Well, you might say, not a one is real. We don't have matter transporters, faster than light engines, or for that matter a Federation. But the whines aren't new: a 50-year history of Trek "recounts decades of skeptics dismissing various iterations as not 'real.'" - Slate
"Austrian director Ulrich Seidl has cancelled his visit to San Sebastian for the Sept. 18 world premiere of Sparta, amid allegations of impropriety and child exploitation made against the director." The film was not screened at the Toronto International Film Festival after the allegations emerged. - Variety
Why? Energy bills. "Autumn has arrived with stark warnings from industry bodies, including UK Music and the Music Venue Trust (MVT), that live venues, studios and other music businesses will face insurmountable costs this winter." - The Guardian (UK)
"M*A*S*H is in some ways the most contemporary of its contemporaries. Its blend of madcap comedy and pitch-dark drama — the laughs amplifying the serious stakes, and vice versa — is recognizable in today's dramedies, from Better Things to Barry, that work in the DMZ between laughter and sadness." - The New York Times
"I was looking for stories, each in a different way, that showed how everybody left the war with a wound of some kind. ... The crazy behavior wasn't just to be funny. It was a way of separating yourself for a moment from the nastiness." - The New York Times
The story enacted by Viola Davis and her colleagues is fictional, but the Agojie did actually exist: a troop of women warriors, founded in the early 1700s in the Kingdom of Dahomey (in present-day Benin), which grew to 6,000 strong by their peak a century later. - Smithsonian Magazine
"Rather than a crime drama in the vein of the Scamming Show canon, Better Call Saul is perhaps best understood as an unlikely Künstlerroman — the story of an artist coming into his own ... an artist whose medium just happens to be scamming." - The Point
“This important claim will represent a class of victims of Google’s anti-competitive conduct in ad tech who have collectively lost an estimated £7bn. This includes news websites up and down the country with large daily readerships as well as the thousands of small business owners who depend on advertising revenue." - The Guardian
Social media first presented itself as a new wave of populist content, eccentric infotainment. But look at that: Social media is now shot through with sketches and music videos made by rich personal brands and consumed by a passive audience that gets iron-skilleted with ads. - Wired
"Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar will not be making his English-language feature directorial debut with A Manual for Cleaning Women, which has Cate Blanchett set to star and produce under her Dirty Films." The director said, "Unfortunately, I no longer feel able to fully realize this film." - Deadline
... for the ones that will screen a free video feed of the ceremonies. Those will be smaller chains (e.g., Vue, Picturedrome, Reel); the big ones (Cineworld, Odeon, etc.) will simply close all day Monday. - Variety
This was one of the worst Emmys telecasts in recent memory. Not in the “claws are out” way that people tend to pounce on award shows for being out of touch. It’s the opposite. The awards of this awards show were beautiful. They were meaningful. - The Daily Beast
"After Netflix's record-tying performance in 2021, HBO reasserted its dominance in its now-annual battle with Netflix for supremacy in the realm of prestige TV. ... (The network) collected 12 of the 25 statuettes awarded at Mondays ceremony." - CNN
Runway's "Text to Video" demonstration reel shows a text input box that allows editing commands such as "import city street" or "make it look more cinematic" (applying an effect). It depicts someone typing "remove object" and selecting a streetlight with a drawing tool that then disappears. - Ars Technica
