On May 23rd a special 70th Anniversary Photocall was held at the Cannes Film Festival. The photocall featured a who’s who of actors & directors. Kirsten attended the photocall & I’ve added 50 pics to the gallery & also posted a video of the photocall below.

Later that day a 70th Anniversary Gala was also held. Unfortunately Kirsten was unable to attend as she had been taken ill with food poisoning. Thankfully she had recovered enough overnight to be able to attend the photocall, press conference & premiere for “The Beguiled”.

Congratulations to Sofia Coppola on winning the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival, & also to Nicole Kidman for being awarded the special 70th Anniversary Prize.

The World Premiere of “The Beguiled” will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) at the Cannes Film Festival. The premiere will screen at the Grand Théâtre Lumière at 7.00 pm local time.

Earlier in the day a photocall & press conference for the film will be held. Director Sofia Coppola & all the main cast will be attending all three events.

Live coverage of each event can be viewed at the Festival de Cannes official website, & you will also be able to watch videos of any events you miss here.

I’ve added the poster for “Woodshock” to the gallery. A trailer for the film will be released tomorrow & the A24 website has some info about the film (& an interesting image/gif).

Hi everyone, I’m finally back online! I’ve been having a lot of issues with some of the ‘improvements’ of Windows 10 but I think I’ve just about sorted these out now. Anyway I should be able to start updating the gallery tomorrow.

“The Beguiled” will screen in competition at this years Cannes Film Festival which runs from May 17th-28th.

Kirsten will be a presenter at the 32nd Film Independent Spirit Awards, which will be held in Santa Monica on February 25th.

Kirsten’s boyfriend (fiancee?) Jesse Plemons is nominated in the Best Male Lead category for “Other People”. Wonder if they will attend as a couple?

Lsst night Kirsten attended the 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Kirsten, who was accompanied by her brother Christian, looked stunning in a corseted, lace Christian Dior white gown (Kirsten has been wearing Dior a lot recently).

I’m delighted to say that “Hidden Figures” was the (shock) winner in the “Outstanding Performance By A Cast In A Theatrical Motion Picture” category (This is the SAG Awards equivalent of Best Picture).

I’ll be adding pics of Kirsten at the Awards to the gallery later tonight but in the meantime here are videos of the “Hidden Figures” cast receiving their awards & doing the “Press Room” Interview afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87-FkkZYDuM

Very sad to hear of the death of Sir John Hurt. What an actor, what a voice!

The “Hidden Figures” train keeps chugging along as the film picked up three Oscar nominations Tuesday morning, including Best Picture.

Based on the book of the same name by Hampton native Margot Lee Shetterly, the story centers on three African-American women working at NASA Langley facility during the space race in the 1960s.

On Tuesday morning Shetterly, who has an executive producer credit for the film, was alone in a hotel room in Michigan, but her phone was lighting up from a stream of congratulatory messages.

“I set my alarm so I wouldn’t miss the nominations,” she said. “It’s just so exciting and thrilling.”

The movie centers on Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae). Spencer picked up one of the film’s nominations, for Best Supporting Actress. She previously won in that category for “The Help.”

Shetterly was particularly excited about Spencer’s nomination.

“Dorothy Vaughan is somebody who had been completely forgotten. Her achievements weren’t well known,” she said. “Dorothy Vaughan is going to go down in the history book with the rest of these women.”

The Hampton Convention and Visitor Bureau is contemplating how it can highlight the womens’ successes, too. Ryan Downey, director of media and community relations, mentioned the possibility of a “Hidden Figures” tour around the Peninsula.

“It’s really bringing Hampton’s diversity, postivie places of the city and space program to life,” Downey said. “It’s great publicity for the city.”

The film’s final nomination was for Adapted Screenplay, which went to Allison Schroeder and director Theodore Melfi. Of the 10 screenplay nominations given to films this year, Schroeder is the only female nominee.

Musician and Virginia Beach native Pharrell Williams also picked up a nomination in the Best Picture race. He served as a producer for “Hidden Figures.”

Jonathan Black, dailypress.com

This is fantastic news.

Fox and Chernin Entertainment’s “Hidden Figures” dominated the U.S box office, topping charts for the second straight weekend after earning $26 million. The film’s message of empowerment and triumph over prejudice was amplified by the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

“This continues to be a movie for everyone,” said Chris Aronson, Fox’s head of domestic distribution. “It’s not just entertaining. It’s life affirming. It celebrates the triumph of the human spirit and that’s so important in these times.”

“Hidden Figures” is a latecomer to the awards season race, but the film, which stars Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer as African-American scientists and mathematicians in the early days of the space program, ranks as one of the most successful dramas of 2016. So far, it has earned $60.4 million. That commercial success could translate into Oscar attention when Academy Award nominations are announced next week.

It will likely face fierce competition from “La La Land,” a critically beloved movie musical with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Fresh off its sweep of the Golden Globe awards, “La La Land” sang and danced its way to $17.5 million over the holiday period, good enough for a third place finish. That brings the Lionsgate release’s domestic total to $77 million and more than $132 million globally. Not bad for an original musical that hit theaters without the benefit of being based on a beloved Broadway show.

The holiday weekend wasn’t as kind to a flood of new wide releases and expansions. Paramount’s “Monster Trucks” collapsed at the box office; the $125 million family film eked out a meagre $15 million over the four-day-long weekend. The studio had already ripped off the bandage. Last year, it took an $115 million write-down on “Monster Trucks” months before the film even hit theaters.

Ben Affleck didn’t have much to celebrate. The Oscar-winner was left licking his wounds after audiences rejected “Live by Night,” his expensive passion project. The $65 million drama was left inert after expanding from four theaters to 2,822 locations and only managing to make $6.1 million in the process. Affleck directed, wrote, produced, and starred in the film about a Florida rum runner, with Warner Bros. picking up the check. What audience there was for “Live by Night” was older — 69 percent of opening weekend ticket buyers clocked in over the age of 35.

Open Road’s “Sleepless” didn’t generate much enthusiasm from audiences. The action-thriller stars Jamie Foxx as a morally compromised cop. It made a lackluster $9.9 million, but the studio says it was able to cover its production costs entirely by selling distribution rights to foreign territories. It says “Sleepless” will be profitable.

In this box office pileup, STX’s “The Bye Bye Man” was somehow able to withstand the carnage. The low-budget horror film about a group of college students fending off a supernatural force rounded out the top five, earning a healthy $15.3 million, well above projections that had it opening to $10 million. It cost less than $8 million to produce.

Holdovers “Sing” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” took second and fourth place, respectively. “Sing,” an animated film about a talent competition for animals, earned $19.2 million, pushing its North American gross to $238.4 million. “Rogue One” added $17.1 million to its $502.2 million domestic haul. It is now the top-grossing domestic release of 2016.

Heading into the weekend, most analysts expected CBS Films and Lionsgate’s “Patriots Day” to make more of an impression. Reviewers have praised the story of the Boston Marathon Bombing for its intensity and for director Peter Berg’s attention to detail. It also did well in limited release. However, the film earned a disappointing $13.6 million after moving from seven theaters to 3,120 locations. That’s below estimates that had the film expanding to as much as $18 million. Audiences gave the film a rare A+ CinemaScore, so that could help it regain its stride in the weeks ahead. Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, and Kevin Bacon star as the cops and feds trying to figure out who is behind the deadly attack.

Then there’s “Silence,” a decades-in-the-making religious drama from Martin Scorsese that follows a pair of priests as they search for their mentor in feudal Japan. The film is a highly personal project for Scorsese and another one of his explorations of the limits and power of faith, following in the footsteps of “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “Kundun.” This one appears to be too esoteric for mainstream audiences. “Silence” expanded from 51 theaters to 747 locations, earning $2.4 million for the long weekend. The $50 million film was financed independently. Paramount is distributing the picture.

Brent Lang, variety.com