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One in an occasional series exploring the state of Hollywood films in global markets. A quick Google search of the Russian box office for this year reveals that all but one of the top 20 grossers are Hollywood movies.

Beginning in 1952 when the Cecil B. deMille Award was presented to its namesake visionary director, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has awarded its most prestigious prize 66 times.

Minis, blues, the aubergine range and a spot of brights.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced a returning initiative in which rising filmmakers from the 2019 Venice International Film Festival and the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival will be selected for a three-week residency program in partnership with Film Independent. For the second year in a row, the HFPA and Film Independent will host a three-week program geared at emerging and mid-career filmmakers selected from the Orizzonti section of the Venice International Film Festival and the TIFF Filmmaker Lab.

For over 40 years the HFPA has recorded famous and celebrated actresses, actors and filmmakers. The world's largest collection of its kind - over 10,000  items - is now in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Margaret Herrick Library.

Writer-director-producer Gurinder Chadha wants the world to be a better place.   That comes across in her movies: Bhaji on the Beach, What’s Cooking?, Bend it Like Beckham, Bride & Prejudice, Viceroy’s House and in her latest, Blinded by the Light.

For four months last year Fan Bingbing, the most famous actress in China, disappeared, alarming her fans and causing all kinds of conspiracy theories on social media. She reemerged from her (voluntary?) seclusion when she was charged with tax evasion for understating her earnings on at least four fake movie contracts, something that is apparently common practice in China.

Universal's pre-teen comedy Good Boys performed well above expectations and ended its opening frame with $21 million and in first place in the US and Canada.  Good Boys is about a group of three middle school kids coping with bullying and family troubles and, of course, trying to get laid.

Beginning in 1952 when the Cecil B. deMille Award was presented to its namesake visionary director, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has awarded its most prestigious prize 66 times.

It’s the dog days of summer. Venice is about to begin.