Mid-May is normally prime for movie releases. This year, it’s Memorial Day when more prime titles will open. Optimism remains for then, but for now it’s treading water time. The expected much bigger “A Quiet Place Part II” (Paramount) along with “Cruella” (Disney) on May 28 will be a much better test of how close theaters are to providing grosses commensurate with their potential. But a Top 10 of $24 million, with an overall take of perhaps $26 million, remains anemic considering the increased number of fresh films, combined with more theaters plus a general greater sense of safety in theaters....

Titled “Gen V,” the upcoming Prime Video series is set at America’s only college exclusively for young adult superheroes. Of course, like the rest of “The Boys” universe, the school is run by conglomerate Vought International. Per an official synopsis, “Gen V” is an “irreverent, R-rated series that explores the lives of hormonal, competitive Supes as they put their physical, sexual, and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the best contracts in the best cities....

When audiences last left Gilead, June (Elisabeth Moss) embraced her inner freedom fighter after secreting 50 of the republic’s children into Canada. As the trailer shows, this information becoming known could lead to a large battle — though June and the other handmaids are seen bringing the fight to their doorstep. June’s own attempts to bring Gilead down result in her testifying to an unknown group about the justice she’s seeking....

“Alan Hawkins [animation supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks] got really excited about that and broke the pipeline to create this new way of morphing characters — and, if you still frame through that, it’s really exciting,” said director Mike Rianda. “He came up with a new way to animate with customized rigging.” In fact, producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller (“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”) were totally blown away by the Stealthbots: “I remember Alan Hawkins showing us that first test: What if they moved like this?...

Frank is set to adapt Mary Doria Russell’s 1996 debut novel “The Sparrow,” which followed a group of Jesuit priests and scientists who make contact with an alien species in the near future. Their mission ends in disaster and the lone human survivor returns to Earth to face the Vatican as a scandal ensues. Casting details and a premiere date are under wraps. “The Sparrow” will be directed by Johan Renck (“Chernobyl,” “Breaking Bad”)....

We’ll have to wait and see if this translates to “The Queen’s Gambit” winning Outstanding Limited Series at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards on September 19. Regardless, Frank assembled a talented team of craftspeople (including cinematographer Steven Meizler, production designer Uli Hanisch, costume designer Gabriele Binder, editor Michelle Tesoro, composer Carlos Rafael Rivera, and sound designer Wylie Stateman) for conveying an almost surreal mood and atmosphere to Beth’s rite of passage....

Nor is it particularly compelling to watch. Small wooden pieces being slowly slid around a tabletop doesn’t easily lend itself to absorbing cinema, especially given the challenging nature of the game itself. “Pawn Sacrifice,” “Computer Chess,” and even the Pixar short “Geri’s Game” earned praise for their depictions, but none set the world on fire. “The Queen’s Gambit” may be the exception. It deserves to be, and Frank’s last limited series certainly was, when he took another out-of-fashion genre — the western — and turned “Godless” into a sizable hit (considering its cultural impact)....

Fans of “The Sopranos” will recall the abrupt and rather unceremonious exit of Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) in Season 6, Episode 20, “The Blue Comet.” After being berated by her colleagues at a dinner party (which included her own therapist, played by Peter Bogdanovich, among the company), Dr. Melfi decides to sever ties with mobster Tony Soprano, for whom she’s served as a therapist for the entirety of the show....

Writer/director Taika Waititi helms the follow-up to 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok.” Chris Hemsworth returns as the titular superhero in his first appearance since “Avengers: Endgame.” Tessa Thompson is also back as Valkyrie, as well as Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, Waititi as Korg, and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, reprising her MCU character for the first time since 2013’s “Thor: The Dark World.” Thor and Jane’s awkward reunion is teased in the trailer, narrated by Waititi as Korg, explaining that Thor has gone from “dad bod to god bod....

Director Joseph Kosinski told Empire Magazine that production on the “Top Gun” sequel was elongated to get the perfect shot, with sometimes 14-hour work days resulting in only 30 seconds of “good footage” usable for the final cut. “It was so hard-earned,” Kosinski said. “It just took a very long time to get it all. Months and months of aerial shooting. We shot as much footage as the three ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies combined....

It’s the Scene. After the first screenings at Cannes, audiences came out laughing, and they kept telling people about the Scene. It takes its time. It builds. And builds. It starts on a yacht cruise, during the Captain’s Dinner, as the seas start to roil and exquisite seafood is served to the champagne-sipping black-tie passengers. The waiters lift the gold lids on briny octopus as the cabin starts to tip up and down....

“I wanted to see what [fans] wanted from this character and what behavior and look was important to them,” Duggal said. “We wanted fans to be very happy with this.” Duggal knew keeping fans happy meant also consulting with the original comic books, but not everything Carnage did in the source material was allowed to translate to the Sony-backed release. Duggal was inspired by one comic to create a VFX sequence for the movie in which Carnage kills someone by sticking his tongue down a throat, but that was too extreme for the theatrical cut....

A young widow, played by “Avengers: Endgame” star Elizabeth Olsen, struggles to make sense of her world after the sudden, untimely loss of her partner. She finds herself bereft, struggling to make sense of a future that now looks impossibly bleak, and attempts — sometimes through destructive behavior that hurts herself, as well as everyone around her — to reconcile not just the sorrow of losing her husband, but also the destruction of her hopes and dreams....

The series starring Portuguese actress Alba Baptista had in its short run developed a passionate fanbase online, and the show’s second season even spent three weeks on Netflix’s weekly Top 10 list for English-language TV, topping out at No. 5. “Warrior Nun” creator and showrunner Simon Barry tweeted Tuesday that the show would not return on Netflix, sparking the hashtag #SaveWarriorNun to trend on Twitter. — Simon Barry (@SimonDavisBarry) December 13, 2022...

Related New Movies: Release Calendar for December 23, Plus Where to Watch the Latest Films Remember When Content Was King? 2022 Was the Year Streaming Dreams Died Related Guillermo del Toro’s Favorite Movies: 45 Films the Director Wants You to See Influential Awards Bodies Reshape 2023 Best Documentary Feature Race The “Black Box” synopsis reads: “After losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an agonizing experimental treatment that causes him to question who he really is....

“What If…?” presents a bit of a paradox, and not just because of the series’ timeline-warping synopsis. This is perhaps the most Marvel Cinematic Universe title yet, given that viewers who already have a keen understanding of the franchise’s key plot arcs and an attachment to its myriad of characters will undoubtedly get the biggest kick out of each episode. The show is also a self-perpetuating product that has obvious potential to endlessly exploit the MCU IP in order to create sequels (Season 2 is already in development) and spinoffs that should entice Disney+ subscribers to keep coming back for more, more, more....

As the old saying goes, you know it’s a great season of TV when vampire partygoers playing hot potato with Sofia Coppola’s decapitated head doesn’t even rank as the most memorable scene. “We got lucky,” showrunner and executive producer Paul Simms said of casting the Oscar-winning writer in the cold open of Episode 9, “Freddie,” along with her husband and lead singer of Phoenix, Thomas Mars. “They love the show....

Ziwe serves as showrunner, writer, and actor on the series, bringing her singular, no-holds-barred brand of funny to Showtime for her late-night debut. The trailer is packed with special guests and familiar faces, including Jane Krakowski, Bowen Yang, Phoebe Bridgers, Cristin Milioti, Jeremy O. Harris, Fran Lebowitz, Patti Harrison, Cole Escola, and many more. This looks to be the kind of in-your-face comedy pushing up against social norms that made “Baited” such a viral hit....

That line from Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” sums up a lot of feelings people seem to have about nudity in film as well. The history of painting and sculpture is full of nude portraiture, which is easily classified as art. But the nude scene in movies is rarely discussed alongside a Canova marble statue or Manet’s “Olympia.” Movies blur the boundaries between “real life” and artistic indirection so thoroughly that people discuss nude scenes in movies as practically everything but art....

The fest opens on Thursday night with the world premiere of Julia Hart’s “I’m Your Woman” and, over the course of the next week, will also play new films from filmmakers Errol Morris, Heidi Ewing, Mira Nair, Florian Zeller, Werner Herzog, and many more. This year’s complete AFI FEST program includes 124 titles (54 features, 3 episodic, 33 shorts, 19 Meet the Press Film Festival at AFI FEST shorts, and 15 AFI Conservatory Showcase shorts) of which 53 percent are directed by women, 39 percent are directed by BIPOC, and 17 percent are directed by LBGTQ+....