With critics' groups across the country starting to hand out their awards, the Oscar race is officially on. Cinemablend's Sean O'Connell joins us to handicap the major categories. With no clear frontrunner, it's anyone's guess which movie is going to break out before the big night.
In the Best Picture category, it's looking like things are boiling down to a showdown between "The Post" and "Lady Bird." O'Connell weighs the pros and cons of each, noting that he thinks the Steven Spielberg political drama is the best movie of the year. We also consider whether "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" could be the franchise's first Best Picture nominee since the 1977 original, "A New Hope."
Then, we tackle the contenders duking it out in the acting categories. Meryl Streep is looking to win her fourth Oscar for her leading role in "The Post." If anyone can stop her, O'Connell says it will likely be "Lady Bird's" Saoirse Ronan or "I, Tonya's" Margot Robbie. As for the actors, "Darkest Hour's" Gary Oldman is pulling ahead as the one to beat for his portrayal of Winston Churchill.
Food technology startup Tender Food raised $12 million in a seed round led by Chris Sacca's Lowercarbon Capital. Tender says it specializes in creating alternative meats with an authentic texture and is on a mission to make alternative meats so delicious, nutritious, and affordable, that eating meat from animals will no longer make sense. Christophe Chantre, co-founder & CEO of Tender Food, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
With the number of Ukrainians being displaced due to the Russian invasion surging, two students from Harvard took it on themselves to develop a website to help connect potential hosts with refugees seeking housing. The co-founder of the website Ukraine Takes Shelter, Marco Burstein, joined Cheddar news to discuss working together with fellow freshman Avi Schiffmann to streamline the effort to aid Ukrainian refugees. "We basically worked for three days straight developing the website, and since then the response has been pretty incredible," Burstein said.
Over three weeks ago, WNBA player Brittney Griner was arrested in Russia on drug charges. According to reports, the Star arrived at an airport near Moscow where authorities found Vape cartridges and hashish oil in her luggage. Grindr faces serious charges that could carry a possible sentence of 5-10 years in a Russian prison. Experts warn that Griner's arrest could be used as a bargaining chip. Partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, Thomas Firestone, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Image-sharing social media platform Pinterest is marking Women's History Month through its Pinterest Elevates program, designed to help grow 10 underrepresented businesses with monetary and strategic support. Alise Marshall, senior global lead for public affairs at Pinterest, joined Cheddar News to explain how the program is helping to uplift women and women of color with businesses of their own. “This was in response to issues that we saw happening in the community, and ways that we thought that we were uniquely positioned to respond," she said.
A new report from the Motion Picture Association highlights how the popularity of streaming services has helped the film industry recover from the pandemic. Matthew Belloni, the host of "The Town" podcast and founding partner of Puck News, joined Cheddar News to discuss the impact of streaming on Hollywood. "For all but the largest tent-pole style blockbuster movies, the future probably is streaming," he said.
In the new comedic film "Linoleum," an Ohio family faces the adventure of a lifetime after a mysterious satellite lands in their yard. The suburban dad, played by comic Jim Gaffigan, takes the opportunity to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut by re-building the machine as his very own rocket ship. Gaffigan and co-star Rhea Seehorn joined Cheddar News senior reporter Michelle Castillo at South by Southwest 2022, to chat about the science fiction roles, with the actors noting that they didn't quite understand the jargon. "Jim and I had some late night googling sessions of what we were saying in the, in the scenes, but it was fun," Seehorn said.
The pandemic has turned the world of dating upside down. So what's making daters smile, and what are they looking for in a partner? Cheddar breaks down the findings from eharmony's 2022 Happiness Index study that break down the current state of dating.
Anna Sorokin, the convicted swindler who claimed to be a German heiress to finance a posh lifestyle in New York, is making a new bid to fight deportation, a lawyer said Tuesday.
Director Ava Duvernay and Roberto Patino, both executive producers of the HBO series "DMZ," joined Cheddar News to talk about adapting the comic book about a future American civil war and a dystopian Manhattan. "I think it reflects a couple steps ahead of us. It really contemplates what happens if we can't kind of get our act together and be able to listen to each other and be able to be civil with folks we disagree with," said Duvernay. "It contemplates what's next if we don't kind of right our path."
