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In 2020, film critic Alissa Wilkinson started working on a book project about Joan Didion. She wanted to explore the iconic essayist, reporter, novelist and playwright through an angle that hadn’t been considered much before — Didion’s connection to the film industry. That became the book, “We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine.”

Wilkinson, who has been a critic at The New York Times since 2023 and wrote for Vox before that, was not interested in delving into Didion’s “persona or her celebrity, as much as what ties all her work together.”

“I came up with this notion of writing about her through the lens of Hollywood, both because she worked in Hollywood and wrote movies that have been produced and that we still watch today, but also because she wrote about Hollywood,” Wilkinson told Variety in a recent phone interview.

“We Tell Ourselves Stories,” which was published Tuesday,...

There have only been a handful of films that have brought two of the lead players from The Godfather Part IIback together. Yes, it may sound like the title of a cheesy reality show today, but 45 years ago, in the under-seen 1981 neo-noir drama True Confessions, we watched Robert De Niro and Robert Duvallin the same movie again. Only in director Ulu Grosbard's tale, taken from the novel of the same name by John Gregory Dunne and based loosely on the Black Dahlia murder, do we get to see them play off one another as brothers who are drawn together by a pair of grisly murders in 1947 Los Angeles. De Niro is not a Corleone and Duvall is far removed from his terrific performance as the Corleone family consigliere, Tom Hagen. Still, the two Hollywood titans are such gifted actors that within their first scene together, the audience has forgotten...

Eve Babitz, the “dowager groupie” who wrote Slow Days, Fast Company and was known for her relationships with the likes of The Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison and Steve Martin, and Joan Didion, the author of Play It As It Lays and The White Album, who wrote Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson’s A Star Is Born, are unquestionably two of Los Angeles’ most-revered writers.

A new book – Didion & Babitz written by Lili Anolik – highlights the relationship between the pair, helped by the author unearthing scores of previously unseen letters.

The book, which published today by Simon & Schuster’s Scribner, also explores their contrasting relationship with Hollywood (the town) and Hollywood (the industry).

Didion wrote a slew of screenplays with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, including the aforementioned A Star Is Born, 1971’s The Panic In Needle Park, which starred Al Pacino, 1981’s True Confessions, which starred Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall,...

Legendary country musician Kris Kristofferson has died at the age of 88. The star had a prolific music and acting career, including starring alongside Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born (1976), and appearing in Wesley Snipes Blade trilogy. The stars family shared the sad news in a message on Instagram, in which they revealed that Kristofferson passed away on Saturday. The statement read:

It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 28 at home. Were all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know hes smiling down at us all.

While best known as an iconic country singer/songwriter, Kristoffersons career on screen was also one of great note. From the moment he made his acting debut in the 1971 Dennis Hopper film The Last Movie,...

Emmy-winning actor Nathan Lane was able to channel his performance as legendary crime reporter Dominic Dunne in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story by going through the writer’s famous son, actor Griffin Dunne.

Lane’s performance is winning praise for his harnessing of the pain and loss Dunne held onto for decades after the double blow the writer experienced in the early 1980s of a tragedy and an injustice; as the series shows, the perceived miscarriage of justice informs Dunne’s perspective on crimes he covers for Vanity Fair and leads to his speculations about the nature of the Menendez boys’ relationship, which are peppered throughout the limited series. But it wasn’t only through researching his crime and trial reporting that Lane got into the mindset of the late legend.

“What helped was talking to Griffin Dunne, his son, a lovely actor and a wonderful...

Our latest review of new and recent books about (or connected to) cinema includes an extraordinary look at transness in film; memoirs from Griffin Dunne, Jon Chu, and Susan Seidelman; and several new books on music, highlighted by the latest from the great Steven Hyden. Plus, we run down some noteworthy novels worth checking out before the summer’s end. Let’s hold on to the season a bit longer, shall we?

Corpses, Fools, and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema by Willow Maclay and Caden Gardner (Repeater)

The world of cinema has been in dire need of a book like Corpses, Fools, and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema. It is no exaggeration to say that this study of transness in film––from the silent era to more recent works like Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca and Jane Schoenbrum’s We’re All...

Griffin Dunne’s family has done so many larger-than-life, unbelievable things that when the actor-director-producer started to write his memoir “The Friday Afternoon Club: A Memoir of Family,” he realized it wasn’t enough to start the story with his complex writer father Dominick Dunne.

In fact, it was impossible to understand the forces that shaped the Dunnes, including his uncle John Gregory Dunne and sister Dominique Dunne — without understanding his father’s abusive upbringing in an Irish Catholic family, his mother’s Mexican heritage and all great love stories, clandestine affairs, celebrity encounters and tragedies that seem to surround them, buffeted with lots of pitch-black mordant humor.

The heart of the new memoir is the 1982 murder of Griffin Dunne’s younger sister, “Poltergeist” star Dominique Dunne. It’s the first time he’s really grappled with telling the story of that pivotal event in his family’s history. The...

On a brisk April afternoon in the East Village, Griffin Dunne steps through a portal to his past. He has hustled up the stairs of an East Village tenement too old for elevators despite its gentrified gleam. The hallways are narrow but clean and the doors look modern, new — until we arrive at the apartment we’re seeking. Layers of chipped paint speak of the passage of decades. The threshold is uneven — an entry to an era of slanting wooden floors, fire escape patios and bathrooms the size of closets. Inside, hats of fantastic shapes and sizes dot the blue walls, and everywhere there are books and flyers about Blondie, the Pyramid Club, Candy Darling, David Wojnarowicz, etc. Here is the habitat of a performance artist, impeccably preserved for decades and in fact still very much in use.

Because he’s trying to help his daughter, the actor Hannah Dunne,...

Jerry Schatzberg's The Panic In Needle Park is a 1971 drama film co-written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by James Mills. What the film is arguably most remembered for is being Al Pacino's first starring role as Bobby, a small-time hustler and addict. The film is a gritty and harrowing tale of love and addiction in New York City, following the relationship of Bobby and his addict-to-be lover Helen (Kitty Winn), who falls deep into the NYC heroin scene, tarnishing their relationship and leading to a series of heart-breaking betrayals. Pacino's charismatic portrayal of Bobby is endearing and inviting, a beautiful trainwreck of a character whose spell is so effectively cast upon Helen. His cock-sure attitude and enigmatic personality are tragically undercut by the savagery of his addiction, which spreads like a disease into Helen, subsuming her morality in a heart-breaking corruption arc.

Despite being a bestseller, Donna Tartt's novel "The Secret History" has faced numerous failed attempts at adaptation to film due to various reasons. Hollywood legends Alan J. Pakula and Joan Didion were initially involved in the first attempt at adaptation but faced obstacles and eventually, the project was shelved. Gwyneth and Jake Paltrow and author Bret Easton Ellis also tried to bring "The Secret History" to the screen, but unfortunate events and difficulties in finding a network for the adaptation prevented its realization.

Though Donna Tartt's novel is a bestseller, The Secret History has yet to be adapted to the screen after a handful of failed attempts to bring her book to life. Initially released in 1992, The Secret History is Tartt's first novel and follows students at a prestigious school who are encouraged by an eccentric professor to live outside the bounds of common morality--eventually murdering a classmate. The...

The 2023 writers strike has focused attention on recent developments like artificial intelligence and the transition to streaming.

But for film writers, the key issue in the strike has been a constant battle for more than a generation: How do you get paid for a script once it’s finished?

Screenwriters have long been asked to do free revisions before turning in a “first draft” to the studio, which triggers payment. Typically they agree, even though the Writers Guild of America contract sets out minimum rates for revisions and polishes.

“I have boxes of scripts in my garage that are just draft after draft after draft,” said Emily Fox, a WGA strike captain who was walking the picket lines last week. “And it was all ‘first draft.’ But it was like First Draft A, First Draft B. But if they’re like, ‘You’re not ready to hand it in,’ then...

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If you look at the coverage around the current Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, or the one that took place in 2007-2008, it tends to revolve around television. With TV taking less time to produce more content, a strike of any significant length of time will affect that medium well before the big-budget world of film, where the average length of pre-production can range anywhere from six months to a year.

As the writer John Gregory Dunne once wrote in his essay “Hollywood: Opening Moves,” “From the earliest days of the motion picture industry … the screenwriter has been regarded at best as an anomalous necessity, at worst a curse to be born.” Though audiences starting in Hollywood’s earliest days came to know the names of some prominent screenwriters,...

Ron Bernstein, a veteran rights agent who has brokered adaptive deals for modern classics like “No Country for Old Men” and “Blackhawk Down,” has joined the Agency for the Performing Arts.

He will serve as senior vice president of media rights, a mantle he will take up after a 23-year run at ICM Partners. Bernstein joins APA partners Steve Fisher and Debbie Deuble Hill in the publishing and media rights group. APA president Jim Osbourne announced Bernstein’s hire, effective Thursday. The addition is another big score for APA as the representation business continues to shift amid consolidation.

Over a long and enviable career, Bernstein has represented some of the most acclaimed novelists, authors and journalists in the marketplace and sold the rights to countless feature films, limited series and shows to major buyers.

Clients expected to join Bernstein at APA include Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Mark Bowden, John Burdett,...

Had all gone according to a very vague plan, Jacques Demy's "Model Shop" would've turned Harrison Ford into a movie star — or, at the very least, it would've given him his first lead role. Columbia Pictures had zero faith in the unknown Ford, so they insisted on Gary Lockwood, who'd just played Frank Poole in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Opera." Needing to make a living to support his young family, Ford became a carpenter.

Being a carpenter in Hollywood brought Ford into the homes of several prominent artists (e.g. Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne). Producer Fred Roos, a Francis Ford Coppola associate, was especially taken with Ford, and introduced him to Coppola's friend and filmmaking protege George Lucas. Maybe this charming, ruggedly handsome handyman could bring Bob Falfa, the street-racing rival to Paul Le Mat's John Milner, to rakish life in "American Graffiti."

Ford delivered,...

Click here to read the full article.

Two just-opened art exhibits showcase the work of powerfully influential women who trained their keen focus on L.A. and the film industry, while a retrospective look at the oeuvre of South African artist William Kentridge opens Nov. 12 at The Broad.

Joan Didion: What She Means Hammer Museum, Westwood

Like Joan Didion herself, this new show paying homage to the famed Slouching Towards Bethlehem writer is the perfect blend of East and West coasts. Curated by her friend and mentee, New Yorker writer and critic Hilton Als, to reflect her interests and inspirations, the show tracks the places Didion lived and visited (Berkeley, Hawaii, Miami, El Salvador). Works such as Betye Saar’s 1966 assemblage View From the Palmist Window and Ed Ruscha’s 1966 photo series Every Building on the Sunset Strip join photos and archival materials, including a film poster for 1976’s A Star Is Born,...

The 1997 book "Monster: Living Off the Big Screen" by John Gregory Dunne was required reading in film school for the better part of a decade. Dunne is the screenwriter behind "The Panic in Needle Park," the 1976 version of "A Star is Born," and the largely forgotten 1996 romance "Up Close & Personal," about which "Monster" was written. The book details the soulless process of how a screenplay gets turned into a movie over the course of many, many years, often shedding every piece of artistic daring for comfortably commercial reasons. "Up Close" took eight years to write, and the finished film has very, very...

The post Spike Lee's Malcolm X Was Decades In The Making appeared first on /Film.

The passing of Joan Didion, one of the 20th century’s greatest writers, is tough to put into words. Really, only Didion herself could fully pull off the mighty task of encapsulating her grand and wildly influential output. Her clear-eyed and no-nonsense view of American culture, stripped of its own propaganda to reveal the grimy hypocrisies lying underneath a gleaming surface, could be as elegiac as it was merciless. During the most confusing and incomprehensible of times, be it the paranoia of post-Manson Hollywood or the battlefield of her own grief, Didion provided a guiding light forward. Even as some of her most famous words have become iconography for Pinterest boards devoid of their original context, Didion's anti-Romantic glance lost none of its potency.Given her status as one of California’s homegrown talents, a Sacramento girl who partied with the Doors, hired Harrison Ford as her carpenter, and had dinner with Sharon Tate,...

Many Netflix watchers are catching up with actor-director Griffin Dunne’s documentary about his aunt, “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold,” following the news that the prolific writer died December 23 at age 87 from Parkinson’s. When President Barack Obama gave Didion the National Humanities Medal in 2012, he called her “one of our sharpest and most respected observers of American politics and culture.”

Didion not only chronicled the literati scene of New York in the 1950s and early ’60s but astutely dissected her home state of California. After graduating from Uc Berkeley, she landed a job at Vogue in New York, where she penned movie reviews — until her pan of “The Sound of Music.” After marrying Time staffer John Gregory Dunne in 1964, the couple moved to Los Angeles and wound up becoming the ultimate Hollywood insiders. When Didion and Dunne later moved to New York City in 1988, they had lived in Los Angeles for 24 years.

Many Netflix watchers are catching up with actor-director Griffin Dunne’s documentary about his aunt, “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold,” following the news that the prolific writer died December 23 at age 87 from Parkinson’s. When President Barack Obama gave Didion the National Humanities Medal in 2012, he called her “one of our sharpest and most respected observers of American politics and culture.”

Didion not only chronicled the literati scene of New York in the 1950s and early ’60s but astutely dissected her home state of California. After graduating from Uc Berkeley, she landed a job at Vogue in New York, where she penned movie reviews — until her pan of “The Sound of Music.” After marrying Time staffer John Gregory Dunne in 1964, the couple moved to Los Angeles and wound up becoming the ultimate Hollywood insiders. When Didion and Dunne later moved to New York City in 1988, they had lived in Los Angeles for 24 years.

In the early days of her career, Joan Didion had a taste of what some music and arts journalists have had to endure over the years: the monotony of record-making. It was 1968, and Didion, working on a story, visited an L.A. recording studio to watch the Doors tinker with Waiting for the Sun. According to Tracy Daugherty’s Didion bio The Last Love Song, she and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, also wanted to scope out Jim Morrison as the lead in The Panic in Needle Park, the junkie love-story movie they’d written.

Joan Didion, who died today at age 87, and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, sustained a uniquely frosty but profitable relationship with Hollywood over the years. As novelists and screenwriters, they earned top-dollar for their screenplays, and often accepted rewrites, yet also critiqued the foibles of the studio system.

While socially tight with the Hollywood circuit and active purveyors of studio gossip, they also maintained important literary careers, were courted by publishers and regularly contributed to the New York Review of Books and other publications.

“They maintained a split personality as Hollywood people but also as New York insiders,” explained one of their agents.

Showbiz & Media Figures We’ve Lost In 2021 – Photo Gallery

They were married in 1969, the year Dunne published a book titled The Studio, a sharp, satirical closeup of 20th Century Fox in the final days of the Zanuck regime. Dunne also wrote a book titled Monster: Living Off the Big Screen,...

Joan Didion, the journalist, novelist, and screenwriter of such films as the 1976 “A Star Is Born” died Thursday at her home in Manhattan at the age of 87. The New York Times reported that the cause was Parkinson’s disease.

Didion was born in Sacramento in 1934. The fifth-generation Californian found some of her most important material for her earliest writing in the culture and chaos of her home state. Her career began after she won a pair of writing contests put on by magazines during her time at Uc Berkeley. One of those wins led her to begin writing at Vogue.

She worked her way up to features editor at the fashion magazine. In 1963 she published her first novel, “Run River,” about the unraveling of a marriage that also serves as a commentary on the history of California.

Around that time and while living in New York she struck up a friendship,...

One of the country's greatest writers has passed away. E! News can confirm best-selling author Joan Didion died on Thursday, Dec. 23. She was 87.  "We are deeply saddened to report that Joan Didion died earlier this morning at her home in New York due to complications from Parkinson's disease," her team said in a statement.  Didion's long career began after she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1956 when she moved to New York and began working for Vogue. After starting her career as a journalist, she published her first novel in 1963 called Run River.  One year later, Didion married John Gregory Dunne and moved to California where...

Joan Didion, the author of five novels including the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking who also excelled in essays and has screenwriting credits including the 1976 version of A Star Is Born, died Thursday of complications of Parkinson’s disease in Manhattan. She was 87.

Her publisher at Knopf confirmed the news to The New York Times.

Didion’s career blossomed in the midst of and reflected sea changes in America, with books published in the 1960s and ’70s including Run River, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It as It Lays, A Book of Common Prayer and The White Album, an anthology of her magazine writing for the likes of Life and The Saturday Evening Post that detailed stories mostly about California. Didion was born in Sacramento and was drawn to stories about her home state.

As a journalist, she wrote political essays including “Salvador,” about the U.S. involvement in El Salvador.

Joan Didion, the storied author and New Journalism icon best known for books like Play It as It Lays, The White Album, and The Year of Magical Thinking, died Thursday, The New York Times reports. She was 87.

Didion died at her home in Manhattan after a battle with Parkinson’s disease, a spokesperson for her publisher, Knopf, confirmed. “Didion was one of the country’s most trenchant writers and astute observers,” the statement read. “Her best-selling works of fiction, commentary, and memoir have received numerous honors and are considered modern classics.

Joan Didion, the author revered for her coolly dispassionate essays and novels such as “Play It as It Lays,” has died, her publisher confirmed to The New York Times on Wednesday. She was 87. Along with her late husband John Gregory Dunne, Didion co-wrote screenplays for the films “True Confessions,” “A Star Is Born,” “The Panic in Needle Park” and “Up Close and Personal.”

It was the 1968 essay collection “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” and 1970 novel “Play It as It Lays,” which she also adapted for a 1972 film, that secured her reputation as a sharp-eyed observer of the culture and people of California and beyond.

Another essay collection, 1979’s “The White Album,” assembled from her pieces in Esquire and other magazines, took on subjects that defined the era such as Charles Manson and the Doors, further cementing her place as one of the foremost chroniclers of the tumultuous ’60s and ’70s.

With lines...

Move over, Clint Eastwood — the 91-year-old “Cry Macho” director isn’t the only nonagenarian American director intent on staying busy. At the age of 94, filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg hasn’t directed a movie since 2000’s “The Day the Ponies Come Back,” but still feels like he could make his swan song. “I’ve recently decided I’d really like to do one more film,” the New York-based director said in a phone interview with IndieWire last week, sounding a bit raspy but energized nonetheless. “I don’t know what it is yet.”

He added that he recently heard an interview on Wnyc with author Atticus Lish about his novel “The War for Gloria.” Curious, Schatzberg sought out the book and has been thinking about it adapting it. “Most of my friends can’t believe I’m the age I am because I don’t act it,” Schatzberg said. “I don’t really think about it.

In a 1991 essay, John Gregory Dunne said male stars are allowed to age gracefully onscreen, unlike females: “Men grow older; women grow old.” In general, he’s right: Acting has always been a difficult profession, especially for women over 35.

Dunne (1932-2003) unfortunately didn’t live long enough to see this year’s notable work by actresses over 50. That list includes Candice Bergen, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Gong Li, Laura Linney, Sophia Loren, Frances McDormand, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.

The list also includes Michelle Pfeiffer, who looks more beautiful than ever and gives one of her best performances in Sony Classics’ “French Exit.” She has not grown old or older — she’s grown deeper.

Variety first mentioned her in January 1979, when she was 14th billed in ABC’s “Delta House,” an “Animal House” knockoff. She landed another short-lived series, “B.A.D. Cats,” and had guest roles in “CHiPs,” “Fantasy Island,” “Enos...

As a publication about film, we find ourselves in the peculiar position of publishing during a moment when theatrical access to movies, and their ongoing future, is as much in question as everything else. During this suspension of normal filmwatching habits, we’ve reached out to contributors, filmmakers and friends, inviting them to find an alternate path to the movies by participating in a writing exercise engaging with any book about or lightly intersecting with film, in whatever way makes sense to them. Today: Eric Marsh on John Gregory Dunne’s all-access portrait of 20th Century Fox in 1967, The Studio. In 1967, […]...

As a publication about film, we find ourselves in the peculiar position of publishing during a moment when theatrical access to movies, and their ongoing future, is as much in question as everything else. During this suspension of normal filmwatching habits, we’ve reached out to contributors, filmmakers and friends, inviting them to find an alternate path to the movies by participating in a writing exercise engaging with any book about or lightly intersecting with film, in whatever way makes sense to them. Today: Eric Marsh on John Gregory Dunne’s all-access portrait of 20th Century Fox in 1967, The Studio. In 1967, […]...

There’s a reason why, over the course of a career that has spanned nearly six decades, Joan Didion’s remarkable body of work has received the film adaptation treatment just twice. In 1972, Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne wrote the screenplay for Frank Perry’s big-screen take on her novel “Play It As It Lays,” a celluloid turn that Didion followed up with various contributions to other scripts unrelated to her own books (including the 1976 “A Star Is Born” remake).

Despite mostly good reviews for the Perry film, even Didion seemed to quickly get hip to the fact that her work isn’t necessarily translatable to other mediums. Others surely got the memo, too, with almost a half a century going by before anyone else tried to turn Didion’s gimlet-eyed writings into a movie. And time has not been kind to the endeavor: and even less by...

Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” has been named the best adapted screenplay of 2018 by the Writers Guild of America, while Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” was named the year’s best original screenplay in a surprising upset over Oscar Best Picture and screenplay nominees “Green Book,” “Roma” and “Vice.”

“Eighth Grade” is not even nominated for the original-screenplay Oscar, making it the first WGA screenplay winner not to be nominated for the Oscar since Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” in 2003.

While “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” is an Oscar screenplay nominee, it was not nominated for Best Picture and was competing against three films that had been nominated in that category — “Black Panther,” “BlacKkKlansman” and “A Star Is Born” — plus “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

Also Read: 11 Best Movies of 2018, From 'Paddington 2' to 'Eighth Grade' (Photos)

The results...

The 71st annual Writers Guild Awards are underway at dual ceremonies at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. and at the Edison Ballroom in New York City. “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” won the comedy series award for Kate Fodor, Noah Gardenswartz, Jen Kirkman, Sheila Lawrence, Daniel Palladino and Amy Sherman Palladino. The series won the Emmy for best comedy series last year.

Bill Hader and Alec Berg won the episodic comedy award for the opening segment of HBO’s “Barry,” “Chapter One: Make Your Mark” (“Barry”).

Stephanie Gillis won the animated award for the “Bart’s Not Dead” episode and Alex Gansa took the episodic drama award for the “Paean To The People” segment of “Homeland.”

Chelsea Peretti hosted the West Coast ceremonies while Roy Wood Jr. was the emcee in New York

Original screenplay nominees are Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma”; Adam McKay’s “Vice”; Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade”; Bryan Woods,...

The Writers Guild of America announced the winners of their 71st annual awards on Sunday, February 17 in a ceremony held simultaneously in Los Angeles (Beverly Hilton Hotel) and New York City (Edison Ballroom). Each year these kudos recognize the best writing of the prior calendar year in a plethora of genres including movies and television. Scroll down to see the full list of film and TV winners for the 2019 WGA Awards, with winners designated in gold text.

Keep refreshing/reloading this page as we’ll be updating live.

Many awards pundits see the Writers Guild as a bellwether for the Oscars, though there’s a catch: oftentimes the Oscar nominees are not eligible at the guild because they aren’t written under its strict guidelines. Thus, Oscar nominee “The Favourite” was not eligible at WGA as this foreign production did not go through the lengthy process of proving its eligibility.

The 71st annual Writers Guild Awards are being handed out tonight in simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York. Deadline will be updating the winners here as they are announced.

Here is the complete list of winners announced so far at the 2019 Writers Guild Awards, followed by the list of nominees:

News Script – Analysis, Feature, Or Commentary

“Wounds of War” (60 Minutes), Written by Scott Pelley, Katie Kerbstat, Nicole Young; CBS News

Documentary Screenplay

Bathtubs Over Broadway

Written by Ozzy Inguanzo & Dava Whisenant; Focus Features

Comedy Series

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Written by Kate Fodor, Noah Gardenswartz, Jen Kirkman, Sheila Lawrence, Daniel Palladino, Amy Sherman Palladino; Prime Video

Children’S Episodic And Specials

“The Ersatz Elevator: Part One” (A Series of Unfortunate Events), Teleplay by Daniel Handler; Netflix

Short Form New Media Original

Class of Lies, Written by Tessa Leigh Williams; Snapchat

Quiz And Audience Participation

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,...

Last fall’s audience-pleaser is indeed a pleasant surprise, not because it’s a classic but because it isn’t plain awful. An unnecessary third remake of a Depression-era Cinderella story has been concocted to showcase the special talents of Lady Gaga, who indeed comes off as the most personable and deserving star-to-be-born since Judy Garland. Bradley Cooper stunned the industry by wearing almost all the creative hats on this thing — and producing an entertainment that will enhance the careers of all involved.

A Star Is Born

4K Ultra-hd + Blu-ray

Warner Home Video

2019 / Color / 2:41 widescreen / 135 min. / Street Date February 19, 2019 / 44.95

Starring: Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, Anthony Ramos, Ravi Gavron, Ron Rifkin, Marlon Williams, Brandi Carlile.

Cinematography: Matthew Libatique

Film Editor: Jay Cassidy

Songs: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Edith Piaf, Jason Isbell, Paul Kennerley, Lukas Nelson

Written by Bradley Cooper, Eric Roth, Will Fetters...

“A Star Is Born” has always been a great talent vehicle, including the new Bradley Cooper-Lady Gaga version, which Warner Bros. opened Oct. 5. Previous versions showcased big-name talent, but there’s also a stellar lineup of people who almost made the film but didn’t, including Cary Grant, Cher, Elvis Presley, Whitney Houston, Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise, Beyoncé Knowles and, behind the cameras, Mike Nichols, Quincy Jones and Clint Eastwood.

The new film is officially the fourth version, but it’s sort of the fifth. In 1932, Rko made “What Price Hollywood?” about an L.A. waitress who becomes a movie star while her alcoholic mentor declines. In the July 19, 1932, review, Variety shrugged, “It’s a fan magazine interpretation of Hollywood.” Five years later, Selznick Intl. Pictures’ “A Star Is Born” had so many similarities that Rko considered suing.

Each version added an innovation: Technicolor in 1937, musical numbers for the 1954 Judy Garland film,...

The Writers Guild has announced its 2019 Writers Guild Awards nominations, and the top contenders all made the cut: “BlacKkKlansman,” “Black Panther,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” “Eighth Grade,” “Green Book,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “Roma,” “A Star Is Born” and “Vice.” Additionally, “”A Quiet Place” is showing strength with the Guilds, winding up with PGA, SAG and WGA nominations.

WGA omissions include “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which won two Golden Globes Sunday, and Paul Schrader’s acclaimed “First Reformed,” which was nominated for Best Screenplay at the Critics’ Choice and Indie Spirit awards.

Titles not eligible because they don’t conform to the WGA Minimum Basic Agreement include Fox Searchlight’s “The Favourite,” Bleecker’s “Leave No Trace,” Annapurna’s “Sorry to Bother You,” BAFTA nominee “The Death of Stalin” and CBS Films’ “At Eternity’s Gate,” as well as foreign films “Capernaum,” “Cold War” and “Shoplifters.” Animated features are not eligible,...

The Writers Guild has announced its 2019 Writers Guild Awards nominations, and the top contenders all made the cut: “BlacKkKlansman,” “Black Panther,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” “Eighth Grade,” “Green Book,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “Roma,” “A Star Is Born” and “Vice.” Additionally, “”A Quiet Place” is showing strength with the Guilds, winding up with PGA, SAG and WGA nominations.

WGA omissions include “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which won two Golden Globes Sunday, and Paul Schrader’s acclaimed “First Reformed,” which was nominated for Best Screenplay at the Critics’ Choice and Indie Spirit awards.

Titles not eligible because they don’t conform to the WGA Minimum Basic Agreement include Fox Searchlight’s “The Favourite,” Bleecker’s “Leave No Trace,” Annapurna’s “Sorry to Bother You,” BAFTA nominee “The Death of Stalin” and CBS Films’ “At Eternity’s Gate,” as well as foreign films “Capernaum,” “Cold War” and “Shoplifters.” Animated features are not eligible,...

Left to right: Noah Jupe plays Marcus Abbott and John Krasinski plays Lee Abbott in A Quiet Place, from Paramount Pictures.

The Writers Guild of America West (Wgaw) and the Writers Guild of America, East (Wgae) have announced nominations for outstanding achievement in screenwriting and videogame writing during 2018. Winners will be honored at the 2019 Writers Guild Awards on Sunday, February 17, at concurrent ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York City.

Original Screenplay

Eighth Grade, Written by Bo Burnham; A24

Green Book, Written by Nick Vallelonga & Brian Currie & Peter Farrelly; Universal Pictures

A Quiet Place, Screenplay by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski, Story by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck; Paramount Pictures

Roma, Written by Alfonso Cuarón; Netflix

Vice, Written by Adam McKay; Annapurna Pictures

Adapted Screenplay

Blackkklansman, Written by Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee, Based on the book by Ron Stallworth; Focus Features

Black Panther, Written...

Adapted screenplay nominees include BlacKkKlansman, A Star Is Born.

The Writers Guild Of America West and East on Monday (7) announced their theatrical screenplay nominees with Golden Globe winner Green Book among the original screenplay contenders.

The original screenplay category includes Eighth Grade, A Quiet Place, Roma, and Vice. Adapted screenplay nominees are BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, If Beale Street Could Talk, and A Star Is Born.

The documentary screenplay contenders are Bathtubs Over Broadway, Fahrenheit 11/9, Generation Wealth, and In Search Of Greatness.

Winners will be honoured at the 2019 Writers Guild Awards on February 17 at concurrent...

The Writers Guild of America revealed nominations on Monday (Jan. 7) for the 71st annual edition of its awards, which will be held simultaneously in La and Gotham on Feb. 17. The original screenplay nominees are: “Eighth Grade,” “Green Book,” “A Quiet Place,” “Roma” and “Vice.” The adapted screenplay contenders are: “BlacKkKlansman,” “Black Panther,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “A Star Is Born.”

Only scripts written under the guild’s guidelines or those of several international partners are allowed to vie for these awards. Among those ineligible for consideration this year are some of the leading Oscar contenders, including the original screenplays for “The Favourite” and “Hereditary.” Both films ran afoul of the requirement that foreign production companies prove their eligibility via a cumbersome process.

“The Favourite” scripters Tony McNamara and Deborah Davis are all but certain to contend at the Oscars. They’ve already won...

Big commercial hits and a number of awards-season regulars made the cut as the WGA announced its 2019 Writers Guild Awards nominees for outstanding achievement in screenwriting writing during 2018. Check out the full list below, which also includes video games.

The Original Screenplay category covers comedy, drama and horror as the scribes behind Eighth Grade, Green Book, A Quiet Place, Roma and Vice will vie for the hardware. The Adapted Screenplay race is among BlackKklansman, Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk, A Star is Born and Can You Ever Forgive Me?

In a banner year for documentaries, the writers of Bathtubs Over Broadway, Fahrenheit 11/9, Generation Wealth and In Search of Greatness will battle it out for the WGA trophy.

Winners will be announced Sunday, February 17, at dual ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York City.

Original Screenplay

Eighth Grade

Written by Bo Burnham; A24

Green Book

Written by Nick Vallelonga...

The original screenplays for “Green Book,” “A Quiet Place,” “Roma,” “Vice” and “Eighth Grade” have been nominated by the Writers Guild of America, which announced its nominations on Monday morning.

In the adapted-screenplay category, the nominees were “BlacKkKlansman,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “A Star Is Born,” “Black Panther” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”

Among the most notable eligible screenplays not to be nominated are Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” and Josh Singer’s “First Man.”

The nominations were made by members of the Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America, East, separate but affiliated guilds that will stage simultaneous awards ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York on Feb. 17.

Also Read: Stars Were Born at the Golden Globes - But They Sure Weren't the Ones We Expected

In the documentary category, WGA voters went with docs that so far have not been receiving substantial...

Red dawn in Santa Monica. No, not a John Milius movie, but another fire in Malibu. The sun has color from a high smoke layer. Still, there’s no ash fall, and it doesn’t smell like a tri-tip barbecue, so the wind must be blowing out to sea.

Apparently, Malibu has to burn every seven-to-fifteen years, depending on rainfall patterns and whom you believe. When it does, the story always gets tied up with the movies. This time, the Paramount Ranch Western set in Agoura Hills burned down, and Lady Gaga, Martin Sheen, Rainn Wilson and Alyssa Milano were among hundreds of thousands of regional evacuees. Thanks to Twitter, we know that Wilson’s dogs and pigs are safe, and Milano rescued her Doc Martens.

On an earlier round, rumor had it that a famous action director hired a helicopter and banked spectacular footage of burning houses, for use when the cinematic occasion arose.

Barbra Streisand is getting deeper into business with Netflix, setting a licensing pact with the streaming giant for six vintage music specials and an expanded edition of 1976’s “A Star is Born.”

Streisand unveiled the deal Sunday night at the closing night of Netflix’s month-long FYSee awards promotion installation at Raleigh Studios. The music legend sat with Jamie Foxx for a Q&A to talk up her recent Netflix special “Barbra: The Music… The Mem’ries… The Magic!”

The licensing pact covers some of the Great Society-era network TV specials that helped cement her status as a superstar: “My Name Is Barbra” (1965), “Color Me Barbra” (1966), “Barbra Streisand: A Happening in Central Park” (1968), “Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments” (1973), “Barbra Streisand: The Concert” (1994), and “Barbra Streisand: Timeless” (2001).

The expanded edition of the 1976 romantic drama “A Star is Born” will feature Streisand performing an instrumental version of “Evergreen” for the first...

Now that she’s received an Oscar nomination for bringing “Mudbound” to the screen, Dee Rees will soon be on to her next project: “The Last Thing He Wanted,” an adaptation of Joan Didion’s novel of the same name. The film will re-team Rees with producer Cassian Elwes and, if early word is to be believed, Anne Hathaway as well.

The Oscar winner would be playing Elena McMahon, a Washington Post reporter covering the 1984 presidential primaries who gets embroiled in arms-dealing conspiracy.

Didion is among the most acclaimed authors of her generation, but only one of her books has been adapted for film before: the devastating “Play It as It Lays.” Though best known for her nonfiction, like the essay collections “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” and “The White Album,” Didion has written several other novels: “Democracy,” “A Book of Common Prayer,” “Run River.” She also wrote several screenplays with her husband John Gregory Dunne,...

The New York Film Festival kicks off later this week, sending us straight into the second half of a very busy fall festival season. In preparation for the festival, we’ve pinpointed its most exciting offerings, from never-before-seen narratives to insightful new documentaries, and plenty of previously-screened features looking to capitalize on strong word of mouth coming out of fellow tests like Venice, Telluride, and Toronto. In short, there’s plenty to experience in the coming weeks, so consider this your roadmap to the best of the fest.

Read More:Bryan Cranston Enters Oscar Race with New York Film Festival Opener ‘Last Flag Flying’

Ahead, 13 essential titles — from buzzy world premieres to highlights from the 2017 circuit— that we can’t wait to see at this year’s New York Film Festival.

“Arthur Miller: Writer”

Documentaries about family members are always a dubious proposition. Some can also come across as overindulgent exercises,...

Netflix is adding two new documentaries to its crowded 2017 roster: “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold.” and “Voyeur,” both of which will premiere at the 55th New York Film Festival and launch globally on Netflix later this year.

Read More:Documentary, Now: Three Rock Stars Who Run The Fast-Changing Nonfiction World

Author Joan Didion’s nephew, actor-director-producer Griffin Dunne, has been laboring on this portrait of his aunt for years. The film spans more than 50 years of essays, novels, screenplays, and criticism, as Didion chronicled America’s cultural and political tides, from the literati scene of New York in the 1950s and early ’60s to her home state of California, where she wrote “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” and “The White Album” and such film scripts as “The Panic in Needle Park.”

Dunne unearths a trove of archival footage and interviews his aunt at length about the many people she met and...

Netflix is adding two new documentaries to its crowded 2017 roster: “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold.” and “Voyeur,” both of which will premiere at the 55th New York Film Festival and launch globally on Netflix later this year.

Read More:Documentary, Now: Three Rock Stars Who Run The Fast-Changing Nonfiction World

Author Joan Didion’s nephew, actor-director-producer Griffin Dunne, has been laboring on this portrait of his aunt for years. The film spans more than 50 years of essays, novels, screenplays, and criticism, as Didion chronicled America’s cultural and political tides, from the literati scene of New York in the 1950s and early ’60s to her home state of California, where she wrote “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” and “The White Album” and such film scripts as “The Panic in Needle Park.”

Dunne unearths a trove of archival footage and interviews his aunt at length about the many people she met and...