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The Hollywood Creative Alliance has announced the winners for the 2024 Astra Film and Creative Arts Awards on Sunday, Dec. 8. The organization hosted two ceremonies – a luncheon and dinner – at the Taglyan Complex in Los Angeles. Actor, comedian and writer Peter Kim hosted the Astra Creative Arts Awards and two-time Emmy and NAACP-winning comedian Loni Love hosted the Astra Film Awards.

Universal Pictures’ “Wicked” came out on top with eight wins including Best Picture, Best Director for Jon M. Chu, Best Actress for Cynthia Erivo, and Best Supporting Actress for Ariana Grande (tie with Zoe Saldaña). Coming in second place was Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part Two” and Netflix’s “Emilia Pérez” with four wins each. See the full list of winners below.

In addition, the Hollywood Creative Alliance honored costume designer Colleen Atwood with the Inaugural Artisan Icon Award, composer Kris Bowers received the Artisan Achievement Award, and cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi...

The second season of indie streamer Dropout’s Rekha Shankar-hosted “Smartypants” is set to debut in the first quarter of 2025 with numerous guest stars lined up for the new batch of episodes, including Hank Green.

Per the second season description, “Join more secret gatherings of the Smartypants Society! Host Rekha Shankar welcomes new and returning members to share their bold ideas, controversial takes, and unhinged theories in a series of presentations that will change everything you thought you knew about the world.”

Along with Green, notable cast members featured across the 15 episodes in “Smartypants” Season 2, which wrapped production last week, include Alexis Nikole Nelson, Alyssa Limperis, Cameron Esposito, Courtney Miller, Demi Adejuyigbe, Max Burkholder and Vinny Thomas.

The first season of “Smartypants” debuted on Dropout in April and ran through August. It consisted of nine episodes.

The full list of “Smartypants” Season 2 new and returning guest stars also includes Anna Garcia,...

After a record-breaking weekend at the global box office, “Wicked” has now become the most nominated movie in the Astra Film Awards and Astra Creative Arts Awards eight-year history. The Universal Pictures film received 20 nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress for Cynthia Erivo, Best Supporting Actress for Ariana Grande, and Best Director for Jon M. Chu.

The Hollywood Creative Alliance will host two ceremonies – a luncheon and dinner – on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024 at the Taglyan Complex in Los Angeles. Both ceremonies will be recorded and streamed on Knekt.tv and YouTube. Actor, comedian, and writer Peter Kim will host the Astra Creative Arts Awards and Emmy-winning comedian and host, Loni Love, will host the Astra Film Awards.

“Dune: Part Two” came in second place with a total of 16 nominations. The Denis Villeneuve sequel from Warner Bros. snagged nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cast Ensemble, amongst many others categories.

Exclusive: Korean American comedian, writer and producer Cathy Shim is the latest to join the cast of the film K-Pops! from first-time director and eight-time Grammy winner Anderson .Paak (who also stars). She will play Diamond, the energetic iconic host of a K-pop competition show in Seoul, and .Paak’s hard-to-please boss.

K-Pops! follows a washed-up musician from Los Angeles who attempts to reinvigorate his career by joining a band for a K-Pop competition show in Seoul and discovers that his long-lost son has the chance to front one of the country’s hottest new groups. He jumps at the opportunity to capitalize on his son’s stardom for his renaissance but ultimately learns that fatherhood is much more fulfilling and meaningful.

Scripted by .Paak and Khaila Amazan, K-Pops!‘ producers are Greg Silverman and Jon Berg on behalf of Stampede Ventures, Jaeson Ma on behalf of Est Studios, Park on behalf of Big Dummie,...

Bros Review — Bros (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Nicholas Stoller, written by Billy Eichner and Nicholas Stoller and starring Billy Eichner, Luke Macfarlane, Guy Branum, Miss Lawrence, Ts Madison, Dot-Marie Jones, Jim Rash, Eve Lindley, Monica Raymund, Guillermo Diaz, Jai Rodriguez, Amanda Bearse, Debra Messing, Peter Kim, Justin Covington, Symone, Ryan [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Bros (2022): Billy Eichner is Terrific in a Wonderfully Unique and Charming Romantic Comedy...

Exclusive: TruTV has handed a pilot order to Seoul Hunters, a sketch comedy show from Cathy Shim (Reno 911!) and Robert Ben Garant, Big Breakfast and Ben Silverman and Howard T. Owen’s Propagate. Shim and Garant also star, along with up-and-coming comic Peter Kim (Fairfax) and popular Korean comedian and trot artist Kim Young-chul (Knowing Bros).

Co-written by Shim, Garant and Kevin Healy and directed by Garant, Seoul Hunters is described as a cutting-edge comedy hybrid set in the world of a paranormal Korean ghost-hunting show, featuring both Korean-American and South Korean comedians in single-camera sketch pranks.

Shim and Garant executive produce with Big Breakfast’s Luke Kelly-Clyne and Healey, along with Propagate’s Silverman, Owens, and Drew Buckley. Mills Presents’ Mike Mills and Mat Baxt and David Regal also serve as executive producers.

Shim and Garant most recently co-created and produced the Comedy Central pilot Chasers,...

Billy Eichner’s landmark romantic comedy “Bros” has added a new crop of actors to its ensemble cast. All principals in the Universal Pictures project are LGBTQ+.

New additions include Academy Award-winning actor-writer Jim Rash, Eve Lindley, D’Lo Srijaerajah, Peter Kim, Justin Covington, Dot-Marie Jones and Becca Blackwell.

The cast reflects a broad range of comedic talent and was built to expand and diversify queer representation on screen. The film is produced by Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller, who is also directing. Eichner stars with the previously announced Luke Macfarlane, Ts Madison, Miss Lawrence, Symone, Guillermo Diaz and Guy Branum.

“After queer actors have spent decades watching straight actors capitalize both artistically and professionally by playing LGBTQ+ characters, it is a long overdue dream come true to be able to assemble this remarkable, hilarious cast,” Eichner previously said of the film.

The film is described as a “heartfelt comedy...

Stars: Kelsey Grammer, Julia Stiles, Colman Domingo, Janeane Garofalo, Dan Hedaya, Patricia R. Floyd, Peter Kim, Motell Gyn Foster, Patricia Mauceri, Kyle Moore, Maurizio Di Meo | Written and Directed by Austin Stark

Who lives, who dies? They decide… Three patients wait to see if they will live or die as a hospital committee decides to grant a lifesaving heart transplant to one of them. Seven years later the committee members struggle with the consequences of that fateful decision.

Austin Stark, director the 2015 political drama The Runner (which starred Nicolas Cage), steps back behind the camera for The God Committee – a film which is based on a stage play by Mark St. Germain which was called a cross between Twelve Angry Men and ER… Which, on paper, and on the stage, makes for an interesting premise. However on film, The God Committee is anything but interesting, instead it’s frustrating.

Frustrating...

Kelsey Grammer and Julia Stiles do not make a natural romantic couple, and their awkward pairing is the largest misstep made by “The God Committee,” writer-director Austin Stark’s adaptation of Mark St. Germain’s play about a group of doctors tasked with deciding which of three patients should receive a heart transplant. Often resembling a schematic variation on “Twelve Angry Men” by way of “Grey’s Anatomy,” this earnest drama is That won’t be enough to garner it much box-office traction, but it does make it a solid option for adult VOD viewers.

In November 2014, a New York City hospital’s transplant committee is confronted with a crisis: With the intended recipient of a fresh heart perishing on the operating table, a new beneficiary must be selected in one hour, lest the in-demand organ expire. That sets the ticking-time-bomb tone for the ensuing action, which centers on esteemed Dr.

Sundance winner The Forty-Year-Old Version is a familiar story to anyone who hits the age of 40, as it makes one re-evaluate life and decide the next steps in one’s career and beyond. For the film’s writer, director and star Radha Blank, it was a personal story — and driven by adversity.

“It wasn’t something I thought hard about,” she says during the Netflix film’s panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film in regards to using her life as inspiration for the film. “It was more about the adversity in my life pushing me in this direction. I got fired from my first film-writing job and pretty much like my character, I wanted to take my voice back.”

She adds, “Making the film gave me an opportunity to tell a story about someone like me from my point of view while also celebrating my city and paying homage to...

The second day of Deadline’s Contenders Film kicks off Sunday at 8 a.m. Pt, returning after a big Day 1 on Saturday to complete a slate of 49 films from 16 studios and distributors, one that features a hugely impressive lineup of talent numbering 150 speakers over the course of the weekend for our annual awards-season event.

Click here to register and join the livestream, and follow along all day with coverage on Deadline as well as on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram via @Deadline and #DeadlineContenders. See the full schedule of panels below.

Due to obvious health and safety reasons, and following guidelines about gatherings set by the CDC, Contenders is going virtual, after success doing so starting with Contenders TV in the spring and then again with Contenders International and Contenders Documentary. It has boosted the global reach of the event, and although we miss seeing everyone in person, it has been...

Exclusive: ABC has put in development Kim’s Spa, a semi-autobiographical multi-camera comedy from Peter Kim (Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Mad TV alum Bobby Lee, both of whom star, The McCarthys creator Brian Gallivan and CBS Studios.

Written by Kim based on his life, in Kim’s Spa a pragmatic young man (Kim) returns home to work with his brother (Lee) and their lovable group of misfit relatives after their father dies in the hot tub of their family-owned Korean spa.

Kim and Lee are co-executive producers. Artists First’s Peter Principato, Brooke Shoemaker, and Casey Neumeier are executive producers. Gallivan is supervising producer.

Lee is maybe best known for his many years on Mad TV, and his top streaming comedy podcasts, Tiger Belly and Bad Friends. Other television credits include starring in ABC’s Splitting Up Together and NBC’s Animal Practice, as well as guest spots on Game On,...

Filmmaker Garrett Bradley is known for tackling pressing issues facing the Black community with her work. Her documentary short America painted a portrait of how Black people are represented in American culture while Alone, investigated the impact of mass incarceration on the modern Black family through the eyes of a single mother in New Orleans. The latter won Bradley the Short Film Jury Award in non-fiction at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. She also served as the second unit director on Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us and directed of Queen Sugar. This weekend, the prolific filmmaker makes her way into theaters with her feature documentary debut Time.

The docu continues Bradley’s investigation of incarceration and its impact on the Black community as she follows Fox Rich, an entrepreneur, author, and mother of six who has spent the last 21 years fighting for the release of her husband, Rob, who...

A hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where Radha Blank won the U.S. Dramatic Competition Directing Award, The 40-Year-Old Version stars the actress as a playwright who decides at 40 to become a rapper, hoping to re-discover her artistic voice. In addition to starring and directing the film, which arrives on Netflix in October, Blank also serves as screenwriter and producer alongside Emmy winner Lena Waithe. The first trailer for the film showcases Blank (who has served as a producer on Netflix’s adaptation of She’s Gotta Have It and the Fox hit Empire) as a fresh voice in independent cinema as she details the difficulty and absurdity of navigating a predominantly white industry as a Black female creative.

John Fink said in our review, “Playwright Radha Blank’s spirited directorial debut The 40-Year-Old Version in an often hilarious and heartfelt autobiographical tale of reinvention. Surrounded in a...

Netflix’s upcoming movie slate includes major new offerings from top directors like Charlie Kaufman (“I’m Thinking of Ending Things”), David Fincher (“Mank”), and Ron Howard (“Hillbilly Elegy”), but it also includes a Sundance gem from breakout first-time filmmaker Radha Blank. This gem is “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” which won Blank the Best Director prize at Sundance earlier this year. Blank stars in the film as a variation of herself opposite a cast of mostly new faces, including Peter Kim, Oswin Benjamin, Imani Lewis, and Haskiri Velazquez. Tony winner Reed Birney also stars, while Lena Waithe is attached to the film as one of its producers.

The official synopsis for “The Forty-Year-Old Version” from Netflix reads: “Radha, a down-on-her-luck NY playwright, is desperate for a breakthrough before 40. But when she foils what seems like her last shot at success, she’s left with no choice but to reinvent herself as rapper RadhaMUSPrime.

Netflix has made official what Deadline first reported last Friday: The streaming giant has acquired global rights to Radha Blank’s Sundance premiere The 40-Year-Old Version which won the festival’s Directing Award-u.S. Dramatic last weekend.

A theatrical release is being planned for later this year. Deadline first reported that the deal is in the mid-to-high seven figures.

Netflix In Talks To Acquire Radha Blank’s ‘The 40-Year-Old Version

“It took years of trying to get this film made. It’s my love letter to NY and its struggling artists as well as the NY artistic institutions that raised me – Hip Hop and Theater. I made this film in the spirit of the great NY auteurs who came before me but from an angle not often seen. I’m so very proud of the artisans, many from New York, who helped me craft this movie with such loving and capable hands.

Playwright Radha Blank’s spirited directorial debut The 40-Year-Old Version in an often hilarious and heartfelt autobiographical tale of reinvention. Surrounded in a shoebox apartment of memories of her past including 30 Under 30 Awards, Blank plays herself, a playwright who is faced with two options for her new play Harlem Ave: a local family theater or a flashier off-Broadway venue with a hole in their schedule. Best friend Archie (Peter Y. Kim) convinces her to get dressed up and court Josh Whitman (a scene-stealing Reed Birney) who has just come away from producing a bi-racial reboot of Austin Wilson’s Fences. Whitman is known for producing “safe, white-friendly” black stories and after getting physically choked by Blank, he relents and agrees to put on a production of Harlem Ave.

Meanwhile, Blank struggles again for reinvention, finding herself in a 40-year-old body with the mind of her 20-year-old self. She’s hit...

With over 60 films viewed at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, it’s time to wrap up the first major cinema event of the year. We already got the official jury and audience winners here, and now it’s time to highlight our favorites.

One will find our favorites (in alphabetical order), followed by the rest of our reviews. Check out everything below and stay tuned to our site, and specifically Twitter, for acquisition and release date news on the below films in the coming months.

The 40-Year-Old Version (Radha Blank)

Playwright Radha Blank’s spirited directorial debut The 40-Year-Old Version in an often hilarious and heartfelt autobiographical tale of reinvention. Surrounded in a shoebox apartment of memories of her past including 30 Under 30 Awards, Blank plays herself, a playwright who is faced with two options for her new play Harlem Ave: a local family theater or a flashier off-Broadway venue with a hole in their schedule.

Netflix is in negotiations to buy the worldwide rights to Radha Blank’s semi-autobiographical comedy “The 40-Year-Old Version,” sources have confirmed.

Blank directed, wrote, produced and stars in “The 40-Year-Old Version,” which premiered on Jan. 25 at the Sundance Film Festival. Peter Y. Kim, Oswin Benjamin, Reed Birney, Imani Lewis, Tj Atoms and Jacob Ming-Trent also star.

Blank portrays a down-on-her-luck New York playwright who decides to reinvent herself and salvage her artistic voice the only way she knows how — by becoming a rapper at age 40. This film follow its protagonist as she vacillates between the worlds of New York’s theater and hip-hop.

The film was shot on 35mm black and white film by cinematographer Eric Branco. “The 40-Year-Old Version” was selected for development at Sundance’s 2017 Screenwriters and Directors labs.

Besides Blank, producers include Lena Waithe, Jordan Fudge, Inuka Bacote-Capiga, Jennifer Semler and Rishi Rajani. Endeavor Content is handling sales.

Exclusive: Netflix is closing a world rights deal between mid- to high-seven figures for The 40-Year-Old-Version, the crowd-pleasing directorial debut of Radha Blank, who also stars in the film, wrote the script and produced with Lena Waithe, Jordan Fudge, Inuka Bacote-Capiga, Jennifer Semler and Rishi Rajani. The film is competing in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, and it premiered last Saturday at the Library Theatre.

Loosely inspired by events in Blank’s life, a once-promising playwright is barreling toward the stigma of being single and a struggling artist at the age of 40. Facing nonstop rejections from the theatre community while teaching a motley group of teens, she becomes creatively re-invigorated when she returns to rapping, her long-forgotten passion. When her play finally gets going, however, she puts recording a rap demo on the back burner and must navigate the awful tension of compromising her voice for career success.

In Radha Blank’s semi-autobiographical comedy, the quadruple-threat plays “Rahda Blank,” a Harlem-based playwright who faces many of the same struggles and setbacks as her creator.

It’s been more than a decade since Radha (as we’ll call the character) earned a promising “30 Under 30” award, and now, instead of getting her work produced, she’s teaching drama to half a dozen high school students. Tastemakers are constantly looking for the hot new thing, but all these years later, where they once spotted potential, her momentum appears to have stalled. In her frustration, Radha starts to rhyme, and the resulting raps are more honest than what she’d been writing for the stage. Her question: Is the world ready for “The 40-Year-Old Version”?

Judging by writer-director Blank’s mic-drop debut, the answer’s most assuredly affirmative. It’s affirmational, too, but not in a watered-down or obsequious kind of way.

According to most platitudes, your 20s are for experimenting, you’re more grounded in your 30s, and by the time you hit 40, you’ve pretty much settled into who you are as a person. Maybe so many people scoff at these ubiquitous Instagram bromides because they often induce a sense of anxiety about where you should be in your life and when. That anxiety certainly fuels writer-director-producer-star Radha Blank’s delightfully earnest new film, “The 40-Year-Old Version.”

The filmmaker plays (presumably) a version of herself as she borrows her own name for the character, a playwright barreling toward age 40 and no closer to a successful career or a stable personal life than she was at 20. Known for once producing a play with modest acclaim back in the day, Radha now teaches a theater workshop for similarly adrift black and brown youth in Harlem. And like so many single women of...

The essence of “The 40-Year-Old Version” comes early, when Radha Blank, playing a fictionalized version of herself, sobs in the corner of her apartment. A soggy rib dangles from one hand as her large frame melts into her chair. “I just wanna be an artist!” she cries, touching on the legitimate anxieties of the black woman at its center, and poking fun at them at the same time. Much about Blank’s smart and funny crowdpleasing directorial debut negotiates that tricky balance, with

Shot throughout New York with gorgeous black-and-white photography (by “Clemency” cinematographer Eric Branco), “The 40-Year-Old Version” always feels close to the ground, with Blank’s uneven path to writing a new play — and finding unexpected catharsis in hip hop — taking a series of entertaining twists. At 129 minutes, the lighthearted format risks growing stale, and certainly could have shaved off some perfunctory scenes. But Blank is so adroit...

Boy, Man, & Leather-Man. Breaking Glass Pictures has debuted an official trailer for an indie comedy titled Cubby, the "eccentric, lovable Lgbtq" feature directorial debut of filmmakers Mark Blane & Ben Mankoff. Mark Blane also wrote the script and stars in the film as a guy named Mark. This kinky, quirky, heartfelt film is about a guy from the Midwest who moves to New York City and ends up creating "Leather-Man", an alternative superhero identity that helps him to learn about discipline and control. Of course. The indie cast includes Patricia Richardson, John Duff, Joseph Seuffert, Rodney Richardson, Matthew Shear, Lucy DeVito, Christian Patrick, Naian Gonzalez Norvind, Peter Y. Kim, Zachary Booth, and Jeanine Serralles. The film will next screen at Outfest this month, and open in theaters later in the fall. "It's going to be super rad to see how audiences respond to our bizarre protagonist in Cubby." Have a look.

Just last night, Roundabout Theatre Company presentedthe 50th Anniversary Season Benefit Reading of The Man Who Came To Dinner byGeorge S. KaufmanandMoss Hart, starringNathan Lane. Joining him wereAustin Durant'Expressman, Technician, Police Officer',Peter Kim'Sandy',Mark Linn-Baker'Dr. Bradley',Ned Noyes'MichaelsonWestcottExpressman', Harrison Unger 'Stage Directions',Richard Poe'Mr. Stanley',Lee Wilkof'Banjo' and MaryLouise Wilson'Harriet Stanley'. BroadwayWorld was there for the special night and you can check out photos below...

Roundabout Theatre Company presents the 50th Anniversary Season Benefit Reading of The Man Who Came To Dinner by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart,starring Nathan Lane. Joining the celebrated cast are Austin Durant 'Expressman, Technician, Police Officer', Peter Kim 'Sandy', Mark Linn-Baker 'Dr. Bradley', Ned Noyes 'MichaelsonWestcottExpressman', Harrison Unger 'Stage Directions', Richard Poe 'Mr. Stanley', Lee Wilkof 'Banjo' and Mary Louise Wilson 'Harriet Stanley'. Roundabout's Associate Artistic Director Scott Ellisdirects this one-night only reading tonight, December 7, 2015 at 7 Pm at Studio 54.

Roundabout Theatre Company has confirmed complete casting for the 50th Anniversary Season Benefit Reading of The Man Who Came To Dinner by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart starring Nathan Lane. Joining the celebrated cast are Austin Durant 'Expressman, Technician, Police Officer', Peter Kim 'Sandy', Mark Linn-Baker 'Dr. Bradley', Ned Noyes 'MichaelsonWestcottExpressman', Harrison Unger 'Stage Directions', Richard Poe'Mr. Stanley',Lee Wilkof 'Banjo' and Mary Louise Wilson 'Harriet Stanley'. Roundabout's Associate Artistic Director Scott Ellis will direct this one-night only reading.

Kate Hudson kicked off Halloween weekend with a biker-themed bash in La on Thursday night. Kate and her girlfriends dressed as the "Daughters of Anarchy" with the actress's mom, Goldie Hawn, as their matriarch, and Kate shared a series of photos of the fun on Instagram. A sexy group shot was captioned, "Mother of Anarchy is taking her daughters to a little party.... #HappyHalloween," and another snap showed Kate posing with Peter Kim, the founder of Hudson Jeans. The women were all clad in sexy leather getups, though Kate was clearly comfortable showing the most skin; the actress, who has been keeping busy promoting her Fabletics activewear line, was understandably excited to show off the fruits of her gym labor. Kate is famous for throwing an annual Halloween party that never fails to bring out a star-studded list; last year, her event was attended by Fergie, Josh Duhamel, and her former Glee costar Lea Michele,...