Sarah Michelle Gellar makes a horror movie parody for Olay. Jeff Bridges and Sarah Jessica Parker tout Stella Artois. Steve Carrell hawks Pepsi.

Star power abounds in this year’s Super Bowl ads.

Advertisers are hoping to provide some welcome distraction and entertainment as economic fears persist and the nation’s political climate remains sharply divided. As much as this year’s Super Bowl will be a battle on the field between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams, it will be a battle between advertisers over who gets the buzz — and who gets forgotten.

Celebrities are a relatively safe bet to garner good will from Super Bowl viewers who aren’t looking to be lectured at. There has been a retreat from more overtly political ads that were seen during the 2017 Super Bowl from such companies as 84 Lumber and Airbnb.

“The big theme is a return to light-hearted humor,” University of Virginia professor Kim Whitler said. “There’s an acknowledgement the Super Bowl is about entertainment.”

The Super Bowl remains advertising’s biggest mass-market showcase, and one of the last remaining ones in an age of personalized ads targeted to individual interests based on data collected by Facebook, Google and other tech mammoths. Digital ads are expected to make up nearly 60 percent of ad spending by 2020, according to eMarketer, up from about 50 percent in 2018.

Yet a 30-second Super Bowl ad can cost more than $5 million. More than 100 million people in the U.S. are expected to tune in to Sunday’s game on CBS. SimpliSafe’s creative director, Wade Devers, said the home-security company is advertising during the Super Bowl for the first time because the game has “a unique audience” primed to be interested in watching the ads.

Advertisers are doing what they can to stand out — Bridges, for instance, revives his “The Dude” character from “The Big Lebowski” — while shying away from controversy.

“It’s such a big investment. Advertisers really want to generate as much return as they can,” Northwestern University marketing professor Tim Calkins said. “I think we’ll see a lot of humor and product-focused advertising. A lot of advertisers are nervous about taking on big themes.”

So don’t expect any mention of the government shutdown or the debate over building a wall at the Mexican border, for example.

But safe can also mean dull.

“It will be a lackluster year,” said Kelly O’Keefe, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth’s Brandcenter. “I hope to see a few standouts, but the ads could be more mediocre than they have in a few years.”

Tried and true

A few old favorites are returning. Anheuser-Busch is trotting out its famed Clydesdales. They pull a Dalmatian dog through a field populated with windmills to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” to promote the idea that Budweiser is brewed with energy from wind power.

As for celebrities, always a staple in Super Bowl ads, Jason Bateman appears as an affable elevator operator to showcase Hyundai’s Shopper Assurance program. M&M’s enlisted actress Christina Applegate, and Avocados From Mexico’s ad will feature Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth. Colgate Total’s ad features Luke Wilson as a close talker.

Strong women

Olay will play off horror movies and the phrase “Killer Skin,” with an ad starring Gellar. Toyota is highlighting the perseverance of Antoinette “Toni” Harris, a female football player at a California community college. And Bumble selected Serena Williams to be its spokeswoman in the dating app’s first ever Super Bowl ad.

Tech ribbing

Michelob Ultra has robots beating humans at sports like running and spinning. But then one robot looks longingly in a bar where people are enjoying a post-workout beer. “It’s only worth it, if you can enjoy it,” an on-screen message reads.

In an ad for Pringles , a smart speaker laments not being able to taste the snack.

Amazon pokes fun at itself as celebrities from Harrison Ford to astronaut twins Mark and Steve Kelly testing products that didn’t quite work out, including an electric toothbrush and a dog collar with Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant.

Music mania

The Super Bowl reportedly had trouble finding artists to sing during the Super Bowl: Singer Travis Scott agreed to perform only after the NFL agreed to donate $500,000 to charity. But there has been no hesitation with musicians jumping into Super Bowl ads.

First time-Super Bowl advertiser Expensify created a catchy music video with rapper 2 Chainz and actor Adam Scott. The 30-second ad also features the song.

Pepsi has long enlisted musicians to help sell its drinks and snacks. For its Doritos brand, Chance the Rapper is teaming up with the Backstreet Boys to promote a new flavor. Michael Buble will star in an ad for Pepsi’s Bubly sparkling water brand. And an ad for Pepsi itself has Carrell with rapper Lil Jon and pop singer Cardi B.

Mercedes-Benz, meanwhile, has Ludacris.

Surprises

Although many companies released their ads online early, Villanova marketing professor Charles Taylor says some are holding back “for the potential to make a bigger splash.”
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A cast member on the hit television show “Empire” alleged he was physically attacked by men in Chicago who shouted racial and homophobic slurs, police said Tuesday (January 29).

The police did not release the actor’s name but a statement from Fox, which airs “Empire,” identified him as Jussie Smollett, 36. Authorities said they are investigating the alleged attack as a hate crime. Smollett is black and openly gay.

According to a police statement, the actor was walking near the Chicago River downtown around 2 a.m. Tuesday when he was approached by two men who shouted at him, struck him in the face and poured an “unknown substance” on him before one of them wrapped a rope around his neck.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that when officers first came in contact with Smollett, he still had a rope around his neck. While being interviewed by detectives, Guglielmi said Smollett told them that the attackers yelled he was in “MAGA country,” an apparent reference to the Trump campaign’s “Make America Great Again” slogan that some critics of the president have decried as racist and discriminatory.

The police spokesman added that the two men were wearing masks. Investigators have not found any surveillance video or witnesses from which they can put together a description of the offenders, he said.

Smollett was able to take himself to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He was last reported in good condition.

Guglielmi also said the FBI is investigating a threatening letter targeting Smollett that was sent to the Fox studio in Chicago last week.

Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton called the alleged attack “outrageous and despicable.” He also said that if the alleged assailants really were shouting slogans related to President Trump, the president should publicly say “if his brand does not represent these kind of alleged attacks.” Sharpton added “his silence is deafening.”
…

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A cast member on the hit television show “Empire” alleged he was physically attacked by men in Chicago who shouted racial and homophobic slurs, police said Tuesday (January 29).

The police did not release the actor’s name but a statement from Fox, which airs “Empire,” identified him as Jussie Smollett, 36. Authorities said they are investigating the alleged attack as a hate crime. Smollett is black and openly gay.

According to a police statement, the actor was walking near the Chicago River downtown around 2 a.m. Tuesday when he was approached by two men who shouted at him, struck him in the face and poured an “unknown substance” on him before one of them wrapped a rope around his neck.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that when officers first came in contact with Smollett, he still had a rope around his neck. While being interviewed by detectives, Guglielmi said Smollett told them that the attackers yelled he was in “MAGA country,” an apparent reference to the Trump campaign’s “Make America Great Again” slogan that some critics of the president have decried as racist and discriminatory.

The police spokesman added that the two men were wearing masks. Investigators have not found any surveillance video or witnesses from which they can put together a description of the offenders, he said.

Smollett was able to take himself to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He was last reported in good condition.

Guglielmi also said the FBI is investigating a threatening letter targeting Smollett that was sent to the Fox studio in Chicago last week.

Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton called the alleged attack “outrageous and despicable.” He also said that if the alleged assailants really were shouting slogans related to President Trump, the president should publicly say “if his brand does not represent these kind of alleged attacks.” Sharpton added “his silence is deafening.”
…

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When the 1958 film adaptation of “The Old Man and the Sea” hit theaters, Ernest Hemingway happened to be in New York City to watch the World Series and invited his close friend A.E. Hotchner to go see the movie with him.

“About 12 or 13 minutes after we sat down, he turns to me and says, ‘Ready to go?”’ Hotchner said in a recent interview at his Connecticut home. The 101-year-old author and playwright recalls them walking out and taking off down the sidewalk, Hemingway ranting the whole time that the star Spencer Tracy was totally miscast, that he looked like a fat, rich actor trying to play a fisherman.

“He said, ‘You know, you write a book that you really like and then they do something like that to it, and it’s like pissing in your father’s beer’,” Hotchner said. (Hemingway reserved this particular turn of phrase for a handful of hated adaptations of his work, he said.) 

Later that night, sitting at Toots Shor’s restaurant – a hangout frequented by Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Gleason and Marilyn Monroe – Hemingway urged Hotchner to do his own adaptation someday. Hotchner said he promised he would try.

More than 60 years later, Hotchner has kept his word. His stage adaptation of “The Old Man and the Sea,” a brief novel published in 1952 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, premieres at the newly renovated Point Park University’s Pittsburgh Playhouse on Feb. 1.

“It wasn’t until I became an old man myself that I really got to a version that could transport itself beyond the book,” he said.

​Hotchner should be the perfect candidate to take the novel to the stage: he fished with Hemingway in Cuba, went to bullfights with him in Spain, hunted with him in Idaho and wrote the 1966 best-selling biography “Papa Hemingway.” 

He also helped edit Hemingway’s bullfighting classic “The Dangerous Summer.” He often served as his agent and adapted several stories for television, including “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Killers” and “The Battler,” which led to his first meeting with Paul Newman. (The two became best friends and neighbors and started the “Newman’s Own” food company together. But that’s another story).

“Somehow that pledge to him haunted me, because he died not too long after that. For years I would think about “The Old Man and The Sea.” But I never could think in my head how you could take this very personal book, because the old man is really Hemingway himself, which is really a literary work,” he said. “How do you bring that to life on the stage?”

He tried maybe 10 times over the years to adapt it, starting drafts only to scrap them, until his latest effort.

To help reel the project in, he enlisted his son Tim Hotchner to collaborate on it and help transform his draft into what will run in Pittsburgh through Feb. 17.

“I’ve lived with Hemingway’s ghost for my whole life and there was something very profound about this story, even though it’s very simple,” said Tim Hotchner, 47, a documentary filmmaker and writer. “And to have a 101-year-old father who’s still going out for his marlin, and hopefully coming back with better results, there are a lot of themes that really resonate.”

Tim Hotchner also saw the project as a way to re-examine the work with a modern lens: to look at what it means to be a man in the world and to look at the environment.

​To make “The Old Man and the Sea” accessible on stage, the Hotchners crafted a kaleidoscope of the tale, and mined the text for a new approach. The boy has a bigger role, and Hemingway himself is a character, as is a cellist who evokes the moods of the play throughout.

It stars Tony Award-winning actor Anthony Crivello as Santiago, the aging fisherman, David Cabot as Hemingway and Gabriel Florentino as the boy, Manolin. Cellist Simon Cummings will perform original music for the show. The play is being directed by Ronald Allan-Lindblom.

Getting the draft to the stage happened unusually fast, as a result of a collaboration with New York City-based RWS Entertainment Group.

The Hotchners’ agent passed along the script to Joe Christopher, who heads up RWS’s theatrical division, who took it with him on vacation in June.

“I don’t know if it was because I literally read it while I was lying on the beach, but I could viscerally see the show working,” he said. He told RWS CEO Ryan Stana it would be the chance of a lifetime to work with someone who had been side-by-side with Hemingway.

The Pittsburgh Playhouse was looking for a new work to launch its first season in its renovated theater and Stana, an alumna of Point Park University, floated the idea to the school.

​”In less than 24 hours, they were in,” he said.

The production is unique in that students at Point Park University are working on the show alongside professionals in all aspects from set design to ticket sales. It’s something Stana sees as a circular moment – youth helping bring to life the work of a centenarian playwright.

The entire show was put together in six months.

At 101, A.E. Hotchner is sharp, funny and surprisingly energetic. During a four-hour interview at his home, he needed only a 10-minute break to get a glass of water. Last year, his Depression-era detective novel “The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom” was published and he’s still writing daily. His routine: breakfast, write, lunch, write, nightly news, dinner, gin and tonic, and maybe a movie.

As for “The Old Man and the Sea,” he’s satisfied with having finally followed through on a half-century-old promise to his friend, and he’s pleased with how it turned out.

“This is going to be a version that Hemingway would never have walked out on,” he said.
…

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When the 1958 film adaptation of “The Old Man and the Sea” hit theaters, Ernest Hemingway happened to be in New York City to watch the World Series and invited his close friend A.E. Hotchner to go see the movie with him.

“About 12 or 13 minutes after we sat down, he turns to me and says, ‘Ready to go?”’ Hotchner said in a recent interview at his Connecticut home. The 101-year-old author and playwright recalls them walking out and taking off down the sidewalk, Hemingway ranting the whole time that the star Spencer Tracy was totally miscast, that he looked like a fat, rich actor trying to play a fisherman.

“He said, ‘You know, you write a book that you really like and then they do something like that to it, and it’s like pissing in your father’s beer’,” Hotchner said. (Hemingway reserved this particular turn of phrase for a handful of hated adaptations of his work, he said.) 

Later that night, sitting at Toots Shor’s restaurant – a hangout frequented by Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Gleason and Marilyn Monroe – Hemingway urged Hotchner to do his own adaptation someday. Hotchner said he promised he would try.

More than 60 years later, Hotchner has kept his word. His stage adaptation of “The Old Man and the Sea,” a brief novel published in 1952 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, premieres at the newly renovated Point Park University’s Pittsburgh Playhouse on Feb. 1.

“It wasn’t until I became an old man myself that I really got to a version that could transport itself beyond the book,” he said.

​Hotchner should be the perfect candidate to take the novel to the stage: he fished with Hemingway in Cuba, went to bullfights with him in Spain, hunted with him in Idaho and wrote the 1966 best-selling biography “Papa Hemingway.” 

He also helped edit Hemingway’s bullfighting classic “The Dangerous Summer.” He often served as his agent and adapted several stories for television, including “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Killers” and “The Battler,” which led to his first meeting with Paul Newman. (The two became best friends and neighbors and started the “Newman’s Own” food company together. But that’s another story).

“Somehow that pledge to him haunted me, because he died not too long after that. For years I would think about “The Old Man and The Sea.” But I never could think in my head how you could take this very personal book, because the old man is really Hemingway himself, which is really a literary work,” he said. “How do you bring that to life on the stage?”

He tried maybe 10 times over the years to adapt it, starting drafts only to scrap them, until his latest effort.

To help reel the project in, he enlisted his son Tim Hotchner to collaborate on it and help transform his draft into what will run in Pittsburgh through Feb. 17.

“I’ve lived with Hemingway’s ghost for my whole life and there was something very profound about this story, even though it’s very simple,” said Tim Hotchner, 47, a documentary filmmaker and writer. “And to have a 101-year-old father who’s still going out for his marlin, and hopefully coming back with better results, there are a lot of themes that really resonate.”

Tim Hotchner also saw the project as a way to re-examine the work with a modern lens: to look at what it means to be a man in the world and to look at the environment.

​To make “The Old Man and the Sea” accessible on stage, the Hotchners crafted a kaleidoscope of the tale, and mined the text for a new approach. The boy has a bigger role, and Hemingway himself is a character, as is a cellist who evokes the moods of the play throughout.

It stars Tony Award-winning actor Anthony Crivello as Santiago, the aging fisherman, David Cabot as Hemingway and Gabriel Florentino as the boy, Manolin. Cellist Simon Cummings will perform original music for the show. The play is being directed by Ronald Allan-Lindblom.

Getting the draft to the stage happened unusually fast, as a result of a collaboration with New York City-based RWS Entertainment Group.

The Hotchners’ agent passed along the script to Joe Christopher, who heads up RWS’s theatrical division, who took it with him on vacation in June.

“I don’t know if it was because I literally read it while I was lying on the beach, but I could viscerally see the show working,” he said. He told RWS CEO Ryan Stana it would be the chance of a lifetime to work with someone who had been side-by-side with Hemingway.

The Pittsburgh Playhouse was looking for a new work to launch its first season in its renovated theater and Stana, an alumna of Point Park University, floated the idea to the school.

​”In less than 24 hours, they were in,” he said.

The production is unique in that students at Point Park University are working on the show alongside professionals in all aspects from set design to ticket sales. It’s something Stana sees as a circular moment – youth helping bring to life the work of a centenarian playwright.

The entire show was put together in six months.

At 101, A.E. Hotchner is sharp, funny and surprisingly energetic. During a four-hour interview at his home, he needed only a 10-minute break to get a glass of water. Last year, his Depression-era detective novel “The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom” was published and he’s still writing daily. His routine: breakfast, write, lunch, write, nightly news, dinner, gin and tonic, and maybe a movie.

As for “The Old Man and the Sea,” he’s satisfied with having finally followed through on a half-century-old promise to his friend, and he’s pleased with how it turned out.

“This is going to be a version that Hemingway would never have walked out on,” he said.
…

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Actor John Malkovich will take the starring role in a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet about a disgraced Hollywood studio head, a story he said was written partly in reaction to the scandal engulfing film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Speaking to BBC Radio on Tuesday, Malkovich described “Bitter Wheat,” which opens in London in the summer, as “a black farce about a very badly behaved movie mogul,” who he said was “not particularly” Weinstein. The producer will go on trial in New York in May on charges of sexually assaulting two women.

“It’s a great deal about that business and a great deal about how people in that business, in positions say as studio heads have behaved really for more or less a century now. So many of them were so notoriously badly behaved,” he said.

“The idea…maybe started as reaction to all the news that came out last year, in particular about Harvey Weinstein but actually about many many people, some of whom were also higher ups in various studios. I think David kind of took the idea from there and went with it.”

More than 70 women, mainly young actresses and others working in film, have accused Weinstein, 66, of sexual misconduct, including assault, dating back decades.

Weinstein, who pleaded not guilty after his arrest last May, has denied all the accusations, saying any sexual encounters were consensual.

The scandal helped kick off the #MeToo movement, in which dozens of powerful men in Hollywood and beyond have been accused of sexual misconduct.

“Of course it might upset people who’ve experienced the kind of treatment that the play contains and shows and describes and that we watch but what can I do about that?” Malkovich said.

“I am sure a lot of people will laugh and a lot of people will be upset and a lot of people may not like it. Personally I think it’s a terrific piece of writing.”

Malkovich, most recently seen on screens in Netflix thriller “Bird Box” and on British television as legendary detective Hercule Poirot in “The ABC Murders”, said he met Weinstein when making 1998 drama “Rounders” but “didn’t really have any connection with him”.

In “Bitter Wheat”, the 65-year-old actor will play Barney Fein, described in a press release as “a bloated monster- a studio head, who, like his predecessor, the minotaur, devours the young he has lured to his cave.

“His fall from power to shame is a mythic journey which has been compared to ‘The Odyssey’ by people who claim to have read that book.”

Mamet, known for plays such as “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” and “Glengarry Glen Ross,” has written about sexual misconduct before, namely in “Oleanna” about a female student and her professor.
…

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In 1807, a wealthy 37-year-old scholar was captured in West Africa, in what is now Senegal, and transported to the United States to be sold into slavery.

That man, Omar Ibn Said, lived the remainder of his life enslaved in the American South, and his story might have been forgotten if not for the handwritten autobiography he left behind.

Written in Arabic and recently acquired by the Library of Congress, “The Life of Omar Ibn Said” is not only a rare handwritten personal story of an American slave, but it’s also one of the first intimate accounts of the early history of Muslims in the United States.

Ibn Said was among the approximately one-third of American slaves who were Muslim. While the exact number of enslaved Muslims is unknown, up to 40 percent of those who were captured and enslaved came from predominantly Muslim parts of West Africa.

“It challenges this notion of this being a Christian nation,” says Zaheer Ali, an oral historian at the Brooklyn Historical Society and project director of the Muslims in Brooklyn project. “It opens us up to understanding that there were non-Christians present at the founding of this nation, and not only at the founding of this nation, but that helped build this nation…It challenges the idea that this was a quote ‘Christian nation’ from the beginning.”

America’s first Muslims were slaves

The subsequent erasure of the black Muslim identity among the enslaved people in the United States was part of a strategy to strip enslaved Africans of their individual identities and reduce them to chattel both legally and in the public imagination.

“The black classification was devised to mark enslaved Africans as property. So, if you were black, you were no longer a human being,” says Khaled Beydoun, an author and law professor at the University of Arkansas. “If you acknowledge some of these religious identities, then you’re in turn acknowledging their humanity.”

During the antebellum period in the South, the Muslim identity took on very different identity from the stereotype of an African slave.

“When people thought of a Muslim at that time, they thought Arab, they thought Ottoman, they thought Middle Eastern,” Beydoun says. “Enslaved Africans did not fit within that racial ethnic caricature or form.”

This narrow understanding of both Muslims and Africans led to the widespread belief that the two identities could not overlap and helped hasten the erasure of Muslim African slaves from the historical record. In addition, the names of enslaved Muslims were often anglicized, which further obscured them from the history.

Writing themselves into history

Enslaved Muslims who left behind a written record challenged the idea that enslaved men and women were a brute workforce solely capable of physical labor because they lacked the intellectual capacity that would make them deserving of independence and freedom.

“These were people who were essentially writing themselves into existence both in terms of leaving a record of their life but also in terms of challenging the racist assumptions about people of African descent,” Ali says.

What we know about the masses of African Muslim slaves who left no written record can be garnered from the remembrances of their descendants and their names on bills of sale or runaway notices.

How long they adhered to Islam is unknown. Some converted to Christianity while others pretended to convert in order to satisfy their captors. But there are signs that some enslaved Muslims held onto the religion of their homelands.

Ali points to burial grounds on islands off the southern state of Georgia, where slave tombstones bear Islamic markings, and churches that were built facing the east, the direction Muslims face while praying. And there are descendants who recall seeing their elders using prayer rugs and Islamic prayer beads.

These recollections suggest that despite any coercion, some enslaved Muslims held onto their religious practices for life.

Leaving their mark 

While the existence of a sizable number of African Muslim slaves might not be well known to most Americans, they are believed to have left their mark on American culture.

Author and scholar Sylviane Diouf has suggested that slave work songs are related to the vocal pattern of Koranic recitation and the call to prayer. Those work songs — such as “Levee Camp Holler” a century-old song that originated in Mississippi — eventually gave birth to the blues.

And Ali says it’s possible that the banjo and guitar came from a traditional West African instrument.

Perhaps the most lasting legacy of Muslim slaves is the modern movement among some African Americans to embrace what they believe to be the original religion of their people.

“The movement towards Islam in the African American community in the 20th century was in part understood by its adherents as a reclaiming of a lost heritage, that this was not a new religion,” Ali says. “Islam is not new to the United States; it was here before the country was founded; it was present among the people who helped build this country; and it has very much been a part of the thread of America’s story.”

Beginning with the period of American slavery until today, black Muslims continue to comprise the largest segment of the Muslim community in the United States.
…

your ads here!

In 1807, a wealthy 37-year-old scholar was captured in West Africa, in what is now Senegal, and transported to the United States to be sold into slavery.

That man, Omar Ibn Said, lived the remainder of his life enslaved in the American South, and his story might have been forgotten if not for the handwritten autobiography he left behind.

Written in Arabic and recently acquired by the Library of Congress, “The Life of Omar Ibn Said” is not only a rare handwritten personal story of an American slave, but it’s also one of the first intimate accounts of the early history of Muslims in the United States.

Ibn Said was among the approximately one-third of American slaves who were Muslim. While the exact number of enslaved Muslims is unknown, up to 40 percent of those who were captured and enslaved came from predominantly Muslim parts of West Africa.

“It challenges this notion of this being a Christian nation,” says Zaheer Ali, an oral historian at the Brooklyn Historical Society and project director of the Muslims in Brooklyn project. “It opens us up to understanding that there were non-Christians present at the founding of this nation, and not only at the founding of this nation, but that helped build this nation…It challenges the idea that this was a quote ‘Christian nation’ from the beginning.”

America’s first Muslims were slaves

The subsequent erasure of the black Muslim identity among the enslaved people in the United States was part of a strategy to strip enslaved Africans of their individual identities and reduce them to chattel both legally and in the public imagination.

“The black classification was devised to mark enslaved Africans as property. So, if you were black, you were no longer a human being,” says Khaled Beydoun, an author and law professor at the University of Arkansas. “If you acknowledge some of these religious identities, then you’re in turn acknowledging their humanity.”

During the antebellum period in the South, the Muslim identity took on very different identity from the stereotype of an African slave.

“When people thought of a Muslim at that time, they thought Arab, they thought Ottoman, they thought Middle Eastern,” Beydoun says. “Enslaved Africans did not fit within that racial ethnic caricature or form.”

This narrow understanding of both Muslims and Africans led to the widespread belief that the two identities could not overlap and helped hasten the erasure of Muslim African slaves from the historical record. In addition, the names of enslaved Muslims were often anglicized, which further obscured them from the history.

Writing themselves into history

Enslaved Muslims who left behind a written record challenged the idea that enslaved men and women were a brute workforce solely capable of physical labor because they lacked the intellectual capacity that would make them deserving of independence and freedom.

“These were people who were essentially writing themselves into existence both in terms of leaving a record of their life but also in terms of challenging the racist assumptions about people of African descent,” Ali says.

What we know about the masses of African Muslim slaves who left no written record can be garnered from the remembrances of their descendants and their names on bills of sale or runaway notices.

How long they adhered to Islam is unknown. Some converted to Christianity while others pretended to convert in order to satisfy their captors. But there are signs that some enslaved Muslims held onto the religion of their homelands.

Ali points to burial grounds on islands off the southern state of Georgia, where slave tombstones bear Islamic markings, and churches that were built facing the east, the direction Muslims face while praying. And there are descendants who recall seeing their elders using prayer rugs and Islamic prayer beads.

These recollections suggest that despite any coercion, some enslaved Muslims held onto their religious practices for life.

Leaving their mark 

While the existence of a sizable number of African Muslim slaves might not be well known to most Americans, they are believed to have left their mark on American culture.

Author and scholar Sylviane Diouf has suggested that slave work songs are related to the vocal pattern of Koranic recitation and the call to prayer. Those work songs — such as “Levee Camp Holler” a century-old song that originated in Mississippi — eventually gave birth to the blues.

And Ali says it’s possible that the banjo and guitar came from a traditional West African instrument.

Perhaps the most lasting legacy of Muslim slaves is the modern movement among some African Americans to embrace what they believe to be the original religion of their people.

“The movement towards Islam in the African American community in the 20th century was in part understood by its adherents as a reclaiming of a lost heritage, that this was not a new religion,” Ali says. “Islam is not new to the United States; it was here before the country was founded; it was present among the people who helped build this country; and it has very much been a part of the thread of America’s story.”

Beginning with the period of American slavery until today, black Muslims continue to comprise the largest segment of the Muslim community in the United States.
…

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Before Islamic State militants were dislodged from Iraq in 2017, they stole thousands of ancient artifacts. Most are still missing, and an international team of archaeologists is turning detective to recover as many as possible.

In 2014 and 2015, during its occupation of most of the country, the jihadist group raided and wrecked historical sites on what UNESCO called an “industrial” scale, using the loot to fund its operations through a smuggling network extending through the Middle East and beyond.

“We’re trying to recover a lot of artifacts and need all local and international resources to work. Iraq cannot do this on its own,” said Bruno Deslandes, a conservation architect at the U.N. cultural agency.

He spoke at a workshop at Baghdad’s National Museum convened to coordinate international retrieval efforts.

Video that went viral after it was released by Islamic State in 2014 showed militants using bulldozers and drills to tear down murals and statues the 3,000-year-old Assyrian site of Nimrud near Mosul. What they did not destroy they smuggled and traded.

Deslandes was the first international expert to access the site in early 2017 while Islamic State was still being driven out.

With the battle raging just kilometers away, he and his team had to work quickly to assess damage to the site, using 3D scanning and satellite imagery. Within minutes, they gathered a trove of data he says will be critical in tracking lost items down.

“When an artifact has been taken, we can document the footprint left,” Deslandes said.

“We document this very precisely… so we can recover it… When we have an artifact in Europe or somewhere matching this specification we can… yes!” he added, clapping his hands together for emphasis.

‘Tip of the Iceberg’

The workshop, which brought together Iraqi and foreign police, customs officials and archeological experts, was the second in two years organized by the European Union Advisory Mission in Iraq.

Law enforcement officials said they can help Iraqi police track down the objects using databases of seizures and other information, including smuggling routes.

Mariya Polner of the World Customs Organization (WCO) said reports of cultural heritage seizures by customs officials worldwide were “only the tip of the iceberg,” and that better coordination between the WCO’s 183 members states had helped increase recoveries.

In 2017, the WCO said customs officers recovered more than 14,000 items looted worldwide including antiquities, paintings and statues, 48 percent up from the previous year.

Eckhard Laufer, a participating police officer from Germany, said many private collectors and some museums often did not question the provenance of artifacts. “It is one of the biggest problems in crime.”

Deslandes said sites inside Iraq were still at risk. “When a site is liberated, it doesn’t mean the looting has finished.”
…

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Before Islamic State militants were dislodged from Iraq in 2017, they stole thousands of ancient artifacts. Most are still missing, and an international team of archaeologists is turning detective to recover as many as possible.

In 2014 and 2015, during its occupation of most of the country, the jihadist group raided and wrecked historical sites on what UNESCO called an “industrial” scale, using the loot to fund its operations through a smuggling network extending through the Middle East and beyond.

“We’re trying to recover a lot of artifacts and need all local and international resources to work. Iraq cannot do this on its own,” said Bruno Deslandes, a conservation architect at the U.N. cultural agency.

He spoke at a workshop at Baghdad’s National Museum convened to coordinate international retrieval efforts.

Video that went viral after it was released by Islamic State in 2014 showed militants using bulldozers and drills to tear down murals and statues the 3,000-year-old Assyrian site of Nimrud near Mosul. What they did not destroy they smuggled and traded.

Deslandes was the first international expert to access the site in early 2017 while Islamic State was still being driven out.

With the battle raging just kilometers away, he and his team had to work quickly to assess damage to the site, using 3D scanning and satellite imagery. Within minutes, they gathered a trove of data he says will be critical in tracking lost items down.

“When an artifact has been taken, we can document the footprint left,” Deslandes said.

“We document this very precisely… so we can recover it… When we have an artifact in Europe or somewhere matching this specification we can… yes!” he added, clapping his hands together for emphasis.

‘Tip of the Iceberg’

The workshop, which brought together Iraqi and foreign police, customs officials and archeological experts, was the second in two years organized by the European Union Advisory Mission in Iraq.

Law enforcement officials said they can help Iraqi police track down the objects using databases of seizures and other information, including smuggling routes.

Mariya Polner of the World Customs Organization (WCO) said reports of cultural heritage seizures by customs officials worldwide were “only the tip of the iceberg,” and that better coordination between the WCO’s 183 members states had helped increase recoveries.

In 2017, the WCO said customs officers recovered more than 14,000 items looted worldwide including antiquities, paintings and statues, 48 percent up from the previous year.

Eckhard Laufer, a participating police officer from Germany, said many private collectors and some museums often did not question the provenance of artifacts. “It is one of the biggest problems in crime.”

Deslandes said sites inside Iraq were still at risk. “When a site is liberated, it doesn’t mean the looting has finished.”
…

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Dan Gilroy’s satirical contemporary art world thriller “Velvet Buzzsaw” will be available to Netflix subscribers worldwide this Friday, but he and his team gave audiences at the Sundance Film Festival a sneak peek at the film Sunday night where the most-common word used to praise it was “weird.”

“Dan is crazy,” Rene Russo, who is married to Gilroy, said in Park City, Utah. “He’s got this crazy imagination and he’s just kind of outside the box.” 

The film reunites Gilroy with Jake Gyllenhaal, who starred in his directorial debut “Nightcrawler.” That dark thriller about an ambulance chasing journalist went on to become a box office hit and, so, when Gilroy landed on the idea for “Velvet Buzzsaw,” which would star Gyllenhaal as a snobby critic and Russo as a savvy gallery owner and art dealer, there were a lot of film studios who wanted to put their name behind it. Netflix was one of them. 

Gilroy was unsure at first about Netflix, though, so he started reading a little more about the company. He came across a quote where someone said that Netflix was going to destroy the theatrical experience, but following it were 50 comments about how that person must live in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago where, “You can see everything.” 

”I suddenly thought, wow, democratization,” Gilroy said. “It is an elitist point of view to think that everybody in the world has access to the things that New York, LA and Chicago have. That really was the deciding factor. If you really want to reach the widest possible audience, here’s this technology that can do this … And what is the theatrical experience? 500 people in a theater? 100? Does 50 count? Does four people on a Friday night on my 50-inch widescreen count? It does to me.” 

Films that defy genre

Producer Jennifer Fox, who has been behind films like “Michael Clayton,” said Netflix made it, “At a level that it should have been made at. They got it. And it’s really out there.” 

Out there is right, for the ensemble film that co-stars John Malkovich, Toni Collette, Daveed Diggs, Billy Magnussen and relative newcomer Zawe Ashton in which the discovery of a dead artist’s works ends up taking its own body count. But that’s Gilroy’s operating mode for his own films which aren’t bound by traditional genre or constraints. 

It’s why “Velvet Buzzsaw” is about everything — the pretentiousness of the contemporary art world, the fluidity of criticism and even sexuality, and, you know, a demon art spirit out for blood. 

“If I follow one rule in any form of entertainment it is, ‘Do Not Bore.’ You cannot bore,” Gilroy said. “My (playwright) father pounded that into my head.”

‘Fearless’ actor​

 

Gilroy wrote the critic character Morf, who is as fluid in his sexuality as he is in his art opinions, specifically for Gyllenhaal who he said is, “One of the most fearless actors alive right now.” 

“He’s always pushing himself with the craziest ideas that often end up in the movie,” Gilroy said. “I like working with people who want to take a sledgehammer to all this and Jake is that person.” 

The feeling is mutual for Gyllenhaal who said their connection is, “Sort of inexplicable.” 

Netflix believer

“But I’m not asking any questions about it,” Gyllenhaal said. “I just show up when he asks.” 

After the “Velvet Buzzsaw” experience, Gilroy himself is a Netflix believer. 

“I couldn’t speak highly enough about Netflix. The traditional studios in some way have created Netflix. The traditional studios have gone from making a broad range of films to doing branded IP and franchises and it has left a void for original, range of films to get made,” Gilroy said. “And Netflix is making them en masse and it’s a very exciting time. I think history is being written right now.” 

 

 
…

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Dan Gilroy’s satirical contemporary art world thriller “Velvet Buzzsaw” will be available to Netflix subscribers worldwide this Friday, but he and his team gave audiences at the Sundance Film Festival a sneak peek at the film Sunday night where the most-common word used to praise it was “weird.”

“Dan is crazy,” Rene Russo, who is married to Gilroy, said in Park City, Utah. “He’s got this crazy imagination and he’s just kind of outside the box.” 

The film reunites Gilroy with Jake Gyllenhaal, who starred in his directorial debut “Nightcrawler.” That dark thriller about an ambulance chasing journalist went on to become a box office hit and, so, when Gilroy landed on the idea for “Velvet Buzzsaw,” which would star Gyllenhaal as a snobby critic and Russo as a savvy gallery owner and art dealer, there were a lot of film studios who wanted to put their name behind it. Netflix was one of them. 

Gilroy was unsure at first about Netflix, though, so he started reading a little more about the company. He came across a quote where someone said that Netflix was going to destroy the theatrical experience, but following it were 50 comments about how that person must live in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago where, “You can see everything.” 

”I suddenly thought, wow, democratization,” Gilroy said. “It is an elitist point of view to think that everybody in the world has access to the things that New York, LA and Chicago have. That really was the deciding factor. If you really want to reach the widest possible audience, here’s this technology that can do this … And what is the theatrical experience? 500 people in a theater? 100? Does 50 count? Does four people on a Friday night on my 50-inch widescreen count? It does to me.” 

Films that defy genre

Producer Jennifer Fox, who has been behind films like “Michael Clayton,” said Netflix made it, “At a level that it should have been made at. They got it. And it’s really out there.” 

Out there is right, for the ensemble film that co-stars John Malkovich, Toni Collette, Daveed Diggs, Billy Magnussen and relative newcomer Zawe Ashton in which the discovery of a dead artist’s works ends up taking its own body count. But that’s Gilroy’s operating mode for his own films which aren’t bound by traditional genre or constraints. 

It’s why “Velvet Buzzsaw” is about everything — the pretentiousness of the contemporary art world, the fluidity of criticism and even sexuality, and, you know, a demon art spirit out for blood. 

“If I follow one rule in any form of entertainment it is, ‘Do Not Bore.’ You cannot bore,” Gilroy said. “My (playwright) father pounded that into my head.”

‘Fearless’ actor​

 

Gilroy wrote the critic character Morf, who is as fluid in his sexuality as he is in his art opinions, specifically for Gyllenhaal who he said is, “One of the most fearless actors alive right now.” 

“He’s always pushing himself with the craziest ideas that often end up in the movie,” Gilroy said. “I like working with people who want to take a sledgehammer to all this and Jake is that person.” 

The feeling is mutual for Gyllenhaal who said their connection is, “Sort of inexplicable.” 

Netflix believer

“But I’m not asking any questions about it,” Gyllenhaal said. “I just show up when he asks.” 

After the “Velvet Buzzsaw” experience, Gilroy himself is a Netflix believer. 

“I couldn’t speak highly enough about Netflix. The traditional studios in some way have created Netflix. The traditional studios have gone from making a broad range of films to doing branded IP and franchises and it has left a void for original, range of films to get made,” Gilroy said. “And Netflix is making them en masse and it’s a very exciting time. I think history is being written right now.” 

 

 
…

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“You Oughta Know” Alanis Morissette is coming to Broadway.

 

The singer-songwriter has allowed songs from her 1995 breakthrough album “Jagged Little Pill” to be used in a new musical and producers plan to land it on Broadway this fall. “You Oughta Know” was a song on that Grammy-winning album.

 

“Jagged Little Pill” played the American Repertory Theater last summer. It’s directed by Diane Paulus and has an original story by Diablo Cody, who wrote “Juno.”

 

Morissette wrote the album with Glen Ballard, who collaborated with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics on the music for “Ghost: The Musical.”

 

Morissette joins a glut of pop and rock stars to try their hand at Broadway, including Bruce Springsteen, Sting, The Go-Go’s, Sara Bareilles, Billy Joel and Cyndi Lauper.
…

your ads here!

“You Oughta Know” Alanis Morissette is coming to Broadway.

 

The singer-songwriter has allowed songs from her 1995 breakthrough album “Jagged Little Pill” to be used in a new musical and producers plan to land it on Broadway this fall. “You Oughta Know” was a song on that Grammy-winning album.

 

“Jagged Little Pill” played the American Repertory Theater last summer. It’s directed by Diane Paulus and has an original story by Diablo Cody, who wrote “Juno.”

 

Morissette wrote the album with Glen Ballard, who collaborated with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics on the music for “Ghost: The Musical.”

 

Morissette joins a glut of pop and rock stars to try their hand at Broadway, including Bruce Springsteen, Sting, The Go-Go’s, Sara Bareilles, Billy Joel and Cyndi Lauper.
…

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The family of Michael Jackson on Monday described reaction to a new documentary about alleged child sex abuse by the late singer as a “public lynching” and said he was “100 percent innocent” of such accusations.

The statement followed the premiere at the Sundance film festival on Friday of “Leaving Neverland,” in which two men, now in their 30s, say they were befriended by the “Thriller” singer and sexually abused by him starting from when they were 7 and 10 years old.

The documentary received a standing ovation at Sundance on Friday, Variety and other entertainment media reported. It will be shown on cable channel HBO and Britain’s Channel 4 television network this spring.

Jackson, who died in 2009, was acquitted at a 2005 criminal trial in California on charges of molesting a different, 13-year-old boy, at his Neverland ranch. The singer is survived by his mother Katherine and nine siblings, four of whom were members of pop group “The Jackson 5.”

Referring to Jackson as “our brother and son,” Monday’s statement said the family was “furious that the media, who without a shred of proof or single piece of physical evidence, chose to believe the word of two admitted liars over the word of hundreds of families and friends around the world who spent time with Michael, many at Neverland, and experienced his legendary kindness and global generosity.”

“We can’t just stand by while this public lynching goes on,” the statement added.

“Leaving Neverland” features on camera interviews with Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who describe their relationships with Jackson in graphic detail and said that as young boys they loved the singer.

Variety in its review called the four-hour documentary “devastating.” Rolling Stone said it left the audience at the Sundance festival in Utah “completely shellshocked.”

Both Robson and Safechuck filed lawsuits against the Jackson estate alleging sexual misconduct after the singer’s death and both cases were dismissed. Robson had testified at Jackson’s 2005 trial in the singer’s defense.

The Michael Jackson estate has also criticized “Leaving Neverland,” releasing a statement that called it “blatantly one-sided” and lacking independent voices.

Director Dan Reed has said he had no question about the validity of the stories of the two men.

“If there’s anything we’ve learned during this time in our history, it’s that sexual abuse is complicated, and survivors” voices need to be listened to,” he said in a statement earlier this month.

Jackson’s death at age 50 of an overdose of an anesthetic he used as a sleep aid triggered a surge in record sales.

According to an annual Forbes survey, Jackson has been the top earning dead celebrity for the past six years with ventures that include television specials, record sales, and a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show.
…

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The family of Michael Jackson on Monday described reaction to a new documentary about alleged child sex abuse by the late singer as a “public lynching” and said he was “100 percent innocent” of such accusations.

The statement followed the premiere at the Sundance film festival on Friday of “Leaving Neverland,” in which two men, now in their 30s, say they were befriended by the “Thriller” singer and sexually abused by him starting from when they were 7 and 10 years old.

The documentary received a standing ovation at Sundance on Friday, Variety and other entertainment media reported. It will be shown on cable channel HBO and Britain’s Channel 4 television network this spring.

Jackson, who died in 2009, was acquitted at a 2005 criminal trial in California on charges of molesting a different, 13-year-old boy, at his Neverland ranch. The singer is survived by his mother Katherine and nine siblings, four of whom were members of pop group “The Jackson 5.”

Referring to Jackson as “our brother and son,” Monday’s statement said the family was “furious that the media, who without a shred of proof or single piece of physical evidence, chose to believe the word of two admitted liars over the word of hundreds of families and friends around the world who spent time with Michael, many at Neverland, and experienced his legendary kindness and global generosity.”

“We can’t just stand by while this public lynching goes on,” the statement added.

“Leaving Neverland” features on camera interviews with Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who describe their relationships with Jackson in graphic detail and said that as young boys they loved the singer.

Variety in its review called the four-hour documentary “devastating.” Rolling Stone said it left the audience at the Sundance festival in Utah “completely shellshocked.”

Both Robson and Safechuck filed lawsuits against the Jackson estate alleging sexual misconduct after the singer’s death and both cases were dismissed. Robson had testified at Jackson’s 2005 trial in the singer’s defense.

The Michael Jackson estate has also criticized “Leaving Neverland,” releasing a statement that called it “blatantly one-sided” and lacking independent voices.

Director Dan Reed has said he had no question about the validity of the stories of the two men.

“If there’s anything we’ve learned during this time in our history, it’s that sexual abuse is complicated, and survivors” voices need to be listened to,” he said in a statement earlier this month.

Jackson’s death at age 50 of an overdose of an anesthetic he used as a sleep aid triggered a surge in record sales.

According to an annual Forbes survey, Jackson has been the top earning dead celebrity for the past six years with ventures that include television specials, record sales, and a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show.
…

your ads here!

Sarah Jessica Parker and Jeff Bridges are bringing a couple of famed characters back to life for a charity in a new Super Bowl commercial.

Parker will reprise her Sex and the City Carrie Bradshaw role and Bridges will appear as “The Dude” in a Stella Artois commercial to raise money to combat water shortage. The 45-second ad launches Monday and will be televised during Super Bowl 53 on Feb. 3.

“There will be a lot of men drinking during the Super Bowl, so why not buy some beer that’ll do some good for the planet and the world,” Bridges said in an interview with The Associated Press before shooting the ad.

The Pour It Forward campaign is an initiative between the beer brand and Water.org, co-founded by actor Matt Damon. Both will donate between one to 12 months of clean water to someone in an underdeveloped country based on the amount of Stella Artois packs bought.

Bridges said there’s a “tremendous need” for the initiative, while Parker called the campaign an “important and potentially impactful effort.”

Parker starred as the fashionable Bradshaw on the hit television series Sex in the City. Bridges is known as the nonchalant, knit-sweater-wearing character Jeffrey “The Dude” from the cult classic film The Big Lebowski.

Parker said she and Bridges enjoyed having their characters meet up.

In the commercial, the two separately order the beer instead of their favorite drink and end up sitting next to each other. Bradshaw prefers a Cosmopolitan cocktail, while The Dude’s usual is a White Russian cocktail.

“I really like the way they created this world,” said Parker, who said she doesn’t expect to play Bradshaw in Sex and the City anytime soon. “It’s allowing this sort of a familiarity. People associate those characters without us literally playing them.”
…

your ads here!

Sarah Jessica Parker and Jeff Bridges are bringing a couple of famed characters back to life for a charity in a new Super Bowl commercial.

Parker will reprise her Sex and the City Carrie Bradshaw role and Bridges will appear as “The Dude” in a Stella Artois commercial to raise money to combat water shortage. The 45-second ad launches Monday and will be televised during Super Bowl 53 on Feb. 3.

“There will be a lot of men drinking during the Super Bowl, so why not buy some beer that’ll do some good for the planet and the world,” Bridges said in an interview with The Associated Press before shooting the ad.

The Pour It Forward campaign is an initiative between the beer brand and Water.org, co-founded by actor Matt Damon. Both will donate between one to 12 months of clean water to someone in an underdeveloped country based on the amount of Stella Artois packs bought.

Bridges said there’s a “tremendous need” for the initiative, while Parker called the campaign an “important and potentially impactful effort.”

Parker starred as the fashionable Bradshaw on the hit television series Sex in the City. Bridges is known as the nonchalant, knit-sweater-wearing character Jeffrey “The Dude” from the cult classic film The Big Lebowski.

Parker said she and Bridges enjoyed having their characters meet up.

In the commercial, the two separately order the beer instead of their favorite drink and end up sitting next to each other. Bradshaw prefers a Cosmopolitan cocktail, while The Dude’s usual is a White Russian cocktail.

“I really like the way they created this world,” said Parker, who said she doesn’t expect to play Bradshaw in Sex and the City anytime soon. “It’s allowing this sort of a familiarity. People associate those characters without us literally playing them.”
…

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“Black Panther” took the top award at Sunday’s 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards, giving Ryan Coogler’s superhero sensation its most significant awards-season honor yet and potentially setting up Wakanda for a major role at next month’s Academy Awards.

The two leading Oscar nominees – “Roma” and “The Favorite” – were bypassed by the actors guild for a best ensemble field that also included “BlacKkKlansman,” “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “A Star Is Born.” Although “Black Panther” wasn’t nominated for any individual SAG Awards, it took home the final award at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Before a stage full of actors, Chadwick Boseman tried to put into context the moment for the trailblazing “Black Panther,” which also won for its stunt performer ensemble. “To be young, gifted and black,” he said, quoting the Nina Simone song.

“We know what it’s like to be told there isn’t a screen for you to be featured on, a stage for you to be featured on. … We know what’s like to be beneath and not above. And that is what we went to work with every day,” said Boseman. “We knew that we could create a world that exemplified a world we wanted to see. We knew that we had something to give.”

​The win puts “Black Panther” squarely in contention for best picture at the Academy Awards where it’s nominated for seven honors including best picture. Actors make up the largest percentage of the academy, so their preferences can have an especially large impact on the Oscar race. In the last decade the SAG ensemble winner has gone on to win best picture at the Academy Awards half of the time.

In the lead acting categories, Glenn Close and Rami Malek solidified themselves as front-runners with wins that followed their triumphs at the Golden Globes. The 71-year-old Close, a seven-time nominee but never an Oscar winner, won best actress for her performance in “The Wife.” In her speech, she spoke about the power of film in a multiscreen world. 

“One of the most powerful things we have as human beings are two eyes looking into two eyes,” said Close. “Film is the only art form that allows us the close-up.”

Malek, wining best actor over Christian Bale (“Vice”) and Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born”) for his performance in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” seemingly sealed the Oscar many are predicting for him. Malek’s awards are mounting even as the director of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Bryan Singer, is facing multiple accusations of sexual assault with minors. Singer has denied the claims.

As he did at the Globes, Malek dedicated his award to Mercury. 

“I get some power from him that’s about stepping up and living your best life, being exactly who you want to be and accomplishing everything you so desire,” said Malek.

More surprising was Emily Blunt’s best supporting actress win for her performance in the horror thriller “A Quiet Place.” Blunt, also nominated by the guild for her lead performance in “Mary Poppins Returns,” was visibly shocked. She wasn’t among Tuesday’s Oscar nominees for either film.

“Guys. That truly has blown my slicked hair back,” said Blunt, who praised her husband and “A Quiet Place” director John Krasinski as a “stunning filmmaker.” “Thank you for giving me the part. You would have been in major trouble if you hadn’t.”

Best supporting actor in a film went more as expected. Mahershala Ali, who won two years ago for “Moonlight,” won for his performance in Peter Farrelly’s interracial road trip “Green Book.”

The Amazon series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” won the first three awards handed out Sunday, sweeping the comedy series awards. It won best ensemble in a comedy series, as well as individual honors for Rachel Brosnahan and Tony Shalhoub, whose win was a surprise in a category that included Bill Hader (“Barry”) and Michael Douglas (“The Kominsky Method”).

​”We cannot thank you enough,” said Shalhoub, speaking for the cast. “Stay with us.”

Tom Hanks presented the lifetime achievement award to Alan Alda , who in July revealed that he had been living with Parkinson’s disease for more than three years. The 83-year-old actor took the stage to a standing ovation while the theme to “M.A.S.H” played. He said the award came at a reflective moment for him.

“I see more than ever now how proud I am to be a part of our brotherhood and sisterhood of actors,” said Alda. “It may never have been more urgent to see the world through another person’s eyes. When a culture is divided so sharply, actors can help – a least a little – just by doing what we do. And the nice part is it’s fun to do it. So my wish for all of us is: Let’s stay playful.”

For the second time, the cast of “This Is Us” won best ensemble in a drama series. Other TV winners included Sandra Oh (“Killing Eve”), Darren Criss for “Assassination of Gianni Versace”, Jason Bateman (“Ozark”) and Patricia Arquette (“Escape at Dannemora”). Arquette thanked Special Counsel investigator Robert Mueller “and everyone working to make sure we have sovereignty for the United States of America.”

The SAG Awards had one thing the Oscars don’t: a host. Emcee Megan Mullally kicked off the awards by tweaking their role among the many honors leading up to next month’s Oscars. She called the SAGs “the greatest honor an actor can receive this weekend.”

The show did not boost the chances of other Oscar hopefuls, “A Star Is Born,” “The Favorite” and “BlacKkKlansman,” which were all shut out Sunday night.

Among the attendees Sunday was Geoffrey Owens, the “Cosby Show” actor who caused a stir when he was photographed working at a New Jersey Trader Joe’s. He was among the performers who began the show with the SAG Awards’ typical “I am an actor” testimony. The SAGs also made time for one reunion: “Fatal Attraction” stars Michael Douglas and Glenn Close joined each other on stage as presenters.
…

your ads here!

“Black Panther” took the top award at Sunday’s 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards, giving Ryan Coogler’s superhero sensation its most significant awards-season honor yet and potentially setting up Wakanda for a major role at next month’s Academy Awards.

The two leading Oscar nominees – “Roma” and “The Favorite” – were bypassed by the actors guild for a best ensemble field that also included “BlacKkKlansman,” “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “A Star Is Born.” Although “Black Panther” wasn’t nominated for any individual SAG Awards, it took home the final award at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Before a stage full of actors, Chadwick Boseman tried to put into context the moment for the trailblazing “Black Panther,” which also won for its stunt performer ensemble. “To be young, gifted and black,” he said, quoting the Nina Simone song.

“We know what it’s like to be told there isn’t a screen for you to be featured on, a stage for you to be featured on. … We know what’s like to be beneath and not above. And that is what we went to work with every day,” said Boseman. “We knew that we could create a world that exemplified a world we wanted to see. We knew that we had something to give.”

​The win puts “Black Panther” squarely in contention for best picture at the Academy Awards where it’s nominated for seven honors including best picture. Actors make up the largest percentage of the academy, so their preferences can have an especially large impact on the Oscar race. In the last decade the SAG ensemble winner has gone on to win best picture at the Academy Awards half of the time.

In the lead acting categories, Glenn Close and Rami Malek solidified themselves as front-runners with wins that followed their triumphs at the Golden Globes. The 71-year-old Close, a seven-time nominee but never an Oscar winner, won best actress for her performance in “The Wife.” In her speech, she spoke about the power of film in a multiscreen world. 

“One of the most powerful things we have as human beings are two eyes looking into two eyes,” said Close. “Film is the only art form that allows us the close-up.”

Malek, wining best actor over Christian Bale (“Vice”) and Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born”) for his performance in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” seemingly sealed the Oscar many are predicting for him. Malek’s awards are mounting even as the director of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Bryan Singer, is facing multiple accusations of sexual assault with minors. Singer has denied the claims.

As he did at the Globes, Malek dedicated his award to Mercury. 

“I get some power from him that’s about stepping up and living your best life, being exactly who you want to be and accomplishing everything you so desire,” said Malek.

More surprising was Emily Blunt’s best supporting actress win for her performance in the horror thriller “A Quiet Place.” Blunt, also nominated by the guild for her lead performance in “Mary Poppins Returns,” was visibly shocked. She wasn’t among Tuesday’s Oscar nominees for either film.

“Guys. That truly has blown my slicked hair back,” said Blunt, who praised her husband and “A Quiet Place” director John Krasinski as a “stunning filmmaker.” “Thank you for giving me the part. You would have been in major trouble if you hadn’t.”

Best supporting actor in a film went more as expected. Mahershala Ali, who won two years ago for “Moonlight,” won for his performance in Peter Farrelly’s interracial road trip “Green Book.”

The Amazon series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” won the first three awards handed out Sunday, sweeping the comedy series awards. It won best ensemble in a comedy series, as well as individual honors for Rachel Brosnahan and Tony Shalhoub, whose win was a surprise in a category that included Bill Hader (“Barry”) and Michael Douglas (“The Kominsky Method”).

​”We cannot thank you enough,” said Shalhoub, speaking for the cast. “Stay with us.”

Tom Hanks presented the lifetime achievement award to Alan Alda , who in July revealed that he had been living with Parkinson’s disease for more than three years. The 83-year-old actor took the stage to a standing ovation while the theme to “M.A.S.H” played. He said the award came at a reflective moment for him.

“I see more than ever now how proud I am to be a part of our brotherhood and sisterhood of actors,” said Alda. “It may never have been more urgent to see the world through another person’s eyes. When a culture is divided so sharply, actors can help – a least a little – just by doing what we do. And the nice part is it’s fun to do it. So my wish for all of us is: Let’s stay playful.”

For the second time, the cast of “This Is Us” won best ensemble in a drama series. Other TV winners included Sandra Oh (“Killing Eve”), Darren Criss for “Assassination of Gianni Versace”, Jason Bateman (“Ozark”) and Patricia Arquette (“Escape at Dannemora”). Arquette thanked Special Counsel investigator Robert Mueller “and everyone working to make sure we have sovereignty for the United States of America.”

The SAG Awards had one thing the Oscars don’t: a host. Emcee Megan Mullally kicked off the awards by tweaking their role among the many honors leading up to next month’s Oscars. She called the SAGs “the greatest honor an actor can receive this weekend.”

The show did not boost the chances of other Oscar hopefuls, “A Star Is Born,” “The Favorite” and “BlacKkKlansman,” which were all shut out Sunday night.

Among the attendees Sunday was Geoffrey Owens, the “Cosby Show” actor who caused a stir when he was photographed working at a New Jersey Trader Joe’s. He was among the performers who began the show with the SAG Awards’ typical “I am an actor” testimony. The SAGs also made time for one reunion: “Fatal Attraction” stars Michael Douglas and Glenn Close joined each other on stage as presenters.
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Popular musical romance “A Star Is Born” – featuring the powerhouse duo of Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga – leads the field for Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, which are seen as a major predictor of Oscars success.

Hollywood’s A-listers including Gaga made their way up the silver carpet – in honor of the event’s 25th anniversary – before the gala at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

This year, the SAG Awards come at a key point in the race to next month’s Academy Awards — just after the Oscars nominations, and before voting for the winners begins.

The Screen Actors Guild accounts for a major percentage of the 8,000-odd Oscar voters, so the SAG winners will earn a lot of awards season momentum.

“A Star Is Born,” the latest iteration of the classic Tinseltown story of an aging star and the ingenue he discovers, earned four SAG nominations for Cooper, Gaga, Sam Elliott and best ensemble cast – the top prize.

“BlacKkKlansman,” Spike Lee’s latest film, is just behind with three and could spark a surprise, pundits say, due to the great respect for the veteran US director among Hollywood’s actors.

And superhero juggernaut “Black Panther” could pull a major upset in the best ensemble category – giving its star-studded cast the chance to give the signature “Wakanda Forever” salute from the stage.

One major absentee is Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” — the top Oscar nomination getter was left out of SAG contention.

Longtime Oscar watcher Sasha Stone sees the race as a major toss-up.

“‘A Star Is Born’ could win big, setting it up as once again the season’s frontrunner. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ could win – yes, even still,” Stone wrote on her website, Awards Daily.

But she ultimately put her money on “BlacKkKlansman,” which is based on the true story of a black cop who successfully infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan with the help of his white partner, who acts as his surrogate.

She notes it’s the only film to earn nominations at all the major awards shows and in the key categories, while acknowledging: “We all must agree that it’s a weird year and stats don’t matter.”

Sure bets and toss-ups

In the individual races, best actress is seen by industry experts as a near-lock for Glenn Close, who has taken home a Golden Globe and a Critics’ Choice Award so far for her work in “The Wife.”

Outside contenders are Gaga and Olivia Colman, who wowed critics with her portrayal of Queen Anne in the offbeat royal romp “The Favourite.”

For best actor, Christian Bale’s disappearance into the role of former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney in “Vice” is seen as the one to beat.

But Rami Malek’s star-making turn as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody” earned him a Golden Globe, an Oscar nomination — and a chance to win on Sunday.

Colman’s co-stars Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are nominees, as are “BlacKkKlansman” co-stars John David Washington and Adam Driver.

“Hopefully this film is inspiring people to talk, to communicate,” Washington said on the silver carpet.

In the supporting acting categories, Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”) is expected to continue his march to the Oscars, but the actress trophy is a toss-up, as early favorite Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) is not nominated.

Many have since put their money on Amy Adams, who plays Cheney’s wife Lynne in “Vice.”

While SAG-winning casts have only gone on to win a best picture Oscar about half the time, the awards are better at predicting best actor winners (79 percent) and best actress (75 percent).

In the television categories, shows will look to build up some momentum ahead of the Emmys later this year.

Those include new Netflix comedy “The Kominsky Method” starring Michael Douglas and the streaming giant’s returning dark drama “Ozark.”

Perennial favorites such as Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel,” powerhouse FX drama “The Americans” and NBC family drama “This Is Us” are also in the mix.

Tom Hanks will give a lifetime achievement award to veteran actor Alan Alda, the star of the long-running TV comedy “MAS*H” who revealed last year that he is battling Parkinson’s disease.

The lineup of presenters includes a who’s who of the nominees – from Cooper, Gaga and Elliott to Chadwick Boseman and Angela Bassett from the “Black Panther” cast.

 
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your ads here!

Popular musical romance “A Star Is Born” – featuring the powerhouse duo of Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga – leads the field for Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, which are seen as a major predictor of Oscars success.

Hollywood’s A-listers including Gaga made their way up the silver carpet – in honor of the event’s 25th anniversary – before the gala at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

This year, the SAG Awards come at a key point in the race to next month’s Academy Awards — just after the Oscars nominations, and before voting for the winners begins.

The Screen Actors Guild accounts for a major percentage of the 8,000-odd Oscar voters, so the SAG winners will earn a lot of awards season momentum.

“A Star Is Born,” the latest iteration of the classic Tinseltown story of an aging star and the ingenue he discovers, earned four SAG nominations for Cooper, Gaga, Sam Elliott and best ensemble cast – the top prize.

“BlacKkKlansman,” Spike Lee’s latest film, is just behind with three and could spark a surprise, pundits say, due to the great respect for the veteran US director among Hollywood’s actors.

And superhero juggernaut “Black Panther” could pull a major upset in the best ensemble category – giving its star-studded cast the chance to give the signature “Wakanda Forever” salute from the stage.

One major absentee is Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” — the top Oscar nomination getter was left out of SAG contention.

Longtime Oscar watcher Sasha Stone sees the race as a major toss-up.

“‘A Star Is Born’ could win big, setting it up as once again the season’s frontrunner. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ could win – yes, even still,” Stone wrote on her website, Awards Daily.

But she ultimately put her money on “BlacKkKlansman,” which is based on the true story of a black cop who successfully infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan with the help of his white partner, who acts as his surrogate.

She notes it’s the only film to earn nominations at all the major awards shows and in the key categories, while acknowledging: “We all must agree that it’s a weird year and stats don’t matter.”

Sure bets and toss-ups

In the individual races, best actress is seen by industry experts as a near-lock for Glenn Close, who has taken home a Golden Globe and a Critics’ Choice Award so far for her work in “The Wife.”

Outside contenders are Gaga and Olivia Colman, who wowed critics with her portrayal of Queen Anne in the offbeat royal romp “The Favourite.”

For best actor, Christian Bale’s disappearance into the role of former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney in “Vice” is seen as the one to beat.

But Rami Malek’s star-making turn as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody” earned him a Golden Globe, an Oscar nomination — and a chance to win on Sunday.

Colman’s co-stars Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are nominees, as are “BlacKkKlansman” co-stars John David Washington and Adam Driver.

“Hopefully this film is inspiring people to talk, to communicate,” Washington said on the silver carpet.

In the supporting acting categories, Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”) is expected to continue his march to the Oscars, but the actress trophy is a toss-up, as early favorite Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) is not nominated.

Many have since put their money on Amy Adams, who plays Cheney’s wife Lynne in “Vice.”

While SAG-winning casts have only gone on to win a best picture Oscar about half the time, the awards are better at predicting best actor winners (79 percent) and best actress (75 percent).

In the television categories, shows will look to build up some momentum ahead of the Emmys later this year.

Those include new Netflix comedy “The Kominsky Method” starring Michael Douglas and the streaming giant’s returning dark drama “Ozark.”

Perennial favorites such as Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel,” powerhouse FX drama “The Americans” and NBC family drama “This Is Us” are also in the mix.

Tom Hanks will give a lifetime achievement award to veteran actor Alan Alda, the star of the long-running TV comedy “MAS*H” who revealed last year that he is battling Parkinson’s disease.

The lineup of presenters includes a who’s who of the nominees – from Cooper, Gaga and Elliott to Chadwick Boseman and Angela Bassett from the “Black Panther” cast.

 
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