LAS VEGAS Live sports and cinematic storytelling meshed earlier this month (9/14) at Sphere, the revolutionary new entertainment venue in Las Vegas. UFC 306, Sphere’s first live sports event, brought mixed martial arts boxing matches together with the world premiere of a film–For Mexico, For All Time–which played out in six 90-second chapters in between the bouts Read More 

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) A judge heard arguments Thursday on whether to dismiss a criminal conviction against a movie armorer in the shooting death of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin and said she’ll rule next week on whether to scuttle the case or order a retrial. In a remote court hearing, an attorney for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed challenged her Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) When Kate Winslet stumbled upon the extraordinary story of Lee Miller she didn’t want to let go. Miller was an American photographer who became a correspondent for British Vogue during World War II, shooting everything from London after the Blitz to the liberation of Dachau. In 1945, David E. Scherman took a rather famous photo Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) When you think of blockbusters, the first thing that comes to mind might not be a 215-minute postwar epic screening for the first time at Lincoln Center. But that was the scene last week when the New York Film Festival hosted a 70mm print of Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.” The festival hadn’t then officially begun Read More 

VENICE, Italy (AP) “Joker” is a hard act to follow. Todd Phillips’ dark, Scorsese-inspired character study about the Batman villain made over a billion dollars at the box office, won Joaquin Phoenix his first Oscar, dominated the cultural discourse for months and created a new movie landmark. It wasn’t for everyone, but it got under people’s skin. Knowing Read More 

TORONTO (AP) Francis Ford Coppola believes he can stop time. It’s not just a quality of the protagonist of Coppola’s new film “Megalopolis,” a visionary architect named Cesar Catilina ( Adam Driver ) who, by barking “Time, stop!” can temporarily freeze the world for a moment before restoring it with a snap of his fingers. And Coppola Read More 

LONDON (AP) Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) From a podcast to multiple documentaries, the rise and fall of the once revered NFL star Aaron Hernandez is certainly well documented. An FX limited series is latest to rehash the saga, attempting to go beyond the headlines and dig deeper into his story. “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez” stars Josh Andrés Rivera as the Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) If you think Latin American history starts with Christopher Columbus, John Leguizamo would like to have a word. He points out there were great empires and civilizations during the thousands of years before 1492 — like the mighty Incas, Aztecs and Maya, whose great strides in medicine, engineering and science echo today. “I get power Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) “League of Legends” is caught in the middle of a dispute between Hollywood’s actors union and an audio company that provides voiceover services for the blockbuster online multiplayer game. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists called a strike against “League of Legends” on Tuesday, arguing that Formosa Interactive attempted to get Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) For decades, video games have relied on scripted, stilted interactions with non-player characters (NPCs) to help shepherd gamers in their journeys. But as artificial intelligence technology improves, game studios are experimenting with generative AI to help build environments, assist game writers in crafting NPC dialogue and lend video games the improvisational spontaneity once reserved for Read More 

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) Federal regulators who say Google holds an illegal monopoly over the technology that matches online advertisers to publishers are vastly underestimating the competition the tech giant faces, an expert hired by Google testified Thursday. Mark Israel, an economist who prepared an expert report on Google’s behalf, said the government’s claims that Google holds a monopoly Read More 

LOS ANGELES Park Pictures now represents director Rachel Morrison for commercial filmmaking. Morrison first came into prominence as a cinematographer, working on indie features, television, and blockbuster hits, which put her on the path toward her directing career. Her feature film directorial debut, “The Fire Inside,” is set for wide theatrical release by MGM on Christmas Day Read More 

LOS ANGELES Partizan has added Canadian director Jason Jeffrey–who’s known for his story-driven cinematic comedy–to its roster for representation in the U.S., U.K. and France. Jeffrey’s expert comedic timing can be seen in many commercial films for brands like Goldfish, Google, and Casino Days, with a Bronze Cannes Lion win for his laugh-out-loud work with KFC. He’s Read More 

LOS ANGELES Kari Grubin will succeed Seth Hallen as president of the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) on January 1, 2025. When Hallen passes HPA leadership to Grubin, the organization marks a noteworthy milestone in its history as she becomes the first woman to hold the HPA presidency and only its third president since the organization’s founding, following Read More 

NEW YORK Brand New School (BNS) has entered into a strategic partnership with BRUT, a Barcelona-based animation studio. This collaboration represents a significant milestone in BNS’s expansion strategy, with BRUT serving as its inaugural global outpost. Under the leadership of executive creative director Martin Allais, who will now be represented by BNS for directorial ventures, BRUT joins Read More 

LONDON Society has never been more divided, according to a new report Healing the Divide in which Effie UK and brand and advertising experts from Ipsos explored brands’ role in shaping society and healing societal divisions. The report details how instability, inflation, and COVID recovery —the convergence of multiple interconnected crises around the world that coincide Read More 

BROOKLYN, NY Open Swim has signed director/photographer Karen Haberberg for both live-action and live-action/print combo projects, kicking off with a new campaign for Empower Federal Credit Union for which she helmed the still portion while Marc André Debruyne directed the live action. The two filmmakers worked together to cover social for the campaign. Known for her honest Read More 

ROME Italy has selected writer-director Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio to represent it in the International Feature Film Award category for the 97th Academy Awards. Vermiglio, the Silver Lion winner at this year’s Venice Film Festival, was produced by Cinedora, Chrades and Versus Productions. The feature made its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival where Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) Meghann Fahy and Eve Hewson, two of the stars of Netflix’s whodunit “The Perfect Couple,” have news for you if you want to call them breakouts: They’ve been working in this business for more than a decade. Fahy made her TV debut in 2009 in an episode of “Gossip Girl.” Hewson’s first big film role Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) In the opening scenes of “The Wild Robot,” a chirpy metal android with a state-of-the-art processing unit wanders around a forest asking confused animals if it can help them, offering discount codes and stickers for future customers. “Did anyone order me?” it asks. We did, it turned out. This adaptation of Peter Brown’s winning middle Read More 

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) A scrappy young team of underdogs — in both sports and life — must find a way to unite and win that big championship. Can they do it? How many times have we seen that story, and who among us couldn’t write the ending right now? That may be just what you’re thinking as you Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) If anything is clear about “Megalopolis,” it’s that Francis Ford Coppola has a lot on his mind. The legendary filmmaker spent decades on this Roman-style epic, set in the present day, about a civilization on the brink of collapse. A wealthy and powerful few of the old guard are running the gilded city of New Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) It’s a three-peat for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” The Tim Burton legacy sequel to his 1988 horror comedy topped the North American box office charts for the third straight weekend with $26 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. It edged out the animated new release “Transformers: One,” which brought in $25 million. The Optimus Read More 

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