Steven Gaydos: Last News

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content The enduring artistry of the late film composer-songwriter Michel Legrand is on full display in Todd Haynes’ “May December.” But not everyone is happy to hear Haynes’ usage of the Legrand score from Joseph Losey’s 1971 romantic drama “The Go-Between,” repurposed to jarring (if you don’t like it) but provocative (if you do) effect. Whichever side of that coin you land on, Legrand’s impact upon film music is unlikely to cause debate.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Judi Pulver, a singer-songwriter who became the top music sales executive for Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, died Tuesday in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 77. Pulver spent about 15 years with Variety, steering all music-related sales and marketing activity.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content Just as she emerged as one of the brightest lights of Latin American cinema, actor Pina Pellicer died by her own hand 60 years ago. Only 30, she had in a short time co-starred opposite Marlon Brando in his only directing effort, the epic Western “One-Eyed Jacks,” and also appeared in one of the most important films in Mexican cinema’s illustrious history: “Macario,” based upon the classic B.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content Since the beginning of the Academy Awards in the late 1920s, Hollywood filmmakers have been making socially conscious films. Many of the best of those have scored the film town’s top honor — Oscar best picture.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content With the 2023 Oscar nominations now in hand, it’s clear that Margot Robbie’s exclusion from the best actress race, along with “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig’s director snub, has outraged the blockbuster film’s massive global fanbase. What everyone seems to be forgetting is that when it comes to Oscar love, especially for actors, Oscar voters annually choose spinach over sweets, meat and potatoes over champagne and caviar.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content In 2012, the world’s film critics considered Federico Fellini’s 1963 Oscar-winning “8 ½” one of the 10 greatest films of all time. By 2022, Fellini’s landmark film had fallen out of the top 30.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content They say failureis an orphan, but success has many fathers; however, that rule may not apply when your child is a bomb that has the potential to end all life on Earth. That is one of the many gut-wrenching and provocative points raised in Christopher Nolan’s awards contender “Oppenheimer,” a bracing and cinematically bold look at the titular scientist who many credit as the father of the atomic bomb.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content “Do you guys ever think about dying?” asks the titular toy at the center of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s inventive and ambitious screenplay for the mega-hit comedy “Barbie.” In their yarn, the virus of death awareness is planted in Barbie World by a daydreaming Mattel employee named Gloria, who randomly sketches Thoughts of Impending Death Barbie at work one day, thus triggering the tale of the famed doll’s journey from plastic prop to self-empowered woman. I wasn’t daydreaming, but I was casually musing out loud on X, formerly known as Twitter, after my first viewing of “Barbie” about how the film seemed heavily influenced by a book I first read 50 years ago: Ernest Becker’s 1974 Pulitzer Prize winner, “The Denial of Death.” For the uninitiated, Becker’s central thesis is summarized in “Death” as “the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity — activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man.” I quickly got a private message from documentary filmmaker Laura Dunn.

Valerie Wu Intern Norby Walters, a music agent who hosted the annual “Night of 100 Stars” Oscars viewing party for more than 25 years, died Dec. 10 in Burbank. He was 91.

Valerie Wu Intern “Poor Things,” starring Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo, has already generated a substantial amount of Oscars buzz, becoming a major contender for next year’s awards season. What less people might know about the film is that it was shot in Budapest, Hungary — a location that appealed to the “Poor Things” filmmakers for its “abundant studio space,” “highly skilled crew base,” “favorable costs” and “attractive 30% cash rebate,” according to Christopher Vourlias of Variety. Not only that, but Hollywood filmmakers have historically used Hungary in their productions, with films like “Dune,” “Blade Runner 2049” and “Black Widow” all being shot in Budapest.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content By the time Martin Scorsese‘s music documentary “The Last Waltz” premiered in 1978, the legendary Americana music progenitors the Band, whom the film explores, had gone from “Cahoots” to kaput for two years. The 1976 farewell concert at the center of the film was already a piece of rock and roll history by the time the film debuted.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content When first-time documentary director Leonard Manzella premieres his award-winning “Shoe Shine Caddie” at the Portobello Film Festival in London on September 16, it will represent a kind of return to the former actor’s roots in the international film scene. A professional family therapist for the past 30 years in California, Manzella’s earlier career began when the native Angeleno left Los Angeles for Rome in 1968 “when everything was burning.” In his early 20s and armed with “no contacts and about $50 bucks in my pocket,” a fortuitous introduction to American actor Brett Halsey got Manzella into movies, first as an extra and eventually as a leading man.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content The late great country crooner Conway Twitty had one of the oddest career trajectories of any major act in the country field. With 23 top ten hits in the late ’70s to early ’80s, including 13 number one country singles on Billboard, he was significant indeed.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content Best-known over the past four decades as one of Hollywood’s most durable and versatile leading men and character actors, Dennis Quaid has had a lesser-known but certainly just as committed second creative life — in music. His commitment to his belief in music and in his Christian religion, which began in his Texas youth, comes to life quite emotionally and rousingly in his second album, “Fallen: A Gospel Record for Sinners.” Produced in Nashville, where Quaid and his wife, businesswoman Laura Savoie, now live, Quaid says “Fallen” came about when executives from gospel music firm Gaither Music approached the actor to do a gospel record. “I had previously made one other record with my rock and roll band, The Sharks (“Out of the Box”), and it came out and laid there,” Quaid tells Variety with a laugh.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content Tuesday Weld’s 80th birthday on August 27 is a valid excuse to remind all cinephiles of the wondrous work of one of American cinema’s most gifted and enigmatic actresses. And a reminder is desperately needed because over the six decades of her original, fearless, often lacerating performances in film and television, Weld’s reluctance to promote herself makes Greta Garbo look like Demi Lovato.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content When Robert Aldrich’s 1968 Hollywood insider yarn, “The Legend of Lylah Clare” screens at the Maine International Film Festival in Waterville, Maine, it will represent much more than a simple revival of a New Hollywood-era roman à clef. The film’s presentation on July 12 will include a discussion between actor Michael Murphy, who co-stars in the film, and former MGM publicity director Mike Kaplan, who has from the film’s earliest screenings defended both the film’s director, who Kaplan feels was “grossly maligned” by the depiction of him in Ryan Murphy’s limited series “Feud,” and the film, which monumentally tanked both critically and commercially when first released. 

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content To fully understand rock music legend Bill Wyman, formerly of the Rolling Stones, one must first grapple with some daunting math. Wyman was in the band for 30 years, and he quit the band 30 years ago. When, as in the case of Wyman, you play a key part in the making of records like “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Satisfaction,” “Paint It Black,” “Miss You,” “Start Me Up,” “Gimme Shelter,” etc., it’s not so easy to shift the compass point of your life away from the distant past and toward the present or at least the more recent past. But Wyman, gently, politely, resolutely tries, though the challenge is made more complex by recent headlines announcing Wyman has “returned to the Stones,” which the fine print reveals actually means that Wyman has just flown to Los Angeles to cut one new track on an album made in tribute to their late drummer Charlie Watts.  

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor Variety has named its 10 Comics to Watch for 2023. This year’s honorees will be profiled in a special comedy issue of Variety on July 19. They will then be honored at this year’s Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, held in Montreal July 14-29. There will be a panel and cocktail reception held on July 28, followed by a performance showcase July 29. Variety has been presenting the 10 Comics to Watch list since 2000 and has included such names as Tiffany Haddish, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt and Quinta Brunson. The list comprises stand-up comedians, writers and content creators selected by a panel that includes Variety editors and those in the comedy community that scout, book, cast and represent comics.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content Austrian actor Helmut Berger, the groundbreaking star of European cinematic masterpieces such as Luchino Visconti’s “The Damned” and Vittorio De Sica’s “Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” has died at the age of 78. Berger died at home in Austria from natural causes. In one of European cinema’s most storied and creative periods, the 60s and 70s, Berger boldly established his place in the pantheon of Continental stars via a handful of films directed by Visconti, his one-time romantic partner. “The Damned,” “Ludwig” and “Conversation Piece” were all crafted with standout roles for Berger and the films were hugely successful both at the arthouse box office and with critics and awards groups.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety will bestow its International Achievement in Film Award on German production, licensing and distribution company LEONINE Studios at a ceremony at the Cannes Film Festival next month. This award is the most prestigious honor Variety can bestow on an international film company or executive, and is designed to spotlight the honoree’s achievements over the past few years. Steven Gaydos, Executive Vice President, Global Content, Variety, said: “Building on the links to a storied, successful history, LEONINE Studios has rapidly established itself in the past few years as one of the world’s leading producers, licensors and distributors of premium movies and series.