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Ariana DeBose makes Oscars history

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Ariana DeBose makes Oscars history

That is her first Oscar nomination and win. DeBose has acquired approval for her function as Anita within the musical movie.

When DeBose took the stage she emotionally mentioned, “Even on this bizarre world we stay in, desires do come true.”

She additionally thanked her mom, who got here as her visitor and was within the viewers. DeBose spoke movingly about her expertise as a queer Afro-Latina girl.

“For anybody who has ever questioned their identification, there may be certainly a spot for us,” she mentioned, quoting her movie.

DeBose has beforehand received a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Display screen Actors Guild Award for this function.

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In 1962, Rita Moreno received the identical award for a similar function. Moreno starred as Anita within the unique “West Facet Story” movie and made historical past herself as the primary Hispanic actress to win in the most effective supporting actress class.

Moreno performed drugstore proprietor Valentina within the remake.

Debose additionally paid tribute to Moreno in her acceptance speech on Sunday, thanking her for paving the way in which for different “Anitas” in Hollywood.

“Ariana DeBose is an immensely proficient actress and an incredible advocate for LGBTQ individuals and other people of coloration,” GLAAD’s President & CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis mentioned in an announcement Sunday. “She not solely made historical past tonight as the primary queer girl of coloration to win an Oscar, however she despatched an exquisite and well timed message to LGBTQ younger individuals. I hope LGBTQ youth around the globe noticed her win, heard her communicate and acknowledge that they too ought to dream massive.”

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Movie Reviews

‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ Review: Judy Greer in an Uneven Holiday Flick with an Ecclesiastical Spin

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‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ Review: Judy Greer in an Uneven Holiday Flick with an Ecclesiastical Spin

In Dallas Jenkins’ The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, a group of kids wreak daily havoc on Emmanuel, a small town somewhere in America. The Herdmans, according to the narrator (Lauren Graham) of this uneven tale, are “the worst kids in the history of the world” — a title earned by Ralph (Mason D. Nelligan), Leroy (Ewan Wood), Claude (Matthew Lamb), Ollie (Essek Moore), Gladys (Kynlee Heiman) and Imogen (Beatrice Schneider) through a host of shenanigans ranging from personally offensive to downright harmful. 

A nifty montage at the beginning of the holiday feature shows the Herdmans bullying kids and adults with impunity; taking the Lord’s name in vain; smoking cigars; stealing from local businesses and even setting fire to a dilapidated shed. Because of their repugnant behavior, residents of the community hardly believed the Herdmans were “real,” says the narrator. “No one knew why they were that way.” And it appears that few people — including, at times, includes the filmmakers — sincerely want to find out. 

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

The Bottom Line

Shortchanges its own lovable underdogs.

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Release date: Friday, Nov. 8
Cast: Judy Greer, Pete Holmes, Molly Belle Wright, Lauren Graham, Beatrice Schneider, Mason D. Nelligan, Ewan Wood, Matthew Lamb, Essek Moore, Kynlee Heiman
Director: Dallas Jenkins
Screenwriter: Ryan Swanson, Platte Clark, Darian McDaniel, based on the novel by Barbara Robinson

Rated PG,
1 hour 39 minutes

Based on the 1972 children’s book by Barbara Robinson, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a classic American tale that foregrounds the noncommercial meaning of the holiday. Working from a screenplay by Ryan Swanson, Platte Clark and Darian McDaniel, Jenkins (who is best known for The Chosen, a historical drama about the life of Jesus) crafts a tale that moves unsteadily between poignancy and a kind of emotional sterility.

The movie comes alive when it’s sketching the town’s petty grievances, or the relationship between the protagonist, Beth (Molly Belle Wright, playing a younger version of Graham’s narrator), and her mother, Grace (Judy Greer). But it lacks the same dynamism when it turns its attention to the Herdmans, who seem increasingly like ciphers for the film’s ecclesiastical themes. 

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The action kicks off when Mrs. Armstrong (Mariam Bernstein), the director of Emmanuel’s annual Christmas pageant, gets injured and is forced to hand over supervision of this year’s show to Grace, whom the other church moms don’t respect. The film doesn’t detail the dynamics between all the women, but a few moments recall scenes the fish-out-of-water scenes involving Rachel McAdams’ Barbara among the PTA moms in Kelly Fremon Craig’s Judy Blume adaptation, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Like Barbara, Grace wants to prove to this judgmental cadre that she can be relied upon to maintain this storied tradition. Her relationship with her daughter likewise echoes Barbara and Margaret’s, as another assured representation of an uplifting mother-daughter bond.

There’s a lot of pressure on this year’s pageant, which is the town’s 75th and doubles as a critical fundraising event, so Grace panics when the Herdmans bully their way into the main roles. How can she get these notoriously unruly children to comply? She initially brainstorms with her husband Bob (Pete Holmes) and Beth, but the trio don’t have to scheme for very long. It turns out the story of Jesus is more than enough. The Herdmans, whose parents always seem to be at work, have never been to church. When the six kids reluctantly come to Sunday school, lured by the promise of free food, they soon find themselves enamored by the story of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. 

And why wouldn’t they be? As the Herdmans engage with the Biblical narrative, they identify similarities between themselves and the Holy Family. Scenes of the young crew checking out books at the library and poring over each word as they see themselves in the pages remind of the grip stories have on young minds, how they can open entire worlds for readers.

Imogen, especially, becomes empowered by Mary’s tale. The young girl, who secretly wants to be considered delicate and pretty like popular girl Alice (Lorelei Olivia Mote), comes to realize that resilience is its own kind of beauty. Schneider’s performance as the unruly preteen, whose rough edges mask a softer and more sincere side, makes it easier to buy Imogen’s transformation. But it also highlights a nagging sense of incompleteness when it comes to the Herdmans’ story. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever never quite lands its most poignant moments because Imogen and her siblings remain stubbornly at a distance.

While Jenkins offers glimpses of these kids’ lives throughout The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, more sustained attention — more backstory on the parents’ absence, or more insight into the daily routines of the Herdmans — would have positively complicated the film. It could have underscored how much of the townspeople’s disdain of this clan stems from classism, and how rejection of difference contradicts the tenets they profess to believe in. Most of all, however, focusing on the Herdmans would have helped land more forcefully Jenkins’ lessons about how the true meaning of Christmas is shaped by community. 

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Full credits

Distributor: Lionsgate
Production companies: Kingdom Story Company, FletChet Entertainment, Lionsgate, Media Capital Technologies
Cast: Judy Greer, Pete Holmes, Molly Belle Wright, Lauren Graham, Beatrice Schneider, Mason D. Nelligan, Ewan Wood, Matthew Lamb, Essek Moore, Kynlee Heiman
Director: Dallas Jenkins
Screenwriters: Ryan Swanson, Platte Clark, Darian McDaniel, Barbara Robinson (based on the novel by)
Producers: Kevin Downes, Joe Erwin, Andrew Erwin, Darin McDaniel, Chet Thomas, Daryl Lefever
Executive producers: Dallas Jenkins, Jennifer Booth, Tony Young, Christopher Woodrow, K. Blaine Johnston
Director of photography: C. Kim Miles
Production designer: Jean A. Carriere
Costume designer: Maria Livingstone
Editor: John Quinn
Music: Matthew S. Nelson, Dan Hasletine
Casting directors: Jill Anthony Thomas, Anthony J. Kraus

Rated PG,
1 hour 39 minutes

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Elwood Edwards, voice of the ‘You’ve got mail’ AOL email greeting, dies at 74

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Elwood Edwards, voice of the ‘You’ve got mail’ AOL email greeting, dies at 74

Elwood Edwards, a media multihyphenate who voiced AOL’s iconic greeting “You’ve got mail,” has died.

Edwards died Tuesday at age 74 in New Bern, N.C., after a long illness, his former employer, Ohio NBC affiliate WKYC, confirmed. According to the television station, he died the day before his 75th birthday.

During his decade-long stint at WKYC, Edwards worked as a “graphics guru, camera operator, and general jack-of-all-trades,” the station said, “yet it was a somewhat random opportunity in 1989 that earned him international fame.”

That year, Edwards recorded the four short phrases — including “You’ve got mail” — that he had “a certain amount of trouble trying to escape” for the rest of his life, he joked in 2012.

Thirty years ago, Edwards’ wife, Karen, was working as a customer service representative at Quantum Computer Services, AOL’s predecessor company, when she overheard then-chief executive Steve Case say he needed a voiceover actor for a new project.

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“I had an idea. Why not make the service more personal by adding the voice of a person?” Case wrote in his 2016 book “The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future.” Karen Edwards promptly volunteered her husband’s services.

“I’d never met him, and didn’t know what his voice sounded like. But I figured it would at least be a good prototype, a sample we could play for other voiceover actors when we started auditions,” Case said.

The executive scribbled a few phrases — “Welcome,” “You’ve got mail,” “Files done” and “Goodbye” — onto a Post-it note and handed them to Karen, who promised recordings by the next day.

Edwards’ voice “couldn’t have been more perfect,” Case recalled in his book. “It was disarmingly friendly, like the voice you’d expect from a stranger who offered to carry your grandmother’s groceries. The second I heard it, I knew we weren’t going to be auditioning anyone else.”

Within a month, AOL was mailing CDs to millions of people nationwide, each containing upgraded software and a message from Elwood Edwards — who was paid a mere $200 for the homemade recordings.

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“I didn’t really think anything of it at the time,” Edwards said in a 2019 episode of the “Twenty Thousand Hertz” podcast. He had worked in broadcasting since high school, so hearing his name come out of a speaker was “nothing new.”

“I don’t think anyone had any idea what it would become,” he said.

Edwards went on to lend his voice to other projects, including promotions for the 1998 romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail” and a 2000 episode of “The Simpsons.” In 2015, he appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” and after he recited his signature phrase, Fallon told the audience, “That’s worth the price of admission, right there. That’s enough.”

The former broadcaster never received any residuals for his AOL voice work, he told Inside Edition in 2016, two years after his retirement from WKYC. He wasn’t able to find much voiceover work after the gig either, he told Culture Honey later that year, because he was “pigeonholed as the ‘You’ve got’ guy, and nothing ever really came of that.”

Still, he said on “Twenty Thousand Hertz,” being the voice of AOL was immensely gratifying, as was being recognized for it over the years.

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“Our world is full of people who were in the right place at the right time, and I’m glad to be one of those,” he said.

Elwood Hughes Edwards Jr. was born on Nov. 6, 1949, in Glen Burnie, Md., and began his broadcasting career in high school in North Carolina.

“He started out as a teenager, before he was old enough to collect a paycheck,” his daughter Sallie Edwards told the New York Times on Thursday. He went on to work behind the scenes in television, sometimes going on camera to report the weather. Later, he voiced commercials for businesses and other organizations, including a local church.

In addition to his daughter Sallie, Edwards is survived by another daughter, Heather Edwards; a brother, Bill; and a granddaughter, the outlet reported.

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Meet Me Next Christmas Movie Review: A charming addition to the holiday lineup

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Meet Me Next Christmas Movie Review: A charming addition to the holiday lineup
Story: Recently heartbroken, Layla clings to a Christmas miracle: getting into the sold-out Pentatonix Christmas concert, where she believes fate will finally connect her with her ideal partner.

Review: Meet Me Next Christmas is a cozy holiday rom-com that embraces the genre’s classic tropes while adding a splash of musical charm. As part of the holiday season lineup on streaming platforms, it has the feel of a traditional Christmas rom-com but with a few twists that make it a light, enjoyable watch. Christina Milian stars as Layla, a driven woman whose holiday tradition of attending a Pentatonix Christmas show takes on new meaning when her recent breakup leaves her yearning for a Christmas miracle to find her true love.

The film follows Layla’s frantic quest through New York City as she attempts to secure last-minute tickets to the sold-out concert, hoping to meet her “soulmate.” With the help of a spirited concierge, Layla navigates an array of comedic challenges, all designed to test her resolve and holiday spirit. The narrative is built around standard rom-com archetypes, with exaggerated characters and outlandish plot points that bend to create a magical love story.

Milian’s portrayal of Layla is spirited, bringing warmth to the character as she juggles career, heartbreak, and romance. Although her character is well within the holiday-movie mold—a successful professional who finds herself on a romantic adventure—Milian’s performance injects an energy that makes her easy to root for. Layla’s journey also features humorous mishaps, spontaneous dance numbers, and near-misses that are easy to see coming, making the movie feel delightfully predictable.

One of the film’s unique touches is the inclusion of Pentatonix, the popular a cappella group known for their holiday music. They make a few cameo appearances, adding comedic moments and playing up their celebrity status, which adds a playful element to the storyline. Unfortunately, their role is minimal, and the movie doesn’t fully utilize their musical talents or potential impact on the plot. Had Pentatonix been more integrated into Layla’s story, their presence might have felt more meaningful.

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Despite these missed opportunities, Meet Me Next Christmas is a charming addition to the holiday lineup. Its familiar formula, mixed with lighthearted musical elements, delivers the warm, feel-good experience that fans of Christmas rom-coms expect. It may not break new ground, but it’s an easy, heartwarming watch for anyone looking to get into the holiday spirit—perfect for a cozy evening with hot cocoa and holiday lights.

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