David returns to the entertainment business after 10 years working at "Sports Business Journal," where he launched an international digital operation. His most recent assignment was managing editor of SBJ’s esports website. Before that David had a 22-year stint with The Hollywood Reporter, rising from Copy Desk Chief to Deputy Editor – International. He also oversaw the editorial operations of the publication's film festival dailies for 15 years, growing that business from two (Cannes and Milan at the start) to include dailies in Berlin, Busan, Hong Kong, Dubai, Toronto, Tokyo and Santa Monica.
As we race to the Oscar finish line, it has certainly been a year to remember. The movie business all but shook off the last vestiges of the Covid era with the phenomenon that was Barbenheimer — collectively, Barbie and Oppenheimer earned more than $2 billion globally at the box office. Not only is cinema…
The music business is all about the next big act, the next big performer. Who’s going to break out. Who’s going to be the next household name. The Grammys, over the years and to varying degrees of success, has delivered that prediction with its Best New Artist prize.
Starting with Bobby Darin in 1960, the award has…
A 5-year-old Iranian child and her mother find refuge in an Australian women's shelter while on the run from an abusive ex in Noora Niasari's Shayda. It's a very personal story for Niasari because she was that little girl, played in the film by new discovery Selina Zahednia, with Zar Amir Ebrahimi…
The television business has a lot to be thankful for, if the number of Thanksgiving episodes it has churned out over the years is any indication.
One of the most memorable for many people revolves around turkeys and their inability to fly. WKRP in Cincinnati's 1978 episode “Turkeys Away,” is about a…
Bruce Willis burst onto the American entertainment scene as the glib, smart-alecky detective David Addison Jr. opposite Cybill Shepherd’s Maddie Haynes in ABC’s Moonlighting, a show that helped launch the dramedy genre. Willis was not long for the small screen, though, with his his sharp tongue and sarcastic wit…
FLORA AND SONSection: Gala Presentations
Director-screenwriter: John Carney
Logline: Irish director John Carney reinvents the musical with Flora and Son, swapping ornately choreographed razzamatazz for disarmingly earnest indie simplicity. The film features a revelatory performance from…
DADDIOSection: Special Presentations
Director-screenwriter: Christy Hall
Logline: Christy Hall offers a refreshing turn on the tried-and-true cinematic exploitation of the relationship between younger women and older men as Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn display their magnetism and acting…
THE HOLDOVERSSection: Special Presentations
Director: Alexander Payne
Writer: David Hemingson
Logline: Alexander Payne’s latest film focuses in the bond that forms between a strict professor at an elite boarding school, played by Paul Giamatti, and a belligerent student (Dominic…
HIT MANSection: Special Presentations
Director: Richard Linklater
Writers: Richard Linklater and Glen Powell
Logline: Prolific indie auteur Richard Linklater reunites with Everybody Wants Some!!‘s Glen Powell for a sorta-true crime comedy thriller about role-play, romance and the…
WILDCATSection: Special Presentation
Director: Ethan Hawke
Screenwriters: Shelby Gaines, Ethan Hawke
Logline: Ethan Hawke directs his daughter Maya Hawke in a film that explores the life and art of American author Flannery O’Connor. The film focuses on a key period in the author’s…
DREAM SCENARIOSection: Platform
Director-screenwriter: Kristoffer Borgli
Logline: Nicolas Cage plays Paul Matthews, an inconspicuous academic who is thrust into the limelight after he starts inexplicably appearing in people’s dreams in this satirical swipe at celebrity and groupthink from…
HELL OF A SUMMERSection: Midnight Madness
Directors-screenwriters: Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk
Logline: Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk star as a pair of horny teenagers looking to score with their fellow counselors at rustic Camp Pineway before the camp is terrorized by a masked killer…