By Mesfin Fedakdu, Music Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Beyonce and Adele are the top nominees at the MTV Video Music Awards, where their music videos will compete against Kanye West’s controversial “Famous” for video of the year.
“Famous,” Beyonce’s “Formation” and Adele’s “Hello” will battle Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” and Drake’s “Hotline Bling” for the top prize when the VMAs air live Aug. 28 from New York’s Madison Square Garden. The nominations were announced Tuesday.
West’s infamous “Famous” features what appears to be naked images of the rapper and other celebrities, including Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump and Bill Cosby. The song is at the center of his current war with Swift: Kardashian recently leaked audio of Swift giving West her blessing after he told her the lyric, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.” But Swift later said she was upset because West did not play her the entire track or tell her the full lyric regarding her, which included the line, “Why? I made that bitch famous.”
Beyonce, though, is the overall VMA leader with 11 nominations – marking a career best for the pop diva, who released her Emmy-nominated “Lemonade” visual album this year. Adele is behind her with eight nominations.
The songstresses will compete for best female video along with Rihanna, Sia and Ariana Grande.
West is nominated for best male video against Drake, the Weeknd, Bryson Tiller and Calvin Harris, whose nomination is for “This is What You Came For,” which he co-wrote with former girlfriend Swift.
David Bowie, who died from cancer earlier this year, is nominated for best direction, cinematography, art direction and editing for “Lazarus” – a video that showed him frail and lying in bed, eyes bandaged. It was released several days before the icon’s Jan. 10 death.
Others who earned multiple nominations include Coldplay, Desiigner, Fergie and Alessia Cara.
Fans can start voting online Tuesday. Nominees for best song of summer will be announced at a later date.
Swift won last year’s video of the year with “Bad Blood,” which featured Kendrick Lamar and included cameos from Selena Gomez, Lena Dunham and others.
Nominations rundown
The nominees are:
— Video of the year: Adele, “Hello”; Beyonce, “Formation”; Drake, “Hotline Bling”; Justin Bieber, “Sorry”; Kanye West, “Famous.”
— Best female video: Adele, “Hello”; Beyoncé, “Hold Up”; Sia, “Cheap Thrills”; Ariana Grande, “Into You”; Rihanna featuring Drake, “Work.”
— Best male video: Drake, “Hotline Bling”; Bryson Tiller, “Don’t”; Calvin Harris featuring Rihanna, “This Is What You Came For”; Kanye West, “Famous”; The Weeknd, “Can’t Feel My Face.”
— Best new artist: Bryson Tiller; Desiigner; Zara Larsson; Lukas Graham; DNCE.
— Best pop video: Adele, “Hello”; Beyonce, “Formation”; Justin Bieber, “Sorry”; Alessia Cara, “Wild Things”; Ariana Grande, “Into You.”
— Best hip hop video: Drake, “Hotline Bling”; Desiigner, “Panda”; Bryson Tiller, “Don’t”; Chance the Rapper featuring Saba, “Angels”; 2 Chainz, “Watch Out.”
— Best rock video: All Time Low, “Missing You”; Coldplay, “Adventure of a Lifetime”; Fall Out Boy featuring Demi Lovato, “Irresistible”; twenty one pilots, “Heathens”; Panic! at the Disco, “Victorious.”
— Best electronic video: Calvin Harris & Disciples, “How Deep Is Your Love”; 99 Souls featuring Destiny’s Child and Brandy, “The Girl Is Mine”; Mike Posner, “I Took A Pill In Ibiza”; Afrojack, “SummerThing!”; The Chainsmokers featuring Daya, “Don’t Let Me Down.”
— Best collaboration: Beyonce featuring Kendrick Lamar, “Freedom”; Fifth Harmony featuring Ty Dolla $ign, “Work from Home”; Ariana Grande featuring Lil Wayne, “Let Me Love You”; Calvin Harris featuring Rihanna, “This Is What You Came For”; Rihanna featuring Drake, “Work.”
— Breakthrough long form video: Florence + the Machine, “The Odyssey”; Beyonce, “Lemonade”; Justin Bieber, “PURPOSE: The Movement”; Chris Brown, “Royalty”; Troye Sivan, “Blue Neighbourhood Trilogy.”
— Best art direction: Beyonce, “Hold Up”; Fergie, “M.I.L.F. $”; Drake, “Hotline Bling”; David Bowie, “Blackstar”; Adele, “Hello.”
— Best choreography: Beyonce, “Formation”; Missy Elliott featuring Pharrell, “WTF (Where They From)”; Beyonce, “Sorry”; FKA Twigs, “M3LL155X”; Florence + the Machine, “Delilah.”
— Best direction: Beyonce, “Formation”; Coldplay, “Up&Up”; Adele, “Hello”; David Bowie, “Lazarus”; Tame Impala, “The Less I Know the Better.”
— Best cinematography: Beyonce, “Formation”; Adele, “Hello”; David Bowie, “Lazarus”; Alesso, “I Wanna Know”; Ariana Grande, “Into You.”
— Best editing: Beyonce, “Formation”; Adele, “Hello”; Fergie, “M.I.L.F. $”; David Bowie, “Lazarus”; Ariana Grande, “Into You.”
— Best visual effects: Coldplay, “Up&Up”; FKA Twigs, “M3LL155X”; Adele, “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)”; The Weeknd, “Can’t Feel My Face”; Zayn, “PILLOWTALK.”
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More