Journalism

By Alex Cramer
For: The Hollywood Reporter

President Zelensky Calls for Continued Support of Ukraine at Sean Penn’s CORE Gala

The Ukrainian leader appeared via video at the Friday night event, telling the crowd “we can stop it together,” amid the country’s ongoing defense against a Russian military invasion.

The war in Ukraine was top of mind at Friday night’s CORE gala, where founder Sean Penn raised funds for the nonprofit’s crisis response efforts around the world in front of a powerful room including President Bill Clinton, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti and stars Sharon Stone and Patrick Stewart.

CORE sends teams into the world’s biggest disaster zones to provide aid and assistance, including Haiti after its 2010 earthquake and Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

In addition to raising money, Penn, an active leader in the organization, has spent months in disaster zones and was recently warned to leave the Ukraine, where he was filming a documentary because he was too close to the fighting. …Read more

‘Glass Onion’ Director Rian Johnson, Stars Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson & Kathryn Hahn On Giving The Sequel A Fresh Look — Contenders L.A.

While Knives Out was a sleeper hit in 2019, its sequel, Glass Onions: A Knives Out Mystery, has become one of the most anticipated new releases of 2022.

The murder mystery features a reteaming of writer/director Rian Johnson and star Daniel Craig and is set on a luxurious Greek island.

At Saturday’s Contenders Los Angeles event, the director told Deadline’s chief film critic Peter Hammond how he turned to Agatha Christie for inspiration for injecting fresh life into the sequel. “Christie was doing wild new swings with every single thing that she published and she was swinging for the rafters,” Johnson said. “She was shaking it up. She was subverting the genre and turning it on its head … and so that was our goal with this one is let’s make something that gives you a fun who-done-it and scratches the same itch but let’s do it in a way that’s going to truly surprise and delight people.”…Read more

8 Things You Didn’t See On TV at the 2022 Emmy Awards

We’re sharing all the behind-the-scenes scoop.

From an intro by Oprah Winfrey to Broadway-worthy musical numbers to music by DJ Zedd, the Emmys aimed high for 2022. What NBC delivered was mostly a night of joy and celebration. Host Keenan Thompson would have benefited from a co-host, but he still fired some edgy barbs at the expense of Netflix and Showtime.

The biggest hits of the night were the awards show’s first singing acceptance speech and a ton of love and admiration for 26-year-old, now-two-time Emmy winner Zendaya.

And that’s just what viewers got to see on TV. There was so much more happening behind the scenes. That’s why Parade.com was backstage to catch all of the off-camera action. …Read more