“The chair of the BBC, Rona Fairhead, is to step down after Theresa May indicated she would have to apply again for the job she was reappointed to by David Cameron just four months ago. In a statement, Fairhead said that after ‘much thought’ she had concluded it was appropriate not to re-enter the appointment process.”

“Spock’s inner struggle embodied the conflict at the heart of the series. It pitted unchecked, anarchical emotion against stoic rationality, atavism against civilization, present against future. … Picard and his crew were all human carbon copies of Spock – even-keeled, rational, and almost impossibly ethical. … That left little room for identification. You could aspire to be more like Picard, the very model of compassion and culture, but you could never truly understand his moral universe. He was nothing like us twenty-first-century humans. He was too alien.”

“It’s a joyful, noncynical story of women and their progression in this world.”

“On night one, Game of Thrones took home nine wins, Diane Warren picked up an Emmy for the powerful anthem ‘Til It Happens to You’ and Margo Martindale earned a record breaking win for guest actress in a drama series on The Americans.”

“I wish my mom and dad were here because they would really love this s—t.”

“The Chairman’s new proposal… violates the Communications Act and exceeds the FCC’s authority,” Comcast claimed in a statement provided to Multichannel News and other outlets.

“The Federal Communications Commission has a plan to make cable companies provide apps that could be used on devices made by tech companies like maybe Roku or Apple. It says Americans spend billions each year renting boxes and believes there is a better way.”

“The Birth of a Nation, Hidden Figures and Loving are three films with the same theme (racism), the same ambitions (Oscar glory) and the same pathway into theaters (big studio labels). … A closer look at [them] reveals drastically different artistic statements and cinematic approaches.”

The University of Southern California’s report showed that women had just 31.4% of spoken roles in 2015’s top 100 films, compared with 32.8% in 2008. Lesbian, gay or transgender characters accounted for less than 1% of speaking parts – or 32 out of 35,205 characters.

“The Simpsons is so ambitious, intimate, classical, experimental, hip, corny, and altogether free in its conviction that the imagination should go where it wants, that to even begin to explain all the things The Simpsons is, and all the things it does, you would need an immense Venn diagram drawn on a football field, each circle representing different modes of comedy.”

“It also asked the search giant to remove links to legitimate movie streaming websites run by Amazon and Sky, as well as the film database IMDB. The request was submitted on behalf of Warner Brothers by Vobile, a company that files hundreds of thousands of takedown requests every month.”

“Canadian content rules and changes made by the CRTC. A lot of wild talk about supporting Canadian talent has been thrown about, as if patriotism is involved in making and watching Canadian TV.” But. “Nobody will watch TV out of patriotism.”

“I’ll use things like Old Bailey records to see what words should be said in a courtroom. I have advised on the content of letters, adverts on a wall and what a children’s book might look like.”

“For all the supposed liberalism of the cultural community, it would be hard to find a more gendered workplace than a film set, unless you went climbing up oil rigs or down coal mines.”

Use the long weekend to read this four-part series from RogerEbert.com, covering everything from exoticization to contemporary depictions of Muslims in the U.S.

“Unburdened by the often complicated superhero continuity, a good reboot can both entice new readers and excite current fans, while goosing the bottom line. Or it can blow up in their face.”

“YouTube is facing a backlash from creators angry that the video giant is blocking advertising from running against content it deems inappropriate — while the Google-owned video giant says it has not actually changed its policy.”

“Oliver Stone wanted a hit – and the chance to put America’s most iconic dissident onscreen. The subject wanted veto power. The Russian lawyer wanted someone to option the novel he’d written. The American lawyer just wanted the whole insane project to go away. Somehow a film got made.”

Benjamin’s writing sounds original, even kooky, but it’s still based on what humans actually write. [Director Oscar] Sharp likes to call the results the “average version” of everything the AI looked at. Certain phrases kept coming up again and again.

Sixty-one years after the night 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched, “the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the string of controversial killings of black men by the police have given new impetus to efforts to film the story of Till, with at least three screen adaptations in the works.”

Hossein Amini, who wrote the screenplays for The Wings of the Dove, and Drive: “The biggest advantage of adapting an impossible book is that no one expects you to be entirely slavish to the source material. They’re not expecting a filmic replica. … I flatter myself when I say they felt halfway between adaptations and original screenplays, but that’s really a testament to the greatness of the novels. They not only allow you to see something of yourself in them, they allow you to project.”

“Canadians who grasp that their money, intended to support Canadian storytelling, is going into the pockets of non-Canadian writers and actors – for-hire players with no connection to Canada – should be infuriated and scandalized. Very few will be in a lather about it, though. The problem for the “creatives” affected by the CRTC decision is multifold.”

“Months ago, insiders would have called Birth of a Nation a Best Picture lock … if everything went right. It hasn’t. … What remains to be seen is whether the film can still have an impact, and whether Oscar voters can separate the art from their feelings about the artist … But based on the buzz we’re hearing, we can start to take a closer look at the movies and performers that are expected to contend in the six biggest Oscar categories.”