christopher Tolkien, who played a major role protecting the legacy of his father’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, has died. He was 95.
The Tolkien Society and publisher HarperCollins UK confirmed Tolkien’s death. The Centre Hospitalier de la Dracenie, a hospital in southern France, said the son of author J.R.R. Tolkien died there Thursday.
Tolkien’s life work was closely identified with that of his father. He helped edit and publish much of the science fiction and fantasy writer’s work after J.R.R.Tolkien died in 1973.
Among the books the younger Tolkien worked on were “The Silmarillion,” “The Children Of Hurin,” and other texts that flesh out the complex world his father created.
He also drew the original maps that adorned the three Lord of the Rings books - “The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King” - when they were published in the 1950s.
Tolkien Society chairman Shaun Gunner said “millions of people around the world will be forever grateful to Christopher for bringing us” so many of his father’s literary works.
J.R.R. Tolkien scholar Dimitra Fimi said Christopher Tolkien helped the public understand his father’s works.