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ReelAbilities Film Festival Announces Special Guests and Live Events

The New York ReelAbilities Film Festival has announced a selection of exclusive events and speakers to accompany its 13th annual ReelAbilities Film Festival programming.

Highlights include the pilot reading of “Disgraced” with Julie Klausner (“Difficult People”), Shannon DeVido (“Best Summer Ever”) and Alex Scordelis (“Difficult People”)

The festival’s closing night will also feature the subject of the film “Not Going Quietly,” activist Ady Barkan, along with the filmmakers. Highlighted panels at the festival include: Black Future Month: Legacy, Present & Afro-Futurism on the realities that keep us from the American “dream.” The panel will include Black-disabled filmmakers: Keith Jones, Jd Michaels, Tameka Citchen-Spruce, Safiya Eshe Gyasi, Diana Elizabeth Jordan and Trelanda R. Lowe.

The 13th annual ReelAbilities Film Festival runs from April 29 through May 5. Tickets are now on sale and can be purchased at reelabilities.org/newyork/.

Cleopatra Entertainment Acquires Distribution...

‘Aquaman’ star Jason Momoa has entered into negotiations with Warner Bros. to voice the character of ‘Frosty The Snowman’ in a forthcoming live-action/CG hybrid animation.

David Berenbaum (Elf) will pen the script, Momoa will also produce with Geoff Johns, and Stampede’s Greg Silverman and Jon Berg.

“We know Jason’s a true human being filled with love, compassion and a deep connection to ohana … all of which is the living spirit of Xmas and Frosty,” Silverman said.

“From his role as a count in a land of ice and fire to the oceanic success we all had with ‘Aquaman,’ it felt only right to realize Jason this time in snow,” said Berg, who was an executive producer on “Aquaman.

Also in news – Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodóvar set to reunite (again) for ‘Madres paralelas’

‘Frosty the Snowman’ is a popular Christmas song written by Walter Rollins and Steve Nelson,...

Film director best known for the Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany's and 10

The film-maker Blake Edwards, who has died aged 88, will be best remembered as the creator of the Pink Panther films, and as the husband of the entertainer Julie Andrews. But Edwards was a third-generation show-business figure whose complex and controversial career spanned more than 50 years, initially as an actor and writer and subsequently as one of America's most prolific producer-directors, primarily concerned with the popular genres of comedy and musicals and with creating television series.

Despite working in mainstream cinema, his maverick spirit and ego made him an uneasy partner with Hollywood studios. He famously savaged the hand that had fed him so well with S.O.B. (1981), a raucous, vitriolic attack on Tinseltown. His sophisticated work drew strongly on his love of early cinema (his stepgrandfather had directed silent films), and on his own life and psychological problems (he...

Today director/screenwriter Blake Edwards died at the age of 88. To those born in the 1980s and upward Edwards is likely a name that won't resonate with their generation, but for the older ones that came of age in the 1960s to the beginnings of the '80s, his movies are remembered. 10 with Bo Derek and Dudley Moore. Victor/Victoria with Julie Andrews and which was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar. The creator of The Pink Panther and its hapless hero, Inspector Clouseau. The director of Breakfast at Tiffany's, which gave us the iconic image of a black-gloved Audrey Hepburn holding her fashionably long cigarette holder.

Edwards began his career writing the screenplays for two westerns of the late 1940s, Stampede and Panhandle. He went on to find regular work in the television shows of the 1950s, being a staff writer on The Mickey Rooney Show before selling his...

Los Angeles — Blake Edwards, the director and writer known for clever dialogue, poignance and occasional belly-laugh sight gags in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "10" and the "Pink Panther" farces, is dead at age 88.

Edwards died from complications of pneumonia late Wednesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, said publicist Gene Schwam. Blake's wife, Julie Andrews, and other family members were at his side. He had been hospitalized for about two weeks.

Edwards had knee problems, had undergone unsuccessful procedures and was "pretty much confined to a wheelchair for the last year-and-a-half or two," Schwam said. That may have contributed to his condition, he added.

At the time of his death, Edwards was working on two Broadway musicals, one based on the "Pink Panther" movies. The other, "Big Rosemary," was to be an original comedy set during Prohibition, Schwam said.

"His heart was as big as his talent. He was an...

Actor-turned-director found fame with romantic classic but carved out a niche in comedy, particularly his collaborations with Peter Sellers, and with his wife, Julie Andrews

Blake Edwards, the director of Breakfast at Tiffany's, 10 and eight Pink Panther movies, has died aged 88. One of Hollywood's most successful specialists in comedy, Edwards never won an Academy award for any of his films, but was given an honorary Oscar in 2004 citing "his writing, directing and producing an extraordinary body of work for the screen." He married Julie Andrews in 1969 and directed her in a strings of films – most notably The Tamarind Seed (1974), S.O.B. (1981) and Victor/Victoria (1982).

Edwards was born in Tulsa in 1922 and started off as an actor, appearing in around 30 films between 1942 and 1948. He moved into scriptwriting, starting with the westerns Panhandle and Stampede, and then started directing in the mid-50s, honing his skills across a variety of genres. His aptitude...

'Idol' watchers are torn up over Thursday's ousters of Lilly Scott, Alex Lambert and Katelyn Epperly.

By Gil Kaufman

Alex Lambert and Katie Stevens on "American Idol" on Thursday

Photo: Frank Micelotta/ Getty Images

The sound of jaws dropping across the country after Thursday night's shocking "American Idol" vote-off was mirrored in the comments left by MTV News readers in the wake of the eliminations of Katelyn Epperly, Lilly Scott, Alex Lambert and Todrick Hall.

"I can't believe they sent this group away," wrote a dumbfounded Dprk7r79 on Friday morning. "Did America really vote like this? I liked Lilly and Alex a lot."

Others were just mad that voters appeared to just get it all wrong again. "How disappointing. Three of the four best contestants were sent home," said Green Eggs and Ham. "I hope that Lilly, Alex and Todrick's contracts allow them to produce albums now,...