In “PVT Chat,” Jack (Vack) is a lonely internet gambler who becomes fixated on Scarlet (Fox). He discovers her unrealized talent as a painter and begins to fall hard, but his obsession reaches a boiling point when fantasy materializes in reality and Jack sees Scarlet on a rainy street in NYC Chinatown. While Scarlet is clearly hiding her whole truth, milking Jack’s wallet in the process, she also seems to develop genuine feelings for him....

Per HBO, “The Righteous Gemstones” tells the story of a world-famous televangelist family with a long tradition of deviance, greed and charitable work. Season 2 follows the Gemstone family as they are threatened by outsiders from both the past and present who wish to destroy their empire. The Season 2 teaser promises more of the outlandish celebrations and business schemes (GODD, also known as Gemstones on Demand — you can watch it just about anywhere!...

“Honestly, I can’t stand watching ‘The Witch’ now,” Eggers told The Guardian. Eggers made his feature debut with the folk-horror period piece, launching at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015 — where it was acquired by A24 — and introducing Anya Taylor-Joy to the world. It also became one of A24’s most successful films, grossing more than $40 million worldwide off a $4 million budget. “It’s not that it’s bad, and the performances are great, but I was not skilled enough as a filmmaker to get what was in my brain onto the screen,” he said....

Apple TV, usually the quickest to detect trends and spot immediate response, currently has Adam McKay’s 2015 “The Big Short” at #3 and Martin Scorsese’s 2013 “The Wolf of Wall Street” at #4. That places them ahead of all but two current releases (“Tenet” and “Greenland”) as the most-ordered titles. This rapid response parallels what happened last February when Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 “Contagion” flew high with its story that paralleled the then-emergent COVID-19 pandemic....

“There was a four-hour cut that I actually loved,” Deakins said. “I read somewhere that it was shown at the Venice Film Festival in its four-hour version, but it doesn’t exist now, and that’s a shame. The studio’s problem was they thought there’d be more train robberies, and Brad Pitt would be more of a traditional Western outlaw. And when Brad was killed and the film progressed in this way that followed Robert Ford…and the way he wasn’t celebrated like he expected to be later in life… of course nobody wanted that....

“There was an opening sequence on the coast that was removed. It was a fantastic scene,” Walker said. “It was with a heavy heart that you remove something like that, but it changed the perspective of viewpoint in the film.” “It changed Benicio’s introduction and the perspective of the film,” Deakins added. “You feel [in the theatrical cut it’s] more about Emily and this ghostly character shows up at the airport....

Before sharing my thoughts on the passing of the great Chadwick Boseman, I first offer my condolences to his family who meant so very much to him. To his wife, Simone, especially. I inherited Marvel and the Russo Brothers’ casting choice of T’Challa. It is something that I will forever be grateful for. The first time I saw Chad’s performance as T’Challa, it was in an unfinished cut of “Captain America: Civil War....

“It’s the most cruel and unfair and horrible portrayal of almost all of them,” Junor told The Times while claiming showrunner and writer Morgan has “invented stuff to make expensive and very rich drama.” The biographer added that Mountbatten’s dismissal of Camilla to Charles’ face is “just not historically accurate” and would be tough for the real Prince Charles to swallow as “he adored Mountbatten and he was absolutely devastated by his death....

“Bear in mind, I spent five hours in makeup that morning with the prosthetic team changing my face into Trump’s face,” Baron Cohen said. “This fat suit is huge. It’s a 56-inch fat suit to turn my waist into Trump’s because we had estimated that was the most realistic.” Baron Cohen continued, “Then I ended up hiding in the bathroom, listening to conservative men go to the toilet for five hours until I broke into the room....

“She Said,” the “origin story” film charting Twohey and Kantor’s reporting at The New York Times from 2016 to 2017, stars Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as the two respective journalists. Maria Schrader directs the film, in theaters November 18. “It was a daunting prospect to play someone real, and then to play such real heroes of our society, I was terrified the whole time,” Mulligan said following the film’s world premiere at the New York Film Festival....

On the same day that comments from Quentin Tarantino decrying the “Marvel-ization” of Hollywood went viral, Simu Liu followed up on Twitter to take filmmakers like the “Pulp Fiction” director and Martin Scorsese to task for their takedowns of the MCU. “If the only gatekeepers to movie stardom came from Tarantino and Scorsese, I would never have had the opportunity to lead a $400 million plus movie,” wrote Liu, whose 2021 “Shang-Chi” broke ground as the first Marvel movie with an Asian lead and grossed more than $432 million at the pandemic box office....

A lot of the show is as much a product of downtime as the biggest news stories of any given day. “It’s a news station,” executive producer Randy Barbato said. “You would expect a series about it [to] be driven by date and time. But I think the more we shot, and the more we were into it, we weren’t going to try and shoehorn it into some format that said, ‘Here’s the lead story tonight’ or even a traditional reality show format, with a hardcore, A-line storyline....

“It was very interesting going back after 17 years to play the same role, given that in the intervening years, I now have two chins, a wattle, crow’s feet and a slightly dodgy lower back,” Molina said, explaining why he asked director Jon Watts how he could possibly return as Doc Ock now that the actor is 67. “He just looked at me, and said, ‘Did you see what we did to Bob Downey Jr....

Almost all the credit goes to “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which had a 41 percent drop — significantly less than anticipated. It took in an additional $33 million ($6 million above pre-weekend estimate of $27 million) for a $669 million domestic total ($1.53 billion worldwide). For theaters, the MCU smash remains the difference between holding on and complete collapse. January is usually a perfectly fine month for theaters thanks to the carryover of multiple strong December films, expansion of awards contenders, and its own share of strong new releases....

In the five-part documentary series “City So Real,” Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Steve James delivers a complex portrait of Chicago, America’s third-largest metropolis and his longtime hometown. The series begins in the middle of summer 2018, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel, caught up in accusations of a cover-up related to the police shooting of a Black teenager, Laquan McDonald, stuns the city by announcing he won’t be seeking reelection. Following the announcement, an unprecedented 21 candidates crowd the field, engaging in a no-holds-barred battle to shape Chicago’s future....

Acquisitions during Sundance and immediately before the festival: 29 Earlier acquisitions: 16 Title: “Utama” Section: World Cinema Dramatic Competition Buyer: Kino Lorber Bolivian writer-director Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s film, whose title translates to “our home,” centers around performances from non-professional actors and tells a story of an elderly indigenous couple whose longstanding way of life is threatened by a drought. Kino Lorber announced it acquired U.S. rights to the Grand Jury Prize winner in April, and plans to release it in theaters later this year....

The movie may be divisive for its morally ambiguous take on a public figure and self-styled genius who unravels amid #MeToo-worthy allegations — when she’s not seemingly grooming an ingenue, she’s stomping over them, such as Noémie Merlant’s up-and-coming violinist-turned-assistant Francesca. But the movie now has one especially coveted imprimatur: that of Yo-Yo Ma, Grammy-winning cellist. Yo-Yo Ma exclusively told IndieWire, “Todd has created such a striking film. Cate Blanchett’s Lydia Tár demands that we wrestle with two of art’s most difficult questions: what gives art its power and what role does power play in art?...

The “You Belong With Me” singer asked “Twilight: New Moon” director Chris Weitz to appear in the 2009 film as an extra. Weitz, however, turned her down, saying that Swift’s superstar presence would be distracting in the franchise installment starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. “The craziest one of all those was to hear that Taylor Swift was a huge Twi-hard, and actually Taylor Swift and I had the same agent at the time and he said, ‘Taylor would like to be in this movie — not because of you, but she’s a Twi-hard,’” Weitz revealed during “The Twilight Effect with Ashley Greene and Melanie Howe” podcast....

“12 Monkeys” stars Bruce Willis as James Cole, a prisoner selected to take part in a time travel experiment in which he travels back and forth through history in an attempt to find a cure to a virus that wiped out mankind. Madeleine Stowe and Brad Pitt also star in “12 Monkeys,” but it was the casting of James Cole that proved most important for Gilliam. “The pressure was to get a movie star in,” Gilliam said....

It’s not always easy to achieve that immersive gaming experience, and it can get frustrating if you’ve been spending lots of time at home but can’t find the right items to make your gaming area pop. Crafting the best gaming experience can be as simple (and complicated) as narrowing down the perfect pair of headphones. If you’re a marathon gamer, investing in the right gaming headset makes all the difference, but the price tag doesn’t necessarily mean the sound quality will be up to your standards....