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Working To Broaden, And Subvert, The Story Of Overlooked People In Hollywood

Frieze Los Angeles goes up in the Paramount Pictures backlot, opening on Valentine’s Day. Sounds cozy. But, says a Frieze co-curator, “Going into 2020, we didn’t simply want to go back to the backlot and be purely celebratory.” That’s why “the curators have commissioned artists to engage the histories that Hollywood frequently overlooks.” – Los Angeles Times

Robert Conrad, Who Came To Fame In ‘Wild, Wild West,’ Has Died At 84

Conrad’s biggest part came as Jim West in a blend of James Bond and Westerns. His character “was dispatched on various secret missions on behalf of the government of President Ulysses S. Grant. West had his own personal train for traveling, an arsenal of quirky gadgets — exploding billiard balls, a pistol on a track hidden up his sleeve — and a partner (played by Ross Martin) who was adept at outlandish disguises.” – The New York Times

The Costume Designer Who’s Been Nominated For – And Won – As Many Oscars As Meryl Streep

Sandy Powell, nominated this year for The Irishman (which she finds odd since it’s mostly men in “normal clothes”), says that a large part of her job is helping actors maintain and improve their posture. She says also that the awards are “terrifying. It’s absolutely terrifying. You sit there and hope your name doesn’t get called.” – BBC

At The Spirit Awards, The Last Pre-Oscars Ceremony, ‘The Farewell’ And ‘Uncut Gems’ Win Big

There was little overlap with the Oscar nominees as The Farewell took Best Picture and its older star Zhao Shuzhen won the best supporting actress award. Adam Sandler won for his role in Uncut Gems, and gave a “speech in which he joked about ‘a few weeks back, when I was quote, unquote snubbed by the Academy’ and recalled winning a best personality award in high school rather than best looking. The actor declared, ‘the Independent Spirit Awards are the best personality awards.… Their handsome good looks will fade in time while our independent personalities will shine on forever.'” – Los Angeles Times

The Quilters And Knitters Mapping Climate Change

Turns out that “climate crafting has come into its own,” according to cross-stitchers, knitters, and other crafters around the world, whose visual representations of temperature and other data are stirring discussion. One: “I pictured my project as a personal memo of the temperatures of 2020. … However, the further I go the more I can see the impact it can have. I am angry and sad every time I have to stitch a house with a color that shouldn’t be there. … It makes me want to show it more and more so that people can see.” – Slate

Dee Rees Is Working On A New Hollywood Empire, One That’s Good For Black Women Directors

Rees, whose Pariah hit the indie scene hard in 2011 and whose 2017 Mudbound earned four Oscar nominations, “is placing a thick spread of bets, in the hope that she will soon be able to play as boldly as she wants” in Hollywood. “Rees said her strategy is to work on ‘five things at once and see which one sticks.’ Each time we talked, she was working on a new project. Once it was a television show about a black police officer in the South, set in the 1970s. Another time it was a potential collaboration with a black playwright. This is both a survival tactic designed to navigate the ever-changing tides of a mercurial entertainment industry and perhaps also a defense mechanism.” – The New York Times

Did Streaming Kill The Oscar ‘Box Office Bounce’?

Five of the nine Best Picture nominees are already available on Netflix or Amazon – and the others won’t be far behind, meaning that theatres don’t necessarily see much more money per screen after the awards ceremony. What about the four that aren’t streaming? Well: “For the record, the box-office Oscar bounce still exists for films that manage to hang on at the multiplex. Jojo Rabbit, Little Women and Ford v Ferrari have each made additional millions since the nominations were announced. And the war movie 1917 is doing so well, it feels almost like another Slumdog, exploding at the box office.” In short, longer theatrical runs mean more people see movies on the big screen. (But isn’t it nice to have The Irishman available at home?) – NPR

Orson Bean, 91, Actor Of Stage And Screen, Is Killed In L.A. While Crossing The Street To The Theatre

Bean was on his way to meet his wife, who was ushering the show at the Pacific Resident Theatre in LA, when he was hit by two cars while crossing the street. The theatre canceled its performance. Bean, a veteran actor-comedian, had just written a new play and was beginning rehearsals at the Ruskin Theatre Group in Santa Monica. “‘He was so full of life at 91,’ [producer Sara] Newman said, adding that he often greeted colleagues with a new joke — ‘usually raunchy’ — and always had kind words for them.” – Los Angeles Times