After legendary “Star Trek” actress and NASA collaborator Nichelle Nichols died in July 2022 at age 89, memorial spaceflight organization Celestis contacted Nichols’ son Kyle Johnson about her remains being put into orbit. Named after the fictional U.S.S. Enterprise in the original “Star Trek” series that premiered in 1966, Celestis’ “Enterprise” mission involves a rocket named “Vulcan” that will transport Nichols, along with other “Star Trek” co-stars’ ashes, into space, as reported by Universe Today....

KATE ERBLAND: This past weekend saw the much-anticipated release of two distinctly different pieces of entertainment: the theatrical and streaming release of Sian Heder’s Sundance smash hit (it swept the awards in January and sold to AppleTV+ for a record-breaking $25 million) “CODA” and the final episode of the first season of Mike White’s devilishly entertaining HBO series “The White Lotus.” In the particular corner of the film world IndieWire happily occupies, there was no bigger movie last weekend than “CODA,” a feel-good family film with a festival pedigree, awards aspirations, and a winning message about love and inclusion....

Amidst the blend of interviews and archival footage, each episode takes a few well-timed journeys into a dreamlike abstract void. Dubbed in onscreen text as “Elements of a Supervillain,” each of these interstitials takes a part of the Tekashi lore and brings it to an artistic operating table of sorts. With a synthetic Tekashi figure in the center of the frame, disembodied white-gloved hands manipulate and style him as part of a hypnotic, sometimes nightmareish makeover....

“Believe it or not, I’ve written a play version of [‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’],” Tarantino said. “I wanted to write a play, and stuff that’s not in the book…I wanted it to exist as a play. And again, I’m able to explore stuff that’s not in the [movie]. The play deals with Italy.” Tarantino wrote the stage play adaptation in the “six or seven months” after he wrote the first draft of the movie....

That’s why the lucky (masked when indoors) attendees at TFF 2021 reveled in hugging old friends and rubbing shoulders at parties and packed cinemas — the festival played to 75 percent capacity, per co-director Julie Huntsinger — as well as listening to Q&A’s and debating the merits of the flicks they’d seen. At the end of five days (one longer than usual, after last year’s cancellation), festival audiences (and media) did anoint a slate of movies that will move on with buzz to other noise-amplifiers like Toronto, New York, and London....

Here are the ways the White brothers delivered an entertaining, authentic, and uplifting movie that Warner Bros. is pushing for the Best Picture Oscar. 1. A relatable narrative, tied to recognizable names. Tim grew up in Annapolis, Maryland playing competitive tennis, from the junior nationals to the minor leagues. He knew the Richard Williams story, and when he was a teenager, saw him in the stadiums rooting for his kids....

Other Netflix Originals of note include Amy Poehler’s feminist teen comedy “Moxie” and the Notorious B.I.G. documentary “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell,” while animation fans should keep an eye out for the gorgeous “Bombay Rose.” Older standouts — and it hurts to think of them as such — are limited to “Training Day” and the under-appreciated Clive Owen vehicle “Croupier.” Here are the seven best movies coming to Netflix this March....

[Editor’s note: This list has been updated with new additions on May 4, 2022. It was last updated on March 6, 2020.] “One more time: Animation is a medium, not a genre — Animation is film,” Guillermo del Toro said earlier this year. IndieWire couldn’t agree more, and yet animation, an art form that requires the most precise control of the cinematic medium, is continually disrespected. Following a presentation at the Oscars this year that, in the words of animation wizards Phil Lord and Chris Miller, framed “the five Academy Award nominees for Best Animated Feature as a corporate product for kids that parents must begrudgingly endure,” the directing duo called upon the Academy to do better by animation....

Googly eyes. High-flying fighter jets. Terrifying aliens. Genies in bottles (and beyond). Lovable robots and wild red pandas. Medieval tweens. Meat (both human and otherwise, and so very much of it). Romance (forbidden, unexpected, edifying, and nurturing). Dancing. Incredibly bad vacations. Farts. Freedom (and, of course, restriction, and so very much of it). The first nine months (and change) of 2022 have already gifted film fans with a wide array of incredible cinematic offerings, and there’s still plenty of titles yet to arrive on a screen near you....

HBO’s official synopsis for “The Gilded Age” reads: “The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of great conflict between the old ways and brand new systems, and of huge fortunes made and lost. Against the backdrop of this transformation, the series begins in 1882 with young Marian Brook (Jacobson) moving from rural Pennsylvania to New York City after the death of her father to live with her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn (Baranski) and Ada Brook (Nixon)....

“The Underground Railroad” takes a bold approach to telling a story of slavery, as Whitehead’s novel was set in an alternate history where the 19th-century Underground Railroad was a literal railroad that American slaves used to flee the South and find freedom. The series chronicles Cora Randall’s (Thuso Mbedu) desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After she escapes a Georgia Plantation, she finds the fabled Railroad is a real one full of engineers and conductors, whose secret network of tracks and tunnels runs beneath the soil of the South....

The Atlanta Police Department confirmed to IndieWire that Byrd was shot Saturday at a home in Atlanta. He was pronounced dead on the scene. The investigation is ongoing. Collaboration between Lee and Byrd dates back to Lee’s 1995 crime drama “Clockers.” Lee shared on Instagram two clips from the film featuring Byrd, including one he said was one of his favorite scenes in the movie. The actor most recently worked with Lee in the 2015 gun-violence musical satire “Chi-Raq....

It seems like Halloween was made for Tim Burton. His distinctive style of stop-motion animation and gothic fantasy films brought us creepy classics such as “Edward Scissorhands,” “Beetlejuice,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Sleepy Hollow,” “Caroline,” and “Corpse Bride.” After nearly four decades as a filmmaker, Burton will make his TV directorial debut with the Netflix series “Wednesday,” due out next year. In the meantime, celebrating spooky season just doesn’t feel right without something inspired by Burton’s genius....

Speaking at the Lumière Festival in Lyon after receiving the Prix Lumière, Burton revealed that the 2019 film likely marked the end of his long-running creative relationship with Disney (via Deadline). He began his film career as an animator at Disney before Warner Bros. hired him to make his live-action directorial debut on “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.” He returned to work with Disney on films like “Ed Wood,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Frankenweenie,” and most recently, “Dumbo....

“We are the gold standard,” Cruise is heard saying. “They’re back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us. Because they believe in us and what we’re doing. I’m on the phone with every fucking studio at night, insurance companies, producers and they’re looking at us and using us to make their movies. We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherfuckers. I don’t ever want to see it again....

Well, apparently he’s been having too much fun doing these stunts, as he revealed on a recent episode of “The Graham Norton Show” (via Uproxx). Cruise said he’s been told to stop smiling so much on movies like the “Mission: Impossible” series on more than one occasion. But even a few bones won’t stop him from having a good time. “I am a very physical actor and I love doing them....

These final days have seen a flurry of awards ceremonies, with the Art Directors Guild Awards, Directors Guild Awards, Costume Designers Guild Awards, and Casting Society’s Artios Awards all being dispensed in the past week, with the Annie Awards, ACE Eddie Awards, and American Society of Cinematographers Awards — as well as the aforementioned Independent Spirit Awards — yet to come. Here’s what the TV awards landscape looks like currently and what to expect next week as the season draws to a close....

CBS announced shortly after canning a slew of shows that a reboot of the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis film “True Lies” will head to the network soon. NBCUniversal also recently announced on May 12 a “re-framing” of Ben Stiller’s beloved 1994 burnout dramedy “Reality Bites,” which originally starred Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke. The series is set to debut on Peacock, along with a bevy of other Universal titles being transformed for the small screen....

Lana Wachowski came out as a trans woman in 2012, and her sister Lilly did the same in 2016. Since then, they have been outspoken advocates for LGBT rights in Hollywood and beyond, particularly focusing on the unique problems faced by trans people. Now, the filmmakers are opening up their personal collections to help raise money for the cause. On Saturday, Lilly Wachowski tweeted “hi youse! So me and Lana have been doing some spring cleaning at our Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse and have happily decided to pass on some of the best treasures we’ve been collecting over the years!...

While plaintiff Kristina Charlotte Hirsch did not name Beatty in the suit, the defendant is identified as being nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Clyde in “Bonnie and Clyde,” which Beatty was in 1968. Beatty is now 85 years old. Louisiana resident Hirsch alleges that Beatty met her on a film set, paying her “undue attention” while remarking on her looks and allegedly giving her his phone number....