All of this took place against the White House’s announcement that President Trump and the First Lady now have COVID. The Commander In Chief is (in)famous for downplaying the virus and that one day it will just disappear. Theaters might wish such magical thinking were the case; at this point, however, they may need to start casting spells of their own. The newest homebound titles are budgeted at perhaps $50 million or lower....

“Mank” is Fincher’s highly anticipated return to feature filmmaking after 2014’s “Gone Girl.” “Darkest Hour” Oscar winner Gary Oldman stars as Hollywood screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. The script, written by Fincher’s late father Jack Fincher, follows Mankiewicz as he races to finish the script for Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane.” The supporting cast includes Tom Burke as Orson Welles, Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer, Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies, Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst, Tom Pelphrey as Joseph L....

In the years that followed, however, it gradually became clear that Tribeca had a more expansive vision for the role that video games can play in the arts. Subsequent events became starrier and more frequent, and while many of them continued to showcase photorealistic AAA titles like “God of War” and Kojima Hideo’s “Death Stranding,” others highlighted indie titles and focused on the unique elements of interactive storytelling. For every panel about how “Sleeping Beauty” influenced “The Banner Saga,” there was another about the design of “Firewatch” or the virtual spaces of “The Stanley Parable....

Wedding-day antics can go wrong in any number of ways. The last episode of “Trying” Season 2 is an ending filled with surprise boyfriends, unexpected proposals, emergency news, and a first dance set to bebop jazz. Any of those things in isolation could send a TV comedy careening from light-hearted fun into disaster. But this Apple TV+ show has proven repeatedly that it can handle all the absurdity in the lives of Nikki (Esther Smith) and Jason (Rafe Spall) while still making their journey together feel real....

Highlights of the auction include Marilyn Monroe’s dress from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” Audrey Hepburn’s Givenchy costume from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” an original Stormtrooper helmet from “Star Wars: A New Hope,” a wallet used by Samuel L. Jackson in “Pulp Fiction,” and a selection of jewelry from Elizabeth Taylor’s personal collection. There are also plenty of artifacts for moviegoers who prefer contemporary films. The Marvel Cinematic Universe will be well represented at the auction, with items including Chris Evans’ shield from Captain America: The First Avenger” and Chris Hemsworth’s hammer from “Thor: The Dark World,” plus a large collection of “Harry Potter” movie memorabilia....

Coming to the Venice Film Festival is dizzying any year. There you are, in a magical fairy-tale city of historic canals, piazzas and palazzos — and you get to watch new movies with Ryan Gosling in them, too! But this year, the people with festival lanyards hanging beneath their face masks are giddier than ever. Right up to the last minute, we couldn’t believe it would go ahead. Cannes and so many other festivals had promised to tough out the situation, before accepting that they had to be more responsible than the organizers of a Trump rally and canceling....

But while PTA’s highbrow fashion drama in which she starred opposite Daniel Day-Lewis turned Krieps into an actress everybody wanted to work with, she admitted in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter that it took some time to adjust to newfound fame — and inevitably, led her to turn down projects. “After ‘Phantom Thread,’ I really wasn’t interested in Hollywood, because it just felt like everything was the same and nothing was as good as Paul,” said Krieps, for whom the rigorous pace of the awards season stood in contrast to the usual pace of her life....

Though these films added freshness, the overall results on iTunes and Google Play (both ranking by number of transactions irrespective of price), and Vudu (which calculates by total revenue, favoring the more expensive Premium VOD releases) include only 13 titles. That’s the fewest seen since we started listing the results. This suggests that consumers might be narrowing their choice of what to watch, or maybe it’s just a result of a high number of popular titles that have broad appeal at the moment....

That’s certainly true for the first episode, a sweeping overview of cheese rolling, an annual tradition that has enchanted an entire village in southwest England. It puts forth the twin stories of young women competing in the yearly downhill cheese chase that’s snapped and dislocated its share of bones. From its tidy parallel storylines to an early drone shot that emphasizes the sheer drop awaiting any would-be daredevils, it’s an episode with plenty of heart to go along with its sleek presentation....

Earlier, June 30: It’s looking to be a big year for filmmaker Wes Anderson, whose “The French Dispatch” is finally set to open in theaters October 22 from Searchlight Pictures after a July world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Now comes confirmation from Variety that Anderson will begin filming his untitled next movie before “French Dispatch” opens. Anderson’s 11th feature film begins shooting in Spain this September with Tilda Swinton starring....

Natasha Lyonne’s Nadia Vulvokov has broken her seemingly endless time loop, and Netflix’s “Russian Doll” Season 2 will no longer rely on the “Groundhog Day”-esque device. That’s not to say there is no continuous storytelling device throughout the sophomore season. This time around, Vulvokov and Alan Zaveri (Charlie Barnett) are time-traveling via the New York City Subway system, which you can pretty much get from the trailer. If that wasn’t bananas enough (and it’s probably not since we all got down with the time loop centered from Season 1), Nadia and Alan are body-swapping with their ancestors....

As expected, Searchlight’s American road movie “Nomadland” swept the awards on the way to more major Oscar wins Sunday, winning four including Best Feature, Director, Cinematography, and Editing. Zhao dedicated her Spirit award to the independent film community. “We wouldn’t be here without you,” she said. “we are part of a big family.” “Nomadland” star Frances McDormand lost Best Lead Female to an ebullient Carey Mulligan for “Promising Young Woman,” one of two wins, including Best Screenplay for Emerald Fennell, who is expected to win Original Screenplay at the Oscars....

The short answer is most — but not all — content. “The vast majority of what people watch on Netflix we can include in the ad-supported tier — today,” the company’s Co-CEO and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said on Tuesday’s Q2 earnings conference call. “We will clear some additional content — but certainly not all of it.” Sarandos was responding to what is understood as one of Netflix’s biggest hurdles to launching commercials: Actually getting permission....

Last week, tragedy struck “What We Do in the Shadows,” but hope springs — or crawls — eternal. After the ghastly death of Colin Robinson in Season 3’s penultimate episode, the finale reveals that the bespectacled energy vampire lives on, in the haunting new form of a toddler — though whether or not “Baby Colin” is the same creature he once was remains to be seen. “A big part of the season we’re shooting now, Season 4, is about, ‘Is he going to inevitably grow up to be an energy vampire?...

This exclusionary phenomenon wasn’t subtle, or the kind of thing that kids would only realize with a blush of embarrassment 20 years later. On the contrary, it was Abercrombie’s brand, and it was powerful enough to make a soft-bodied Jewish theater dweeb like me buy some wildly overpriced rugby shirts in the deluded hopes that they might be a convincing disguise. My resentment for Abercrombie was gradually offset by the sheer ridiculousness of the company’s schtick — no store at the mall should ever smell that strong — but I still remember the embarrassment of shopping at a place that made me want to be less like myself....

“I would have had to promote the movie from an honest place, which would’ve been, like, ‘Oh no, it’s not good. I just couldn’t turn down that much money,’” Ferrell said. “And I thought, ‘Can I actually say those words? I don’t think I can, so I guess I can’t do the movie.’” Ferrell’s “Elf” co-star James Caan has implied other reasons for an “Elf” sequel failing to get off the ground....

During the 94th Academy Awards on March 27, presenter Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith being in “G.I. Jane 2” because of her short hair. Pinkett Smith has previously been vocal about having a hair-loss condition. Her husband Will Smith’s response to Rock’s joke while presenting the Best Documentary Oscar to “Summer of Soul” proved to be unscripted. The telecast cut out the audio feed in the U....

Upon the announcement of this year’s nominees, it was revealed that HBO’s “Succession” had swept the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series category, garnering mentions for five distinct episodes and directors, including Kevin Bray (“Retired Janitors of Idaho”), Mark Mylod (“All the Bells Say”), Andrij Parekh (“What It Takes”), Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman (“Lion in the Meadow”), and Lorene Scafaria (“Too Much Birthday”). This wasn’t the first time the category has seen such dominance....

It’s no coincidence that the music in the trailer sounds a lot like Carl Orff’s “Gassenhauer,” the theme for Terrence Malick’s debut “Badlands.” Like that film, “Yellow Cat” follows lovers on the lam, running from a criminal background but still entangled in all sorts of misadventures. The story centers on ex-con Kermek (Azamat Nigmanov) and his beloved Eva (Kamila Nugmanova), who want to give up their crime-ridden lives in the steppes of Kazakhstan....

The viral hit series centers on Rue (Zendaya), a drug addict whose stash is discovered by her family in the February 6 episode, “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird,” culminating in an intervention after Rue almost overdoses multiple times. A representative for anti-drug campaign D.A.R.E. previously told TMZ that Season 2 of “Euphoria” has “misguidedly and erroneously” depicted high schoolers using drugs, leading to “addiction, anonymous sex, violence, and other destructive behaviors as common and widespread in today’s world....