W.G.A. UPDATE: VOTING IN THE VALLEY

Writers Guild of America West members began their strike-authorization vote Tuesday night, in a packed meeting at the Universal Sheraton. With guild members filling a 900-seat ballroom nearly to capacity, the meeting was “a joyous affair,” one W.G.A. member toldVariety’s Daniel Holloway.

One of the core issues dividing the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is the W.G.A.’s ailing health plan, which is running out of cash. The health plan is the issue I hear about most often from writers, who say the benefits help buffer their feast-or-famine lifestyles. Which is why I found this stat a real jaw-dropper: the guild health plan costs a writer with a family of five just $600 a year, a steal compared with the $5,277 the average worker pays, according toTheWall Street Journal’s Joe Flint and Erich Schwartzel. Depending whether you sit in the boss’s seat or the worker’s, a blue state or a red one, that disparity is either a total validation of unions or a sign of just how old-fashioned Hollywood’s union-driven workforce is.

I LOVE NEW YORK

The Tribeca Film Festival opens today and VF.com’s Yohana Desta and Laura Bradley will be pounding the pavement covering the slate chosen by fest co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal. Desta e-mails about the highlights:

A lineup of reunions, high-profile talks, and films of every stripe begins Wednesday night with the premiere of the Clive Davis documentary The Soundtrack of Our Lives at Radio City Music Hall, followed by performances from Aretha Franklin, Barry Manilow, and Jennifer Hudson. The Circle, James Ponsoldt’s adaptation of the Dave Eggers novel, starring Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, and John Boyega, will be making its world premiere. Other titles worth checking out include Buster’s Mal Heart, a palpitating indie starring Rami Malek, and Rock’n Roll, a celebrity satire directed by and starring Guillaume Canet and co-starring his wife, Marion Cotillard. On the documentary front, biographical stories I Am Heath Ledger and The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson intrigue, as does Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, co-executive produced by Susan Sarandon (peep VF.com tomorrow for an exclusive clip and my interview with director Alexandra Dean, who tells a heartbreaking story about the late Robert Osborne’s involvement in the film). The mother (er, father?) of all anniversaries will arrive at the end of the fest—a back-to-back screening of The Godfather I and II (The Godfather III’s invite got lost in the mail), followed by a chat with the cast and director Francis Ford Coppola. Now there’s an offer we can’t refuse.

Courtesy of STX Entertainment

CLASSIC SHADE

V.F.com’s Joanna Robinson e-mails:

As VF.com has learned from scrupulously fact-checking every episode of Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood brawler, Feud, occasionally the FX series will take some historical liberties. But who’s to contradict? Most real-life players in this 60s-set drama are no longer alive—with one exception. The Hollywood Reporter reached out to 100-year-old Olivia de Havilland (played in Feud by Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her regal, chilly response would have made her old friend Bette Davis proud. She e-mailed (yes, e-mailed):

Having not seen the show, I cannot make a valid comment about it.
However, in principle, I am opposed to any representation of
personages who are no longer alive to judge the accuracy of any
incident depicted as involving themselves.

De Havilland further dashed any hopes for an insider scoop by saying she doesn’t even recall the events of the infamous 1963 Oscars. When it comes to the second season of Feud—based on the tumultuous marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana—Murphy will have to contend with a few more living subjects who might contradict his version of history. Though one expects the royals, like de Havilland, won’t be deigning to comment.

FARGO: STILL SNOWING

Am I planning to watch the premiere of Fargo’s Season 3 tonight? You’re darn tootin’! Newcomers to the FX crime anthology Ewan McGregor and Carrie Coon are a lure. But critics who have seen the first two episodes warn that, like a snowstorm in April, this show feels less exciting than it once did. VF.com’s Richard Lawsonworries, “I just hope that the series can find a way to stay fresh without leaning too heavily on overdone eccentricity,” while The New York Times’s James Poniewozikwrites, “Minnesota in Fargo, if not in life, is the land of 10,000 quirks. As the third season commences on Wednesday, it’s fair to ask whether this FX anthology of homespun murder has used up all of them.”

THE CAPTAIN’S CAPTAINS

Captain Marvel has its director—make that directors, plural. Variety’s Justin Krollbreaks the news that Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the duo best known for their 2006 indie Half Nelson and more recently Mississippi Grind, will helm the Brie Larsonstarrer.

POOLING RESOURCES

Onetime cabana king, former Beverly Hills Hotel pool manager Svend Petersen, has fallen on hard times. On VF.com, Lisa Birnbachcovers the viral campaign underway to help the Hollywood fixture, who found himself living out of a car at age 86.

That’s the news for this sunny Wednesday in L.A. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, and cannolis to rebecca_keegan@condenast.com. Follow me on Twitter @thatrebecca.