Robert Pattinson, Elisabeth Moss Help HFPA Donate $2 Million to Charity (Photos)
”Let’s celebrate the three things Donald Trump hates the most: foreigners, the press, and actually donating money to charity,“ host Chelsea Handler says
New HFPA President Meher Tatna and Robert Pattinson onstage at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Grants Banquet at the Beverly Wilshire on August 2, 2017. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
It’s been seven months since Meryl Streep’s show-stealing “worst performance of the year” tribute to then President-Elect Donald Trump at the Golden Globes, which means the industry calendar has tilted back towards awards season yet again.
But first, the profits from 2017’s Golden Globes show.
Emmy nominees Elisabeth Moss and Chrissy Metz presented grants together. (Getty Images)
On Wednesday, a month before this year’s awards season launches in earnest at the Telluride Film Festival, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association hosted its Installation and Grant Banquet. During the annual event, a slew of stars help to fulfill their charitable mission by emptying the coffers of all that cash that comes in from the broadcast rights deals for the Globes telecast and heavy-duty sponsorships that finance the organization.
Chelsea Handler pulls an “Adrien Brody” on Dustin Hoffman at the HFPA Grants Night banquet at the Beverly Wilshire on Wednesday night, August 2. (Getty Images)
Emmy nominees Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) and Chrissy Metz (“This is Us”) joined Ava DuVernay, Anthony Mackie, Matt Bomer, Armie Hammer, and “13 Reasons Why” stars Katherine Langford and Dylan Minnette to present donations to groups like Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation, the Lollipop Theater Network, and scholarships to Santa Monica College.
Chelsea Handler hosted the night at the Beverly Wilshire and brought the laughs.
“Let’s celebrate the three things Donald Trump hates the most: foreigners, the press, and actually donating money to charity,” Handler cracked in her opening monologue. She would go on to smooch presenter Dustin Hoffman on stage and broadcast her room number at the hotel.
“See you upstairs – 1025 – that’s my room,” she instructed Hoffman before sauntering off stage.
The night also served as a debut for new HFPA President Meher Tatna (pronounced ‘muh-HAIRTAT-na’). The Globes elected the Indian journalist, who writes for a Singapore newspaper, as their new leader back in June.
“Part of the mandate is to make (the 75th Golden Globes in January) bigger and better and more special than ever,” Tatna told The Party Report earlier in the night.
Anthony Mackie and Alfonso, a 13-year-old cancer patient who discovered photography through HFPA grantee the Pablove Shutterbugs program. Alfonso shot the stars on the carpet and attended the night as a member of the press. (HFPA/Pablove Shutterbugs)
The HFPA members represent 56 countries with a combined readership of 250 million. The Globes’ perennial popularity within the industry and high ratings with consumer audiences have allowed the group to donate nearly $30 million to charities over their years.
The milestone 75th Golden Globes take place on January 7, 2018. Jimmy Fallon returns as the host.
All 10 Kathryn Bigelow Movies, Ranked: From 'Point Break' to 'Detroit' (Photos)
It’s the rare director who can make consistently compelling films over the course of three decades, but every one of Kathryn Bigelow’s movies is worth watching. (Well, all the ones she directed solo, at least.) This week brings the release of her latest Oscar contender, the riveting historical drama "Detroit." If you’re hoping to catch up on her impressively varied career, here’s how to prioritize.
10. "The Loveless" (1982) Well, everyone has to start somewhere. And we see what Bigelow and her co-director, Monty Montgomery, were aiming for with this uneven drama: an updated version of “The Wild One,” in which a motorcycle gang upends a small town. Alas, there’s not much to grab onto, between the shaky performances, molasses-slow pacing, and pretentious narration. But the visuals are striking, and the soundtrack’s not bad. Plus, her broody antihero -- also making his feature debut -- is a crazy-young Willem Dafoe.
Atlantic Releasing Corporation
9. "The Weight of Water" (2000) You can feel the potential in this strained double thriller, in which an anxious modern photographer (Catherine McCormack) researches the murder reported by an overburdened 19th century wife (Sarah Polley). Though neither thread hits quite the right notes, both have beautifully shot, unbearably tense moments to them. Sean Penn overacts as an arrogant poet, as does Elizabeth Hurley as his determined seducer, but McCormack and Polley pull us in with their underplayed, all-too-understandable resentments.
Lionsgate
8. "K-19: The Widowmaker" (2002) One of Bigelow’s strengths is her willingness to embrace a wide variety of genres, and her Cold War thriller is a taut, workmanlike effort. Some might chafe at Bigelow’s commitment to her concept: that we feel just as stifled and suffocated as soldiers stuck aboard an ill-fated Soviet submarine. But Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson play off each other well, as the Russian leaders charged with an impossible assignment.
Paramount Pictures
7. "Blue Steel" (1990) A ramrod-strong Jamie Lee Curtis more than embodies the title of this moody thriller, about a Wall Street sociopath (creepy Ron Silver) obsessed with Curtis’s rookie cop. Bigelow leans hard into the lurid, B-movie feel, but it’s well-made throughout, with standout performances from Curtis and a charismatic Clancy Brown as her partner. (Watch this, then try to wrap your mind around the fact that the ultra-intense Brown went on to play SpongeBob’s boss, Mr. Krabs.)
Lightning Pictures
6. "Near Dark" (1987) Sadly underseen and oddly hard to find, Bigelow’s first solo feature possesses an almost mythic cult status. Some still consider it the best vampire movie of the modern era (modern being an admittedly relative term). With a characteristic blend of aesthetic and commercial sensibilities, she mixed the stylish Western she wanted to make with the sexy horror film she knew people wanted to see. Bonus: breakout star Bill Paxton, as one of the undead stalking two small-town innocents.
F/M, Near Dark Joint Ventures
5. "Point Break" (1991) Sure, it’s painfully earnest and patently preposterous. So what? It’s also got car chases, rad waves and Patrick Swayze so deep in the Zen zone he keeps forgetting to wear a shirt. Other filmmakers might have mocked the story of an undercover agent (Keanu Reeves) infiltrating a gang of bank-robbing surfers. But Bigelow shoots clear of eye and pure of heart. So Reeves is free to shout passionately into the uncaring surf: “My name is Johnny Utah!!” Yeah it is.
Twentieth Century Fox
4. "Strange Days" (1995) It’s understandable that this jittery sci-fi nightmare flopped on release: no one knew how incredibly prescient it would turn out to be. Bigelow’s apocalyptic portrait of millennial neurosis, set at the end of 1999, envisions a world in which no one needs to leave the house: technology brings everything inside. Ralph Fiennes plays the eerie magic man luring humans to ignore a collapsing planet; Angela Bassett is his conscience, urgently aware of the dangers of disconnection.
Lightstorm Entertainment
3. "Detroit" (2017) Bigelow often works in layers, an approach that keeps us perpetually off-balance. You won’t find a moment to regain your equilibrium while watching her anguished depiction of 1967’s Detroit riots. In focusing tightly on the brutalization of several young black men (including a haunting Algee Smith) at the hands of white police officers, she’s made an American horror film that uses the past to invoke the present. The results are often as distressingly tender as they are unflinchingly traumatizing.
Annapurna Pictures
2. "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012) In taking on the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Bigelow knew viewers would bring their own political judgments to the theater. As usual she stayed above the fray, preferring to observe rather than moralize. By alternating between the cerebral focus of CIA analyst Jessica Chastain, the dubious methods that fuel her obsession, and its adrenaline-inducing outcome, Bigelow offered us an unexpectedly complex meditation on personal -- and political -- duty.
Zero Dark Thirty, LLC
1. "The Hurt Locker" (2008) Bigelow became the only woman to win a Best Director Oscar thanks to this era-defining war film, about a bomb squad in Iraq (led by an outstanding Jeremy Renner). Boldly deconstructing the familiar fetishization of military masculinity, she dragged us through her soldiers’ boredom, exposed their agonizing uncertainty, and laid bare their hidden addictions.
Summit Entertainment
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How does her new historical drama stack up against her earlier classics?
It’s the rare director who can make consistently compelling films over the course of three decades, but every one of Kathryn Bigelow’s movies is worth watching. (Well, all the ones she directed solo, at least.) This week brings the release of her latest Oscar contender, the riveting historical drama "Detroit." If you’re hoping to catch up on her impressively varied career, here’s how to prioritize.