If a year of quarantining and online impulse shopping has left you with an improved home theater setup, you’re not alone. Between TVs, streaming devices, gaming consoles, Blu-Ray players, and speakers, our homes are more high tech than ever before. And that’s just on the entertainment side. Everything from lighting to thermostats is becoming automated, making it nearly impossible to do almost anything without some kind of gadget, and keeping track of all the remotes can be challenging....

Results usually range from good to strong, enhancing their awards profiles. This year, “The Fabelmans” (Universal) jumped from four theaters to 638 and grossed $2.2 million for three days ($3.1 million for the five days), for a per-theater average just below $3,500. Only Laura Poitras’ acclaimed documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” (Neon) stood out among limited debuts. It’s been mostly downhill for specialized films since the early October green shoots of “TÁR” (Focus), “Till” (United Artists), and “Triangle of Sadness” (Neon)....

In “The Matrix Resurrections,” Neo (Keanu Reeves) believes himself to be a video game designer responsible for a popular trilogy series called Matrix. Then he hears this very inside baseball statement from his boss, Jonathan Groff’s Smith: “Things have changed, the market’s tough. I’m sure you can understand why our beloved parent company Warner Bros. has decided to make a sequel to the trilogy. They informed me they’re going to do it with or without us....

And yet, the documentary’s ample suspense is never so overwhelming that it obscures this story’s poignant sentiment, nor is the selfless heroism on display so overwrought that it washes away the bittersweet aftertaste “The Rescue” leaves behind. Yes, Vasarhelyi and Chin have cobbled together a true life men-on-a-mission movie intense enough that even Michael Bay and Peter Berg should be able to recognize that no mega-budget dramatization could match up to it....

Shearer’s exit comes about eight months after a June 2020 announcement in solidarity with the George Floyd protests that “The Simpsons” would no longer voice Black characters with white actors. “Moving forward, ‘The Simpsons’ will no longer have white actors voice nonwhite characters,” the network said in a brief statement at the time. Dr. Hibbert is not the most notorious case of cross-racial voice casting on “The Simpsons.” That distinction goes to Apu, the Kwik-E-Mart owner originated and voiced for many years by Hank Azaria....

Joanna Hogg’s miraculous 2019 cine-memoir “The Souvenir” ends with its posh, navel-gazing, and newly grief-stricken heroine — a 25-year-old film student in 1980s London — standing on the precipice of herself. Her name is Julie Harte, she’s played by Honor Swinton Byrne with the raw honesty of someone feeling her way through a solar eclipse, and she’s following in Hogg’s uncertain footsteps with the shaky confidence of someone who’s seen “I Know Where I’m Going!...

It certainly doesn’t mean that “This Way Up” isn’t patient. As Season 2 arrives on Hulu (it’s also airing on Channel 4 in the UK), creator/writer/star Aisling Bea has found a way to build these new episodes around Aine’s personality with even more focus and understanding. If the show’s first season found Aine casting around with a sometimes-forced smile, trying to find some stability in her life, Season 2 sees her more at ease, even if a few of those lingering questions still hover....

“I’m thrilled to take on the role of this modern folk antihero,” said Mitchell in a statement. “Joe and I are the same age and like him, I grew up queer in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas so I feel like I know a little bit about this guy and his desperate attempt to conquer an inhospitable world.” Variety first reported the news. “It’s clear that an over-the-top character like Joe needed someone very special,” said Steven O’Neill, who is the executive vice president of casting and talent development for UCP, the producer on the series....

Just two months after erstwhile CEO Tina Tchen resigned, interim president and CEO Monifa Bandele will step down, as a small transition team and board will oversee the process. According to a press release, “the structure, strategy, and staff of the group will be rebuilt from the ground up.” In other words, most of the group’s staff (including some two dozen workers) have been laid off. “This is a needed reset, not a retreat,” said board chair Gabrielle Sulzberger in a statement to media....

CNN, along with NBC News and other networks, called the election for Biden on Saturday morning based on Biden winning Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes. Jones spoke moments after the network made the call. Jones reflected on the racism and bigotry that has defined the last four years of Trump’s presidency. “This is vindication for a lot of people who have really suffered. ‘I can’t breathe’ — that wasn’t just George Floyd....

They’ll be there for you — but not on Netflix anymore. The much-publicized move of “Friends” to its new streaming home of HBO Max is finally here — and it’s incredibly easy to sign up to watch the sitcom there. HBO Max subscription starts at $14.99 a month, but you can save more than 20 percent if you pay for six months in advance at a rate of $69.99 (compared to $89....

Disney+ has a new major release for families just as 2020 is wrapping up: “Soul,” the first Black-led Pixar film, was supposed to hit theaters in June 2020 but instead is out December 25 on Disney+ — no premium access required. While “Mulan” required an additional $30 purchase for “Disney+ Premier Access,” which gave users who bought the film unlimited access to the live-action remake for as long as they subscribe to the service, “Soul” is being released on the regular tier that all users pay for, like other 2020 films including “Godmothered,” “Black Beauty,” the Taylor Swift documentary “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions,” “The Mandalorian,” and the upcoming Marvel shows (which begin with “WandaVision,” out January 15, 2021)....

Behind these character introductions is a synthy, self-aware theme tune that wouldn’t be out of place in a “news of the weird” local cable access roundup, or even a basic cable reality show about cryptids disguised as an investigative documentary. Fake news clippings flash across the screen, one of them with a headline including the word “Vampirey.” It’s unrepentantly goofy, with just enough of that mockumentary veneer to keep the show nominally hemmed in to a recognizable format....

According to Dezeen’s report, the Sequel Seat’s goal is to encourage moviegoers to return to movie theaters by “integrating a series of hygiene features into its fabric and structure.” The fabric on the seat is “knitted from antibacterial copper threads” and “integrates fibers impregnated with copper oxide, granting it antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-fungal properties.” “It is currently predicted that the global box office could lose $10 billion due to the pandemic,” Layer said in a statement to Dezeen....

But the show must go on, and at Monday morning’s Oscar nominations announcement, which represented mostly indies and streamer fare, Rubin confirmed two Los Angeles locations for the upcoming April ceremony, the usual Dolby Theatre at Hollywood and Highland, and downtown’s historic Union Station. (New York locations were scouted, but no bookings have been confirmed.) This suggests that the three Oscar producers, Steven Soderbergh, Stacey Sher, and Jesse Collins, were paying attention to the Inauguration this past January, which took advantage of dramatic exterior locations....

“It’s fun. I probably don’t want to make it too much of a habit, but I enjoy it, I really do,” he said during a recent interview with IndieWire. “I get something out of it. I like the idea of exploring it more, and I think there is a bit of overcoming a fear with it sometimes.” In February, Dornan delighted viewers of the uproarious “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” with his comedic acumen — he more than holds his own against co-stars and writers Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo — and that’s even before he busts into a searching love ballad directed at, well, seagulls....

“That was a horrific night, as you can imagine. There’s many nuances and complexities to it. But at the end of the day, I just, I lost it, you know? I guess what I would say, you just never know what somebody’s going through,” Smith said. “I was going through something that night, you know? Not that that justifies my behavior at all, I would just say, you’re asking what I learned....

All eyes were on Chris Rock on Sunday night when Will Smith charged the stage at the 94th Academy Awards and slapped the comedian in the face after he told a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. Rock responded with the instantly iconic line “Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me,” before Smith yelled at him to “keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth.” While the moment was shocking, the timing may have been perfect for Rock....

But the highest showing for a new release is #2 at Apple TV for Woody Allen’s “A Rainy Day in New York” (MPI). Its VOD showing comes three weeks after a token theatrical run, more than a year after it opened in most of the world, and after his latest, “Rifkin’s Festival,” premiered overseas. Right now is something of an intermission period before a slew of studio releases, including several from Universal and Focus that recently opened in theaters, break ground with short interval window between play on screens and in homes....

Instead, Bullet is embodied by the great Holt McCallany, a mountain of a man who more closely resembles an H-bomb than anything small enough to be fired out of a gun. Statham is therefore cast as H (“like the bomb, or like Jesus”), a mysterious sociopath who’s partnered with the sweet-natured Bullet when he lands a job driving armored trucks for a hyper-militarized Los Angeles-based outfit called Fortico Securities....