The Lady of Heaven, about Fatima and her husband Ali (the first Shia imam), was written by a Shia cleric and seems intended to be reverent. But following angry protests calling the movie blasphemous and sectarian, the Cineworld chain has pulled it from screens. - BBC
While she has done repeating guest-star roles and specials (and the unforgettable miniseries Fresno), the 89-year-old actress has not had a regular role in a series since her variety show ended in 1978. Burnett will star alongside Kristen Wiig in the Apple comedy series Mrs. American Pie. - The Hollywood Reporter
The US – like many other Western nations – has gone from a place “where it seemed like some sort of consensus was possible”, to a new order in which “every cultural and political moment of significance gets interpreted in two radically different ways”, with there being “very little overlap”, said Glass. - New Statesman
"More than three months into the (Ukraine) war, reports are surfacing about illicit screenings of Hollywood movies at Russian cinemas, with initial reports naming The Batman, Red Notice, Disney animation Turning Red and Michael Bay crime actioner Ambulance." - Variety
“I don’t think anyone has any idea of the cultural impact that small data set is having on the country as a whole,” says the APTN’s Jones. Coles has some idea. One of the findings that surprised her most was how much an “imagined audience” was used to justify decisions “laced with racism, sexism, homophobia.” - The Walrus
What they claim to do is to scan billions of social media posts with really sophisticated AI to identify threats of potential violence or self-harm. ... These models may not be very sophisticated or that this might be a really hard problem to solve even if the models are very sophisticated. - Slate
Those returns rank among the top 10 highest-grossing second weekends in domestic box office history. They also push “Top Gun: Maverick” to $291 million in North America, enough to overtake 2005’s “War of the Worlds” ($243 million) as Cruise’s highest-grossing film ever at the domestic box office. - Variety
For much of its existence, Netflix has thought of itself as a tech company, moving fast and breaking things; now it’s seeking to emulate the dinosaurs it once thought it would effortlessly replace. - The New Republic
I’ll stipulate that the people who make movies may skew progressive in their beliefs, commitments and voting patterns. The movies themselves tell another story. - The New York Times
"For more than a century, filmmakers have been using the 'green screen' technique. ... So where did it come from? And why is it so popular? And most importantly: why is it green? It's time, for once, to let the green screen occupy the foreground instead of the background." - Quartz
"The good news is that the public broadcast group has been operating without much help from the state or its Board of Regents for years, … with more than 75% of its funding coming from individuals, businesses, and corporations." - Inside Radio
One of the things that brought me back to moviemaking was Netflix and the idea of streaming and a streaming series. I think theaters are dead. I think they’ll be a niche thing for superhero movies. I haven’t gone to the cinema for decades. You know, I just prefer to watch it at home. - APNews
Viki (meaning "video wiki"), which specializes in programming from East Asia, has an estimated 100,000 volunteers subtitling in 150 languages for 53 million subscribers. Those translators are fiercely proud of their work and say they have to redo the work of paid translators. (They went on strike over machine translation.) - Vulture
The departure in particular of hosts Audie Cornish (All Things Considered), Noel King (Morning Edition) and Lulu Garcia-Navarro (Weekend Edition), all women of color, drew considerable criticism. SVP Anya Grundmann said that there's simply a competitive market (all three left for commercial media jobs) and NPR's overall staff turnover is low. - Press Gazette
