ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY AND AWARD NEWS  MAY 01, 2019 The Singular John Singleton What does Hollywood owe to John Singleton, who died this week after complications from a stroke? A whole lot, writes V.F. film critic K. Austin Collins. Singleton burst onto the studio scene in 1991 with Boyz n the Hood, a triumph that instantly marked the director—just 23 when he released that film—as a vital new voice. At the same time, Collins writes, Singleton remained painfully aware of the realities facing black directors, even as the industry paid lip service to increase diversity: “He knew that despite an influx of new black Hollywood talent, the industry retained an aggressive broader homogeneity—a refusal to let black filmmakers tell the widest possible range of stories available to them.” He combated that by dedicating himself to making mainstream films that were nevertheless personal and specific—“a canon of black life in the movies—specifically urban and specifically 90s, with all the preternatural sensitivity and vision that the middle-class L.A. native with a film-school degree from U.S.C. could bring to bear on the subject.” Even now, it’s tough to name a black director doing similar work within the studio system. Elsewhere in HWD, Laura Bradley reports on a starry night of comedy, featuring John Oliver, Tiffany Haddish,and more; director and co-executive producer Steven Piet opens up about The Act’s gripping season finale; Julie Miller digs into the awards-heavy year that drove Bob Fosse to a psych clinic; and Britt Hennemuth takes us inside a swanky Chanel dinner, attended by the likes of Katie Holmes, Cara Delevingne, and Robert De Niro.

In Focus Boyz n the Hood auteur John Singleton carved out a specific, vital niche in the 90s as the film industry’s defining black studio director. READ MORE » Comedy Tonight “There’s no more visceral example of freedom than completely misdirected fury,” John Oliver quipped Tuesday, adding that the nation will know it’s healed when we go back to getting mad about inconsequential things. READ MORE » Curtain-Closer While filming The Act finale’s chilling murder sequence, director and co-executive producer Steven Piet said, “At times, I was so lost in their performances that I was forgetting to say ‘Cut.’” READ MORE » What About Bob? “You don’t end up in a place like that if everything’s going well,” said Nicole Fosse of her father’s post-Oscars trip to a psychiatric clinic. READ MORE » Je T’aime Tweed berets, quilted handbags, and more than 100 stars packed Lower Manhattan’s Balthazar restaurant on Monday night for the Tribeca Film Festival Artists Dinner, hosted by Chanel. READ MORE »