Rita Moreno to return to movie musicals - for real this time!

by Nathaniel R

You may recall that we were briefly very excited about Rita Moreno's return to her home genre, the movie musical. News broke but then was quickly retracted that she had landed a wonderful part in the film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tony-winning debut In the Heights which ran on Broadway from 2008 through 2011. Now, the news is for real but with a different film. She'll play "Valentina" in Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story. That's the "Doc" role, in a bit of racial and gender-flipped casting...

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Soundtracking: Randy Newman's Original Song Nominations

by Chris Feil

Happy 75th Birthday to Randy Newman!

Newman has had an extensive musical career, but in these parts we remember the musician as once one of the most Oscar nominated folks without a win - previously missing out on 14 bids in both Original Song and Original Score before finally winning for 2001's Monsters Inc. track "If I Didn't Have You". To date, he now has a total twenty nominations and two wins, and isn't slowing down anytime soon. Just last year he delivered some massively underrated work for The Meyerowitz Stories and will be returning to the Toy Story franchise for next year's fourth instalment.

Newman's impact on the movies is one of uplift and charm, and a current mainstay in the Mouse House. But Oscar history is the name of this week's Soundtracking game, so let's rank his Best Original Song nominations...

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Linkwarm off the Presses

Whooo. Thanksgiving week flew by and we're suddenly so very far behind on important news items, so a quick link roundup to get us back on track. Here we go...

• Variety Black Panther, Marvelous Mrs Maisel, One Day at a Time, and Crazy Rich Asians are all up for Humanitas prizes
• Variety Paul King, famous for making those delightful Paddington movies, will now direct a fantasy adaption of Time's Fool
• Coming Soon Alessandro Nivola, an actor TFE is always rooting for, cast in The Sopranos prequel movie. He'll play Dickey Moltisanti if that means anything to you fans of The Sopranos out there

More after the jump including Aquaman, If Beale Street Could Talk, the new Fosse/Verdon TV miniseries, deaths of showbiz legends, and more...

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NBR Loves "A Star is Born" and "Beale Street" but names "Green Book" Best of the Year

by Nathaniel R

Mahershala and Viggo are all dolled up and ready for awards shows

The National Board of Review announced its winners today for their January 8th gala at Cipriani 42nd Street. While NBR no longer signifies the kick-off to precursor season (with the Gotham and Spirit Awards announcing so early each year) they're still a significant bellwether or rather they're a bell ringing, alerting everyone that you can't hide from awards season; it is upon us! This year Green Book, A Star is Born, and If Beale Street Could Talk were their three obvious favorites, the only films to take multiple prizes.

THIS YEAR'S PRIZES, WHAT THEY MIGHT MEAN, AND SOME STATS AFTER THE JUMP...

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The Hedges

Lucas Hedges, Susan Bruce, and Peter and Simon Hedges

The Hedges were out in force in NYC last night for a special screening of Ben Is Back starring Lucas Hedges and written and directed by his dad Peter Hedges (Pieces of April, Dan in Real Life). The movie opens in limited release on December 7th. [More pics of the event at Just Jared]

(Woof at Lucas's older brother. Pity he's not an actor! But he is in the industry: he's an assistant director, recently worked on the great Jewish lesbian drama Disobedience and currently working on the new Les Misérables miniseries)