However, don’t be surprised if Wegner (winner of the Critics Choice Award) pulls off an upset over her fellow Australian and becomes the first woman to win the Oscar for cinematography. Her director, “Power of the Dog’s” Jane Campion, is expected to win the Oscar for Best Director. Previously, Rachel Morrison (“Mudbound”) was the only woman cinematographer ever nominated for both the ASC and Oscars. Updated February 9: The frontrunning “Dune” (Warner Bros....

The Academy music branch also tends to fall for global pop stars who might turn up to perform at the Oscar kudocast. Inevitably, music stars scored nominations. Vying for his first is Northern Ireland’s Van Morrison, who supplied an entire soundtrack of hits for Kenneth Branagh’s ’60s film memoir “Belfast” (Focus Features), but wrote the original “Down to Joy” to open the movie. Also looking for her first nod, amazingly, is Academy member Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, who delivered “Be Alive” with DIXSON for “King Richard” (Warner Bros....

Though whether she will from the tennis court in Compton where Venus and Serena Williams are believed to have trained in the early ’90s, as seen in the film “King Richard,” wasn’t confirmed by the Academy Tuesday night. That’s when the organization announced who would be singing the Best Original Song nominees at Sunday’s ceremony. Beyoncé will be performing “Be Alive” from “King Richard,” for which she is nominated alongside DIXSON....

Yeoh, who currently stars in SXSW breakout hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that she almost broke her back while filming 1996’s “The Stunt Woman.” The on-set injury led the former ballerina to question her career path as a whole. “‘You like to work, but this is insane,’” Yeoh recalled friends telling her at the time. “‘We feel so bad, but only you can help yourself....

“It doesn’t matter how much you put into something, no matter how old you are, because you should always expect the possibility that your effort will be undervalued,” she said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “But you can’t really take that personally. It’s just the way it is.” In the film, which won the directing prize at the world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, Blank stars as a fictionalized version of herself — a once-promising playwright nearing the age of 40, whose career has stalled, and now teaches drama to high school students, as she tries to come to terms with her own unfulfilled professional accomplishments....

Here’s the official synopsis, courtesy of HBO Max: “In season two of ‘Raised by Wolves,’ Android partners Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim), along with their brood of six human children, join a newly formed atheistic colony in Kepler 22 b’s mysterious tropical zone. But navigating this strange new society is only the start of their troubles as Mother’s ‘natural child’ threatens to drive what little remains of the human race to extinction....

Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” promised a new take on the Caped Crusader, and the action thriller delivered to the tune of a $128.5 million domestic opening weekend box office. Yet while “The Batman” had Bruce’s usual gadgets and destinations — Batmobile, Arkham Asylum, the Iceberg lounge — it was lacking one accessory for the Wayne billionaire: arm candy. “When you think about Bruce Wayne, you kind of think he’s a playboy, and then that’s how he disguises himself, so no one knows he’s Batman....

The documentary will be directed by Alex Braverman, Emmy-nominated director on “Gaycation” as well as the series “Waffles + Mochi,” and he worked as a producer at VICE. Why anyone hasn’t made an Andy Kaufman documentary yet is anyone’s guess, though the comedian was explored in the 1999 Milos Forman film “Man on the Moon” starring Jim Carrey, whose experience playing the character was profiled in the 2017 documentary “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond....

During a visit this week to Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” Jackson provided the five Samuel L. Jackson movies he loves most: Renny Harlin’s “The Long Kiss Goodnight” (1996), Joel Schumacher’s “A Time To Kill” (1996), Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown” (1997), François Girard’s “The Red Violin” (1998), and Kevin Reynolds’ “One Eight Seven” (1997). Interestingly enough, all of Jackson’s favorite Jackson movies were released in the 1990s. Some might expect “Pulp Fiction” to be a favorite, but it’s actually “Jackie Brown” that holds the closest spot to Jackson’s heart in terms of Tarantino movies....

Vudu, where “Scream” is #1 for the week, ranks by revenue spent. That means it had more than four times as many transactions as #2, “Sing 2” (Universal), which costs $19.99 (lowered this week from $24.99). That’s a strong showing. “Sing 2” has spent nearly two months on the charts. Still #6 in theaters this weekend, it has been among the top PVOD titles daily since its debut. Along with “Scream,” it is one of four titles to place on all three charts....

Rookie streaming service HBO Max has announced a limited series revival of creator Darren Star’s “Sex and the City,” titled “And Just Like That,” named for one of Carrie’s classic quips whenever the proverbial other shoe (sorry) dropped. But just like that, it’s a predictably amputated version, because Kim Cattrall won’t be returning to the series as Samantha Jones. It’s now up to the writers to find a creative way to write her out of the series (and judging from a Twitter exchange between Sarah Jessica Parker and journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner, that drawing board is still blank....

Academy Award–winning director Megan Mylan has spanned the globe before in search of a compelling story, whether to unsung corners of India (“Smile Pinki”) or Africa (“Lost Boys of the Sudan”). “Simple as Water” takes Mylan and her team (including cinematographers Lars Skree, Michael Chin, and Rafia Salameh, who bring an observant yet never invasive eye to the proceedings) to five countries: Turkey, Greece, Germany, Syria, and eventually the United States....

Hymanson grew up with Jackie and Don, becoming friends with them after taking Jackie’s youth art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. Debut feature “So Late So Soon” is an extension of several of his short film projects centering on Jackie, the first of which he made when he was 15. He cites “Charleen” — Ross McElwee’s extremely subjective, observational portrait of his friend and poetry teacher — as an influence on his work, and like that film, “So Late” is inspired by the impactful connections we make with people outside our family or age group....

The topic arose out of their discussion of Carey Mulligan’s complex turn as Cassie in the Oscar-contending thriller. “We immediately got each other,” Fennell said of her star. “It made making the film so much easier because we had a shorthand. I knew she knew exactly what I was thinking and we could work very quickly between ourselves. I think if it had been anyone else who we hadn’t known before, just physically getting the film made would have been tough because she didn’t need any talking down, she didn’t need any fluffing!...

Lee co-wrote the screenplay with Kwame Kwei-Armah, and based it on David Kushner’s Esquire article “All Rise: The Untold Story of The Guys Who Launched Viagra.” Inspired by Pfizer’s discovery and launch of Viagra, originally intended as a heart-related drug, original songs will be written by Stew Stewart and Heidi Rodewald, creators of the Tony-winning musical “Passing Strange.” Lee directed a filmed version of that stage production that was released in 2009....

“We love each other. We’ve been friends for 20 years. We’ve experienced each other’s pain, and we’ve watched our kids grow up together,” Tucci said. “There’s a lot of water under that bridge, and that bridge has only become stronger still. It’s the kind of working experience that could make or break a friendship. But in our case, it strengthens it.” The actors met on the set of Frank Pierson’s WWII drama “Conspiracy” playing Nazis; since then, Tucci said, they’ve share that ineffable, alchemical connection that defines so many platonic relationships....

“We have to look back at how do we sustain Sundance, for the future,” Michelle Satter, director of Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program, told me. “We’re in a moment of stepping back and making tough decisions. You have to prioritize, and build back.” After longtime festival director John Cooper left in 2020, Sundance veteran Tabitha Jackson took over; she stepped down June 7 and the festival now seeks a new leader....

Instead, they demonstrate the range of aesthetic possibilities in the XR space. For emerging media newbies, “XR” refers to a spectrum of cutting-edge technology these days that includes AR (augmented reality), VR (virtual reality), and MR (mixed reality). For years, festival programming has provided a platform for the immersive possibilities of the medium. However, the SXSW lineup provided a particularly eclectic range of masterful work that proved the future of the art form has arrived....

In a new interview with Forbes to promote his upcoming Paramount+ series “Tulsa King,” Stallone waxed nostalgic about his rivalry with Schwarzenegger and their eventual ability to mend fences by teaming up for “The Expendables” and “Escape Plan.” “We really disliked each other immensely because we were… this may sound a little vain, but I think we were pioneering a kind of genre at that time and it hasn’t been seen since really,” Stallone said....

The movie is set primarily in Berlin, where Lydia lives with her partner Sharon (Christian Petzold veteran Nina Hoss, giving an equally, quietly triumphant performance) and small, adopted Syrian daughter. A self-described “U-haul lesbian,” Lydia is preparing to record Gustav Mahler’s fifth symphony with the German orchestra she’s led for the last decade. She’s also entering a period of heightened retrospective scrutiny, publishing a self-authored volume of interviews titled “Tár on Tár....