‘Kaua'i Storm': A Captivating Hawaiian Mystery
Blending family drama, cultural tension, and a troubling disappearance, 'Kaua'i Storm' delivers an immersive experience that is mildly challenging, yet deeply enthralling and worth the effort.
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Los Angeles Times
4 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Lynette Howell Taylor elected new president of the motion picture academy
Hollywood's most exclusive club has a new leader. Producer Lynette Howell Taylor has been elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group's board of governors announced Thursday, becoming the 37th person to hold the post in the academy's 97-year history. Howell Taylor, a member of the organization's producers branch since 2014, succeeds Janet Yang, who was elected in 2022 and is stepping down after three consecutive one-year terms. Howell Taylor takes the helm alongside CEO Bill Kramer as the organization continues to confront a rapidly shifting landscape for the Oscars and the broader film industry. An academy member since 2014 and, at 46, the youngest president named to the post in decades, the British-born Howell Taylor brings both deep production experience and long-standing involvement in academy leadership. Over the past two decades, she has produced more than 25 films, including 'A Star is Born,' which earned her a best picture nomination in 2019. Her other credits include 'Captain Fantastic,' 'Blue Valentine,' 'The Place Beyond the Pines' and the upcoming 'Roofman.' In 2020, she co-produced the 92nd Oscars ceremony with Stephanie Allain, receiving an Emmy nomination for the broadcast that was capped by a historic win for Bong Joon Ho's 'Parasite.' Within the academy, Howell Taylor served three years as vice president and chair of the powerful awards committee, where she played a key role in shaping the Oscars' direction in a time of institutional change. In a meeting at the academy's Beverly Hills headquarters, the 55-member board also elected a slate of officers for the 2025–26 term. Composer Lesley Barber, producer Jennifer Fox, documentary filmmaker Simon Kilmurry, actor Lou Diamond Phillips and screenwriter Howard A. Rodman will serve as vice presidents, with Kilmurry also taking on the role of treasurer and Rodman serving as secretary. Barber and Rodman are returning officers; the others are serving in officer roles for the first time. As president, Howell Taylor will be expected to help steer the organization through a period of reinvention and uncertainty not just for the academy but for the industry as a whole. The academy continues to wrestle with declining Oscars viewership — this year's telecast averaged 19.7 million viewers, up from the previous year but still less than half what the show pulled in at its peak in the 1990s. The presidency is an unpaid, largely ceremonial role but it has taken on added weight in recent years amid growing scrutiny of the academy's decision-making, including, most notoriously, in the aftermath of Will Smith's 2022 Oscars slap. 'Lynette has been a vital part of the Academy Board of Governors for many years, most recently revitalizing our awards work as chair of the board's Awards Committee,' Kramer said in a statement. 'I so look forward to working with her as our new Academy President, as well as with these incredibly dedicated and strategic board officers. This is an exceptional group of Academy members who will advance the Academy's mission, support our membership around the world, ensure our long-term financial stability, and celebrate the achievements of the global filmmaking community.'
Associated Press
5 hours ago
- Associated Press
‘A Star Is Born' producer Lynette Howell Taylor elected president of Oscars org
Veteran producer Lynette Howell Taylor has been elected president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Taylor will succeed Janet Yang in the role, presiding over the organization that puts on the Oscars, film academy CEO Bill Kramer said Thursday. An academy member since 2014, Taylor has served the organization in several high-profile positions, including as vice president and chair of the awards committee. She's also a prolific film producer whose works include 'A Star Is Born' (2018), 'Blue Valentine' and 'The Accountant.' She also produced the 92nd Oscars broadcast. Taylor is now the fifth woman to lead the film academy. The outgoing president, Yang, was elected to the position in 2022 and served in the role for the maximum of three years. Kramer said in a statement that Taylor has been a vital part of the board of governors and singled out how she 'revitalized our awards work.' Several officers were also elected by the board, including actor Lou Diamond Phillips as chair of the equity and inclusion committee and producer Jennifer Fox, who will chair the awards committee. 'This is an exceptional group of Academy members who will advance the Academy's mission, support our membership around the world, ensure our long-term financial stability, and celebrate the achievements of the global filmmaking community,' Kramer said. After years of declining ratings, the Oscars have been on an upswing the past few years. March's broadcast, in which 'Anora' won five Oscars, drew some 19.7 million viewers, a slight uptick from the ceremony the year prior, when 'Oppenheimer' dominated. The organization has already announced that Conan O'Brien will return as host in 2026 and has made several big changes for the future, including adding a stunt design award, starting with films released in 2027, and one for casting directors, which goes into effect this year.
New York Times
10 hours ago
- New York Times
‘Chief of War' Review: Battleground Hawaii
Nearly everything written about 'Chief of War' — the new series set in 18th-century Hawaii for which the Honolulu-born Jason Momoa was a creator, writer, director and star — has referred to the show as a passion project. And for about four minutes, at the show's beginning, it feels like one. The camera glides along brilliant blue water, trailing a skeletal catamaran. We hear wind, waves and the slap of paddles. Momoa towers over the paddlers, seemingly too big for the boat, before hurling himself into the water. Then — using a rope and a few flasks of numbing kava — he single-handedly catches a shark. It's a lovely and disarming scene, one that makes clever use of Momoa's hulking physique against the dramatic backdrops of land and sea. And there isn't another scene like it in the season's nine episodes (the first two of which premiere Friday on Apple TV+). There are moments of impressive violence and satisfying melodrama. But what starts like a passion project settles into work as usual. Momoa, who created the show with Thomas Paʻa Sibbett and wrote it with Sibbett and Doug Jung, plays Ka'iana, a member of one of many royal families at a time when each Hawaiian island was its own kingdom. 'Chief of War' takes place at the start of a period in the late 1700s when a series of conflicts led to the unification of the islands under a single king, and when increasing numbers of European and American ships began arriving. The show comes into its premiere carrying a seal of approval as the rare production to portray Hawaiian history from a native Hawaiian viewpoint, using the Hawaiian language (along with a fair bit of English). That responsibility may account for the solemnity that marks the storytelling; the show's fealty to the history is at the typical television-drama level, however. It is stuffed with people, like Ka'iana, who existed and with events that took place, but the story that is spun from them is largely fanciful. Timelines and relationships are juggled and fictionalized in the service of creating love stories, compressing and juicing up the course of war, and sharpening the depredations of the incipient colonists (referred to here as the paleskins). Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
