News

Before facing off in London, multiple players on both the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars took a knee during the national anthem on Sunday.

The athletes, appearing to take a united stance against President Donald Trump’s recent railing against NFL player Colin Kaepernick and other players kneeling during the “Star Spangled Banner,” linked arms with each other at Wembley Stadium. Ravens coach John Harbaugh and Jaguars coach Doug Marrone stood with their team as well as their coaching and medical staffs during the anthem.

Jaguars owner Shad Khan, the only minority owner in the NFL, stood and linked arms...

On Saturday, Donald Trump made it clear that he wasn’t backing down on the controversial and widely criticized comments he made about NFL and NBA players who express their unhappiness over the current political situation in America by refusing to stand during the national anthem.

“If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect Our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem,” Trump tweeted.

“If not, You’Re Fired,” he continued. “Find something else to do!”

On Friday,...

On Friday at a rally for Alabama Republican Senate candidate Luther Strange, Donald Trump said he thought NFL team owners should fire players who protest standing for the national anthem by taking a knee or sitting down.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you’d say, ‘Get that son of a b—h off the field right now. Out! He’s fired,” Trump said.

“For a week, be the most popular person in this country. Because that’s a total disrespect of our heritage,” Trump continued. “That’s a total...

Ronald Konecky, an attorney who represented some of the biggest names in the TV news business, died Thursday in New York. He was 80.

Konecky's clients included Walter Cronkite, Don Hewitt, Roone Arledge, Morley Safer, Stone Phillips, Barbara Walters, Harry Smith, Don Ohlmeyer, Roger Goodman and Rick Kaplan. He also represented Frank Gifford, Alec Baldwin, Budd Schulberg, Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

Konecky served on the boards of the American Theatre Wing and the New Dramatists with his wife, Isobel Robins-Konecky, a Tony-nominated producer.

Konecky was counsel to Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz for the past 25 years.

In 1962, he co-founded Hardee Barovick Konecky and Braun, an entertainment law firm with more than 200 lawyers and offices in New York, London, Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, Calif.

A graduate of the University of Arizona and Harvard University, Konecky began his legal career at McA Artists, the most prominent entertainment talent agency in the U.

Kathryn Bigelow has nabbed the Directors Guild of America award for her work on "The Hurt Locker."

The feature film award and other directorial achievement awards were announced during the 62nd Annual DGA Awards Dinner on Saturday, Jan. 30 in Los Angeles, hosted by Carl Reiner.

     

In the past, the DGA's feature film award winner has been a decent predictor of who will win the best director Oscar. Since 1948, the DGA and Academy have only differed six times in that category.

Bigelow beat out fellow directors James Cameron ("Avatar"), Lee Daniels ( "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire"), Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air") and Quentin Tarantino ("Inglourious Basterds").

The other awards in directorial achievement follow:

Documentary

Louie Psihoyos, "The Cove"

Dramatic Series Night

Lesli Linka Glatter, "Mad Men" episode "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" (AMC)

Comedy Series

Jason Winer, "Modern Family" "Pilot" episode (ABC)

Movies for Television/Mini-series

Ross Katz,...

In an historic win, Kathryn Bigelow and her tense Iraq War drama "The Hurt Locker" from Summit Entertainment copped the DGA Award for best-directed feature film Saturday.

The win drew cheers from a packed ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, where throughout the night it was clear many were pulling for Bigelow to deliver a dramatic victory for female filmmakers. The DGA feature film win was a first-ever by a woman.

"This is the most incredible moment of my life," Bigelow said.

Bigelow overcame competition including Fox-distributed "Avatar," directed by her ex-husband James Cameron; Lee Daniels and "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" from Lionsgate; Jason Reitman and "Up in the Air" from Paramount; and Quentin Tarantino and "Inglourious Basterds" from the Weinstein Co.

The DGA's feature-film award is one of the best gauges of likely success in Oscar's best-director category. The Academy Award for directing...

The DGA, which unveiled the small-screen nominations in eight categories last Friday, will announce the winners Jan. 30 at its 62nd annual awards ceremonies at the Century Plaza Hotel. AMC’s Mad Men received three Directors Guild of America TV nominations for drama series and HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and Fox’s Glee each got a pair for comedy. The nominations included a trio of season finales in Mad Men, Curb and ABC’s Lost. In the comedy category, two shows — the pilot for ABC’s Modern Family and Glee — also received nominations.

Thomas Carter scored a nomination in the TV movie-miniseries category for TNT’s Gifted Hands — The Ben Carson Story along with Bob Balaban for Liftetime’s George O’Keefe, John Kent Harrison for CBS’s The Courageous Heart of Irene Sandler, Ross Katz for HBO’s Taking Chance and Michael Sucsy for HBO’s Grey Gardens.

Here...

"Mad Men" crew prove themselves that they work with the best. The AMC drama has just received three nominations at 2010 Directors Guild Awards. Three episodic directors, Jennifer Getzinger, Lesli Linka Glatter and Matthew Weiner, will compete against each other in Dramatic Series category.

The domination by "Mad Men" is almost being toppled by Fox's new series, "Glee", which nabs two under the category of Comedy Series. Similarly, HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" also has two candidates under Comedy, Jeff Schaffer and Larry Charles, who are both known as executive producers as well.

"Television directors play a crucial role in eliciting performance, advancing the story and establishing the look and feel in all genres of television," said DGA President Taylor Hackford. "The DGA Awards highlight the most outstanding examples of excellence in television each year, and our 41 nominees in eight categories have distinguished themselves with creative, compelling projects that entertained and informed a diverse worldwide audience.

The Directors Guild of America has released its list of TV nominees.

While usual favorites "The Office" and "30 Rock" are conspicuously absent from the Comedy category, AMC drama "Mad Men" dominates the Drama category with three nominations. "Lost" and "In Treatment" nab the other two slots.

The full list of nominees is as follows:

Movies for Television

Bob Balaban, "Georgia O'Keeffe"

Thomas Carter, "Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story"

John Kent Harrison, "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler"

Ross Katz, "Taking Chance"

Michael Sucsy, "Grey Gardens"

Dramatic Series

Paris Barclay, "In Treatment"

Jack Bender, "Lost"

Jennifer Getzinger, "Mad Men"

Lesli Linka Glatter, "Mad Men"

Matthew Weiner, "Mad Men"

Comedy Series

Paris Barclay, "Glee"

Larry Charles, "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

Ryan Murphy, "Glee"

Jeff Schaffer, "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

Jason Winer, "Modern Family"

Musical Variety

Joel Gallen, "The 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert"

Roger Goodman, "81st Annual Academy Awards"

Louis Horvitz,...

The Directors Guild of America on Friday announced its annual TV noms, which featured multiple mentions for "Mad Men," "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Glee."

For the second time in three years, Paris Barclay landed two DGA nominations.

Barclay, a winner in 1998 for "NYPD Blue," was nominated in the drama series category for the "Gina: Week 4" episode of HBO's "In Treatment" and the comedy field for the "Wheels" episode of Fox's "Glee."

In 2008, he was nominated for "In Treatment" and Showtime comedy "Weeds."

AMC's awards powerhouse "Mad Men" was the most nominated program with three noms in the drama series category: to creator Matthew Weiner for the third-season finale, "Shut the door. Have a seat," to Jennifer Getzinger for "The Gypsy and the Hobo" episode and to Lesli Linka Glatter for the "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency."

Resident "Lost" director Jack Bender, nominated for the show's fifth-season finale, "The Incident,...

It's a good day for funny people, especially if your name is Tina Fey or Seth MacFarlane.

Fey's series, 30 Rock, was handed 22 Emmy nominations this morning, which stands as a record for a comedy series. She and Alec Baldwin were also nominated for acting awards. Plus, for the first time some of the other actors on NBC's laffer were recognized. Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer and Tracy Morgan all picked up supporting nominations.

MacFarlane's Family Guy was also nominated for best comedy series, the first time an animated show has cracked that category since The Flintstones in 1961. Two years ago MacFarlane decided to pull his show from contention in the animated series category to have it considered for best comedy.

Mad Men, the drama about the advertising world in the sixties, picked up 16 nominations in the drama categories, including a best actor nod for Jon Hamm. Hamm is also nominated as...

On the heels of directing the Oscars, veteran ABC News director Roger Goodman is leaving the news division to focus his efforts on his own production company, beginning May 1.

Goodman will continue to serve as a consultant to ABC News.

In an e-mail to the news division, ABC News President David Westin wrote: "Roger's profound effect on television news and sports cannot be overstated. He has directed every kind of special event imaginable from the millennium to war coverage and from election nights to the Olympics. He has pioneered the use of new technology through live programming from nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers and, most recently, an 11-car rolling Amtrak train."

Goodman's career spans four decades in news, sports and entertainment -- creating, producing and directing live events on and off the air, including directing ABC's Peabody Award-winning coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and co-executive producing and directing the network's 24-hour broadcast "ABC 2000: The Millennium.

Make this blog item your home page for the rest of Oscar day. Tom O'Neil and Paul Sheehan are blogging live continuously all day. Keep hitting "refresh" for constant updates about what's happening at the Kodak Theatre.

9:06 p.m. — As with all of the past seven Oscars held at the Kodak Theater, the Governors Ball takes place in the adjoining Grand Ballroom which is 25,090 square feet. The menu for the Governors Ball was created by Wolfgang Puck for the fifteenth consecutive year. He promises the return of old favorites like tuna tartare in sesame miso cones and Maine lobster as well as, of course, caviar. And pastry chef Sherry Yard will once more be creating her gold-dusted chocolate Oscars as consolation prizes for those who didn’t get one of the real ones. Music will be spun by Kcrw radio host Jason Bentley who will alternate with The Impulse...