Ray liotta

EXCLUSIVE : Artists First on Friday announced its signing of boxing Hall of Famer, Sugar Ray Leonard . Leonard enjoyed an elite, 20-year career in the ring before being inducted into the International Boxing Hall Of Fame in 1997, winning three National Golden Gloves titles, two Amateur Athletic Union championships and the 1975 Pan-American Games crown. He first got into boxing at age 14 and turned professional after winning a gold medal at the 1976 Olympic games, in a last-ditch effort to help his family with medical bills incurred from his father’s hospitalization with meningitis. Leonard won his first professional fight at age 20, then going on to defeat some of the greatest boxers of the modern era, from Wilfred Benetiz to Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, from whom Leonard won the world middleweight title. His boxing career also saw him win world titles in the welterweight, junior middleweight, super middleweight, and light heavyweight division, … [Read more...] about Sugar Ray Leonard Signs With Artists First

EXCLUSIVE: The Kinoteka Polish Film Festival has set the lineup for its 21st edition, running March 9 — April 27 at venues across London. The festival will open at the Institute of Contemporary Arts with the UK Premiere of Polish filmmaker Damian Kocur’s debut feature, Bread and Salt . Inspired by true events, the pic follows Tymek, a young and talented student of the Warsaw Academy of Music who returns to his provincial hometown for vacation. Upon his return, he discovers that the central meeting point for local youth is a newly created kebab bar. Tymek witnesses a growing conflict between the shop workers, who are Arabs, and his friends from the neighborhood, leading to a conflict that will turn out to be tragic. The film debuted at Venice last year. The festival will close with a gala screening of the 1977 film Top Dog (Wodzirej) at the Cine Lumiere in South Kensington. Causing much debate in Poland on its original release, Top Dog follows the story of … [Read more...] about London’s Kinoteka Polish Film Festival Unveils 2023 Lineup Including BFI-Backed Jerzy Skolimowski Retrospective

Related: DGA, Producers Reach Tentative Deal On New Contract As expected, the Directors Guild of America Board today unanimously rubber-stamped the new three-year deal its negotiating committee finalized with the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers on Friday. With the board’s approval, the agreement now goes to the DGA ’s 15,000 members for ratification to succeed the current Basic Agreement and the Freelance Live and Tape TV Agreement, which expire on June 30, 2014. No word yet on when that voting deadline will be but the DGA expect to announce a date just before the voting packages go out in the next week or so. The board meeting started around 9 AM today at the DGA HQ on Sunset and went into the early afternoon. The deal, which took just two and a half weeks to reach, sees wage increases of 2.5% the first year and 3% for the second and third years of the agreement. It also sees a 0.5% raise up to 16% overall to the Pension Plan, though the DGA can divert … [Read more...] about DGA Board Approves New Contract With Producers; 2.5% Wage Increase For 1st Year, 0.5% Pension Increase, Some SVOD & AVOD Increases

LOS ANGELES (Oct. 8, 2013) — SAG-AFTRA has agreed to a one-year extension of two of its legacy contracts for corporate, non-broadcast and educational work. The National Board of Directors ratified the agreement between the union and the Producers Group on Oct. 1 at its meeting in Los Angeles. The legacy AFTRA and SAG Corporate/Educational and Non-Broadcast Contracts, which were jointly negotiated in April 2011, were set to expire on April 30, 2014. The terms of the contracts have not changed. With the coming negotiations for the TV/Theatrical contract, the extension gives the union more time to prepare and gives members more opportunity to be involved in the run-up to the next negotiation. The Corporate/Educational and Non-Broadcast Contracts cover public relations, sales promotion and training films made for initial use to the general public, schools, conventions, seminars, museums, in retail stores and for Internet use. SAG-AFTRA’s Assistant National Executive Director, Contracts … [Read more...] about SAG-AFTRA Extends Corporate And Non-Broadcast Pacts

There’ll be fireworks but no fire, and there will be a deal in the end. That’s the word I’m hearing from both sides out of the WGA ’s contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers after two days of talks . No one is commenting publicly, but I’ve learned that besides presentations from both sides during the opening days, there’s palpable unease in the room at AMPTP HQ thanks to the multimillion-dollar rollback proposal producers sent the WGA more than a week before negotiations began. “There’s a feeling of, Why did you have to insult us?’” a WGA insider told me over the producers’ request for $60 million in rollbacks from the health and pension plans, residuals and targeted screenplay minimums. “Once again it makes us the least favored child of the guilds.” Some on the other side of the table don’t disagree with that assessment. “Those were ridiculous proposals meant to appease the people at the top, not anyone in the room,” a well-placed … [Read more...] about WGA Contract Talks Brittle In Opening Days Over “Ridiculous” AMPTP Proposals

Things are going downhill already just days before the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers are set to start negotiating a new 3-year contract. In an almost bizarre move, the producers allegedly told the WGA last week that they want “60 million dollars in rollbacks for writers, 32 million of that coming from our health plan,” according to an email sent out to WGA members today. “But it doesn’t stop there. Other proposals targeted screenplay minimums (11 million dollar rollback), TV residuals, and our Pension Plan,” adds the correspondence from WGA negotiating committee co-chairs Chip Johannessen and Billy Ray. “These proposed rollbacks for writers come at a time of unprecedented prosperity for the studios,” say Johannessen and Ray. “The collective profits of our 6 major bargaining partners (Disney, CBS, Comcast, Fox, Time Warner and Viacom) just hit a record $40 billion. This prosperity is based on our work, we are the creative force … [Read more...] about WGA Claims AMPTP Wants Big Pension & Health Contribution Cuts In New Contract

As talks are about to resume Monday on the final elements that many hope will lead to a new deal for the Writers Guild Of America, we wanted to lend some perspective and give voice to the TV and feature writers whose fortunes will be tied directly to the deal their union makes. This is the fourth in a quick succession of five questions we asked a panel of 10 writers. Here are their responses, and hopefully other writers will be moved to comment about the issues that worry them most as their work is monetized in this fast-changing digital age. Related: WGA: Why Gains, Lessons From 2008′s Strike Will Keep Hollywood From Another War DEADLINE: Patric Verrone is running for California State Senate and in establishing his cred to writers said, “We won the writers strike.” Would you vote for him? WRITER #1: Honestly, I wouldn’t vote for Patric Verrone as the President of the Tupperware Club of Paramus, New Jersey. I also find it hilarious that he used the entire … [Read more...] about Writers Rail As Talks Resume – Fourth Question In A Deadline Survey

Nearly a month after DGA members ratified their new three-year deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers , the WGA today announced that it will sit down for their talks with the producers on February 3. The negotiations are set to take place at AMPTP HQ in Sherman Oaks. While the Writers Guild took the step to announce its negotiating committee on November 13, up to today, neither they nor SAG-AFTRA had set a start date for their respective talks with AMPTP. Not like the melded WGA West and WGA East committee doesn’t include some heavy-hitting scribes. There’s recently re-elected board members Billy Ray and David S. Goyer as well Damon Lindelof among the group. The committee will serve under WGAW Exec Director and Chief Negotiator David Young. The WGA’s latest contract is set to expire on May 1. Related: AMPTP Respond To WGA West Plan To Go After Deadbeat Producers The talks next month come, as the Guild’s constitution requires, … [Read more...] about WGA Sets February 3 As Start Of New Contract Talks With Producers