Industry

Behind every ceremony in which a star is presented on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, there is a Latina. Ana Martinez, born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of a Peruvian father and a Mexican mother, has been a producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremonies for 35 years.

“The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest-running Broadway musical in New York, will finally close on February 18, 2023. The famed musical adored by many worldwide, written by British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, will have had a 35-year run on the Great White Way.

  A mere three weeks after her presence at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures to publicly receive the apology over her treatment at the 1973 Oscars, Sacheen Littlefeather, actress and activist, has died. She was 75 years old and had been battling breast cancer.

“The cartel has invaded everything! The festivals, Hollywood! We have kept everything!,” joked Alejandro González Iñárritu chatting with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 2014 on his film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Of course, the winner of two Golden Globes and the recipient of four nominations is far from being a drug dealer.

This year the variety of national holidays is enriched with one more date to celebrate. The first ever National Cinema Day was launched by NATO’s new non-profit Cinema Foundation (an arm of the National Association of Theater Owners) to welcome moviegoers to celebrate a day at the movies with discounted admissions, and from now on might become an annual event held on September 3.

A few days ago, Golden Globe nominee John Leguizamo called out the casting of Golden Globe winner James Franco as Fidel Castro in Alina of Cuba: la hija rebelde. The film is a portrayal of Alina Fernández Revuelta, the illegitimate daughter of the leftist leader with socialite Natalia Revuelta.

Dr. Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institute noted in an HFPA press conference, “Hollywood is no longer dominated by movies where the Americans are the good guys, and everybody else, the bad guys.

In 69 years of books and 60 years of movies, seven actors became James Bond, and over two dozen composers created 25 songs to support the opening atmosphere of each one of them – that moment, the dramatically dangerous intro when Bond walks across the screen and shoots at us in the audience. One man, however, has left his signature on all of them – Monty Norman, composer of the "James Bond Theme" that announces how fierce, smart, cool, and indomitable 007 is.

Think fast: is there any film you had seen that didn’t have a car? Difficult, isn’t it? Cars and movies were born and developed at the same time, from the late 19th century to the early 20th, a moment when movement and speed fascinated new generations and opened opportunities for new horizons. The first moving picture – The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Gare, in 1895 -  showcased a protagonist from the previous century – the locomotive.

Summer always reminds us of the memorable time when we visited the set of Mamma Mia!, the romantic comedy film directed by Phyllida Lloyd and written by Catherine Johnson, based on the latter’s book from the 1999 musical of the same name. We can still vividly recall that summer in June of 2008 when the cast, led by Meryl Streep, talked to us.