Spiegel Stuff: Some Big News of Our Own

Vanity Fair

ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY and AWARD NEWS, compiled by REBECCA KEEGAN

Thursday, September 7, 2017

It's Thursday, and our editor, Graydon Carter, has dropped some big news of his own today.

Hello from Los Angeles, where we're verklempt about the boss, celebrating President Snow's Governors Award, and contemplating the end of Veep.

GREXIT!

After 25 years at the helm of this magazine, Graydon Carter announced Thursday that he is stepping down as editor of Vanity Fair in December. I feel lucky to have been here for 1/25th of his remarkable tenure. David Kamp, who had the privilege of working with our impresario editor for a much longer time, writes of the man who coined the term "short-fingered vulgarian," who developed V.F. into the best showcase for photography since Life, who throws Hollywood's most fabulous parties. Carter, 68, is heading to France for six months to recharge with his family, and then, he tells Kamp, to fly somewhere warm "to see if kitesurfing is as easy as Obama makes it look." After that, as he told Michael M. Grynbaum of The New York Times, he'll be working on his third act.

HERE COME THE GOVS

The Academy announced this year's Governors Award recipients Wednesday, an eclectic list which includes actor Donald Sutherland (MASH), pioneering African-American filmmaker Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), French New Wave director Agnès Varda (Cleo from 5 to 7), and cinematographer Owen Roizman (The French Connection). The Governors Awards, chosen by the group's 54-member Board of Governors, has evolved into one of awards season's starriest nights, ever since 2009 when the Academy moved them into their own, non-televised event, squarely before the Oscar-voting window. It's a chance for often overlooked veterans to be feted by the year's hottest contenders—last year it was a treat to see Jackie Chan receive some long overdue love. But Deadline's Michael Cieply notes that some big awards are curiously absent from the lineup—this year the Academy is conferring neither its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (past recipients have included Angelina Jolie and Harry Belafonte) nor its Irving G. Thalberg Award for producing, which was once given every two years or so and hasn't been conferred since Francis Ford Coppola collected one in 2010. "I don't think anything has changed," new Academy president John Bailey told Cieply, attributing the omission to the failure of any producer-nominee to garner the votes necessary for a win. Personally, I'd love to have seen Scott Rudin take this prize—yes, he drives many of us insane, but his passion, taste, and guardianship of his filmmakers is what this industry ought to celebrate.

ANYONE FOR TENNIS?

V.F.'s Hillary Busis e-mails:

The festivalgoers crowding Toronto this week are eager to kick things off with the event's opening film, Janus Metz's Borg/McEnroe—anticipated eagerly not only because star Shia LaBeouf seems like a natural fit to play famously hot-headed athlete John McEnroe, but also because this is just one of the films at the fest set to prove the exception to an old rule: there are no good movies about tennis. (McEnroe himself said as much to Vanity Fair in an interview last year: "I've never seen a good tennis movie—they all were terrible. I've been in a couple of them, and it was embarrassing to me how bad they were.") Contributor John Clarke examines the unusually robust crop of tennis flicks at TIFF this year, including Borg, Battle of the Sexes, and the documentary Love Means Zero, about the colorful tennis coach Nick Bollettieri. As the film's subject told Clarke at the U.S. Open before heading to Toronto himself, "If I analyzed everything, I would not have done the crazy things I did. People said I was crazy—that I don't feed my players and beat them up. They said I made them wash their cars. Well, that I did." No wonder they made a movie about him.

R.I.P. VEEP

V.F.'s Yohana Desta e-mails:

The time has come to bid farewell to Veep, the sharpest comedy on television. Show-runner David Mandel and star Julia Louis-Dreyfus confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the show's seventh season, which will premiere in 2018, will be its last. "The story has a finality to it that feels end-of-series," Louis-Dreyfus said, later adding that playing Selina Meyer has been "the role of a lifetime." It's also a heavily decorated one, with the actress scooping up five consecutive Emmy wins for playing the acidic vice president turned president turned political lightning rod. Mandel called the ending "bittersweet," a perfect summation of the upcoming finale. Though Veep began in the Barack Obama years, it's taken on a new sort of resonance during the Donald Trump era, an administration rife with the types of bombshell stories and humiliating gaffes that Veep staffers couldn't dream up even if they tried. It's become impossible to ignore the insane parallels between the silly political show and the real-world circus in the White House, which has made the series harder for some folks to enjoy this time around. Still, few could argue against the fact that Veep is one of the most consistently brilliant shows on television, a searing comedy anchored by Louis-Dreyfus, a perfect comedic star.

"I DON'T KNOW HIM"

V.F.'s Laura Bradley e-mails:

Bachelor Nation finally got the big reveal it's been waiting for Thursday morning: Arie Luyendyk Jr. will be the next Bachelor. Wait . . . who? For those who need a refresher, Arie is a Netherlands-born race-car driver who loves to travel; he was a runner-up on Emily Maynard's season back in 2012. The announcement comes after an apparent struggle to find the next leading man for the franchise—thanks in part to a lack of charismatic stand-out contestants over the last couple seasons. According to former Bachelor Sean Lowe, Luyendyk Jr. was actually supposed to be the Bachelor on Chris Soules's season, but new executives were nervous about the fact he'd been absent from the airwaves for two years already at the time. Apparently that's not an obstacle this time.

THE VIEW FROM THE TOP

V.F.'s Hillary Busis e-mails:

Our very own New Establishment Summit is always a hot ticket, but this year's lineup is especially starry: the slate of panelists includes a score of just-announced heavy hitters, including former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry, director Patty Jenkins, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, former U.S. deputy attorney general Sally Yates, Disney C.E.O. Bob Iger, filmmaker Ava DuVernay, Snap Inc. co-founder and C.E.O. Evan Spiegel, actress and director Anjelica Huston, and Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. The annual symposium is slated for October 2-4 in Los Angeles; click here for more information or to request an invitation to attend.

That's the news for this sunny Thursday in L.A. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, and your favorite Agnès Varda film to Rebecca_keegan@condenast.com. Follow me on Twitter @thatrebecca.