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      Oscars’ Best Picture Hopefuls Must Spend More Time in Theaters

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      To be eligible for the academy’s top prize, films will need to have an initial theatrical run of a week in one of six U.S. cities, and then expand to other cities across the country.In a move designed to signal Hollywood’s commitment to the moviegoing experience, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said on Wednesday that it would require an expanded theatrical release for films seeking to be eligible for a best picture nomination.The new eligibility rule is sure to affect how Netflix and other streaming services release films they consider to be Oscar worthy. And it could be an impediment to smaller distributors that lack the means to release films in cities across the United States.Oscar-oriented films have struggled mightily at the box office in recent years, making some people wonder if the importance of big screens has been forever altered by the streaming era. In 2022, “CODA” from Apple TV+ was the first film from a streaming service to win the best picture Oscar.To be eligible for a best picture nomination, films are already required to have an initial qualifying run in theaters, defined as a one-week release in one of six U.S. cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco or Miami). Beginning in 2024, those films will also need a theatrical presence for another seven days (either consecutive or nonconsecutive) in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets, no later than 45 days after its initial release. Two of the 10 markets in the expanded release can be outside the United States if they are among the top 15 international theatrical markets.The move, voted on by the academy’s board of governors at its most recent meeting, is a clear attempt to prevent streaming companies like Netflix, which prefer to release films on their services with as little theatrical presence as possible, from eroding the moviegoing experience.“It is our hope that this expanded theatrical footprint will increase the visibility of films worldwide and encourage audiences to experience our art form in a theatrical setting,” the academy’s chief executive, Bill Kramer, and president, Janet Yang, said in a statement. “Based on many conversations with industry partners, we feel that this evolution benefits film artists and movie lovers alike.”For films released late in the year, the distributors must submit their plans for the expanded release. Those plans must be completed no later than Jan. 24, 2025, for the 2024 films.Netflix said the eligibility requirements would not have a significant effect on its release strategy. It noted that “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which was nominated for best picture this year, was released in 35 theaters in 20 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto. More

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      Producer Ryan Murphy Is Expected to Move to Disney

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      Mr. Murphy, the force behind hits like “American Horror Story” and “The Watcher,” is coming to the end of his $300 million Netflix deal.Ryan Murphy, the television megaproducer behind hits like “American Horror Story” and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” is poised to move his operation to the Walt Disney Company, five years after he stunned Hollywood by decamping to Netflix for a $300 million deal.The contract talks with Disney are not finished, according to three people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. No deal is expected to be completed until after the screenwriters’ strike in Hollywood is resolved, one of the people said. (Unionized film and television writers have been on strike since May 1.)But the talks between Mr. Murphy and Disney are advanced, the people said. Mr. Murphy’s contract with Netflix expires at the end of the month. Renewal talks with Netflix never got off the ground.Representatives for Mr. Murphy, Disney and Netflix either declined to comment or did not return calls. Bloomberg reported Mr. Murphy’s likely move to Disney earlier on Tuesday.A deal with Disney would formally reunite Mr. Murphy with executives he worked closely with for more than a decade. Disney owns the FX cable channel, which is home to his “American Horror Story” franchise, which started in 2011. (The series also runs on Hulu, which Disney controls.) ABC, the Disney-owned broadcast network, recently bought the rights to “9-1-1,” a drama that Mr. Murphy created for Fox in 2018.When Mr. Murphy signed his Netflix deal, in February 2018, it was just six months after another star producer, Shonda Rhimes, had signed her own nine-figure contract with the streaming company. The back-to-back signings were an emphatic statement by Netflix that it was in the business of paying any price for big-name writers. In the process, it set off a Hollywood arms race (which, amid broader concerns about the streaming business and the writers’ strike, has mostly cooled off).Mr. Murphy’s tenure at Netflix got off to a bumpy start. Misfires included “The Politician” and “Hollywood.” It was not until last September that Mr. Murphy served up bona fide hits in “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” and “The Watcher.” Both series are among the 10 most-watched Netflix originals ever, according to the streaming service.Mr. Murphy, who continued making shows for Disney even though he was under contract with Netflix — new seasons of “9-1-1” and “American Crime Story” continued apace — would likewise continue to make shows for Netflix after a move to Disney. The next edition of “Monster” will focus on Erik and Lyle Menéndez, the brothers serving life sentences for killing their wealthy parents in 1989, and “The Watcher” has been renewed for another season. More

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      ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’ Is a TV Rarity With Familiar Drama

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      Netflix’s latest dating reality show hit, which wrapped up on Wednesday, broke ground by focusing exclusively on queer and nonbinary couples.The finale of Netflix’s latest dating show hit, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love,” arrived on Wednesday after weeks of partner swapping that amounted to a milestone in romantic reality television: The first of the genre’s marriage contests that focused exclusively on queer couples.Like its predecessor, “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On,” from last year, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love,” which premiered in May, follows couples who don’t agree about their future together (one wants to get engaged; the other is not ready). So they agree to split up and live with new partners for a few weeks in front of the cameras. After meeting, dating and committing to a “trial wife,” the original couples reunite to live together as married, also for a few weeks. Then, after eight episodes worth of soul-searching, they must decide whether to get engaged, end the relationship or leave with their “trial wife” — the “ultimatum” of the title.“I feel like we’re at a lesbian club, and all our exes are here,” a castmate named Tiff Der joked in the first episode, sitting by the compound’s firepit surrounded by Der’s partner-turned-ex (for the purposes of the show), Mildred Woody, and the eight other contestants they each went on short dates with that day.In the same scene, another contestant, Vanessa Papa, suggests the cast all have a “polyamorous orgy,” drawing head shakes and nervous laughter from the others. By that point, Papa was interested in both Lexi Goldberg and Rae Cheung-Sutton while her ex, Xander Boger, was hitting it off with someone else’s former partner nearby.Same-sex marriage became federally recognized eight years ago, and it’s taken that long for L.G.B.T.Q. people to get their own dating show focused on love and commitment — though a number of queer-inclusive reality shows have demonstrated an appetite for such series. In earlier such shows, like the bisexual-themed competition “A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila” (2007) and the all-pansexual season of MTV’s “Are You The One?” (2019), the focus was on the competition, not on lifelong commitment. In “Queer Love,” which wrapped up Wednesday with a final episode and reunion special, the only prize is the clarity gained from such an experiment, the first in which men are not potential partners.“The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On” hadn’t aired yet when the cast of the spinoff began filming, so the five couples who appeared in “Queer Love” had little sense of how the show would unfold. All they had to go on was the track record of the show’s production company, Kinetic Content, which is also behind the Netflix reality hit “Love is Blind,” as well as the long-running “Married at First Sight,” on Lifetime in recent years.In many ways, “Queer Love” is reminiscent of any other marriage reality show — their struggles and triumphs with their partners (trial and otherwise) are not unlike those experienced by “Love Is Blind” competitors after they emerge from their pods and pair off. Commitment angst and the allure of potential new partners are reliable generators of the interpersonal drama that reality producers crave, no matter the makeup of the couples involved.“It was a real accurate representation of who I am and how I navigate the world,” said Mal Wright, left, with Yoly Rojas in “The Ultimatum: Queer Love.”Netflix
      Der and Woody had been in a breakup-makeup-breakup cycle for almost two years, Der said, when they were approached by a casting producer about participating in “Queer Love.”“I actually said no at first because I’m like, ‘Actually, we’re in a really bad spot right now, so I don’t think so, I’m sorry,’” Der said in an interview. “And then she goes, ‘No, actually that’s what we’re looking for.’”Goldberg said she was approached at just the right time in her relationship with her partner, Cheung-Sutton. “It was kind of this question of, do you have a relationship where one person is questioning or dragging their feet?” she said.As universal as relationship frustrations can be, “Queer Love” also captures the specific ways queer women and nonbinary people relate to one another — for example, spending time with one another’s exes, whether intentional or not, is common in such a small community. For straight viewers, the show serves as a kind of voyeuristic microcosm; for queer ones, it provides a more relatable analog to the messy behavior of heterosexual dating shows like “The Bachelor” or “Love Is Blind.”Cast members, who ranged in age from 25 to 42 when they filmed, said they were encouraged by the production’s general queer competency — several crew members on set were L.G.B.T.Q., including the director of photography — but some noted blind spots. Yoly Rojas, a first-generation Venezuelan immigrant, said she was excited to be “a brown Latina femme on television,” but she was disappointed that her partner, Mal Wright, was the only Black person in the cast.“I don’t think that’s a fair representation of the community,” Rojas said. “It just felt still a little bit whiter than what I would’ve liked.”Wright initially was concerned about being portrayed as an aggressor — a common TV fate for butch and more masculine-of-center women or nonbinary people. “I didn’t want to be portrayed in a way that wasn’t true to me,” Wright said.But after watching the full season, Wright, who uses they/them pronouns, felt reassured: “There was no angry trope that got attached to me,” they said. “So it was a real accurate representation of who I am and how I navigate the world.”One of the show’s stranger moves — and probably its most controversial one — was its choice of host. Nick and Vanessa Lachey co-host both “Love is Blind” and “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On,” but for “Queer Love,” Netflix brought in the actress JoAnna Garcia Swisher, a star of its show “Sweet Magnolias.” When Garcia Swisher is revealed as the host in the first episode, the cast appears surprised. It is Papa who finally pops the question: “Are you queer?”“I just wanted to know,” Papa, a fan of Garcia Swisher’s recurring role on her favorite show, “Freaks and Geeks,” said in an interview. “But she’s not, which is also great because now you have this mix of a queer cast and then this religious married-to-a-man host, so it’s like two worlds converging.”Other cast members were confused by the choice.“It took me a minute to warm up with Joanna because I didn’t get it,” Rojas said. “There’s no correlation to anything gay or to anything queer — like, it made no sense. But she’s a really sweet person, as understanding as one can be as a straight woman. She did her best.”Chris Coelen, an executive producer of the show, said Garcia Swisher had the most important quality for a host: curiosity. “Is JoAnna queer?” he said. “No, she’s not. Does she need to be to do a good job on show? I don’t think so.”The show puzzled some cast members and viewers by hiring a straight host, JoAnna Garcia Swisher.NetflixViewers of the show called out the strangeness of the hosting choice on social media. But overall “Queer Love” has been well-received and highly memed — praised by writers and viewers for giving queer women and nonbinary people a chance to see their own relationships reflected on an enormous platform like Netflix.“It’s all pretty standard reality show stuff,” Emma Specter wrote in Vogue. “But I wonder what it would have meant for me to watch 10 queer people date, break up, cry, have fun and drink disgusting-looking cocktails out of weird chrome glasses on TV in high school, when there were approximately zero out queer people in my actual life.”For the “Queer Love” cast, their appearances on the show came with a feeling of responsibility to not embarrass communities that historically have been ignored or misrepresented on TV. Goldberg, the youngest castmate, said the weight of the contestants displaying themselves in such a public way was palpable from their first group gathering.“It was kind of this unspoken thing,” Goldberg said. “Not that the stakes were higher, but that the importance of being good representatives was something we should consider day in and day out.”“But it doesn’t mean we don’t get to have relationships and feel and cry and deal with problems the way they arise,” Goldberg continued. “It just meant we do have to remember that this is important, and that there will be a lot of people that watch this and that look to this as a sense of normalcy in queer relationships that maybe they just never knew before.”Coelen, the executive producer, hopes “Queer Love,” in both its relatability and specificity, “lowers barriers between people in some way.”“Because people are people,” he continued. “And, like the ‌cliché, love is love, you know?” More

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      Anna Shay, Star of Netflix’s ‘Bling Empire,’ Dies at 62

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      A Los Angeles socialite and heiress to a defense contractor, she lived most of her life in private before joining a reality show.Anna Shay, an heiress and Los Angeles socialite who became a breakout star of the Netflix reality show “Bling Empire,” has died. She was 62.Her family confirmed her death to The Associated Press in a statement, which said the cause was a stroke. It was not immediately clear when or where she died.“It saddens our hearts to announce that Anna Shay, a loving mother, grandmother, charismatic star, and our brightest ray of sunshine, has passed away,” said the statement provided to The A.P. “Anna taught us many life lessons on how not to take life too seriously and to enjoy the finer things. Her impact on our lives will be forever missed but never forgotten.”“Bling Empire,” which ran for three seasons on Netflix starting in 2021, centered on wealthy Asian and Asian American fun seekers in Los Angeles and was billed as the real version of the movie “Crazy Rich Asians.” Ms. Shay appeared in 22 episodes, according to the Internet Movie Database.Jeff Jenkins, who produced the show and other reality hits like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” praised Ms. Shay’s performance in an interview with Town & Country magazine in 2021.“I consider it a personal gift that she agreed to participate,” he said. “But it’s also a gift to everybody watching.”Ms. Shay’s presence on the show was that of a sometimes intimidating, but well-loved matriarch. “Anna is nice to people,” Guy Tang, another cast member, said in one episode, “but you cross her line, she’s going to cut you.”Born in Japan, Ms. Shay was the daughter of Ai Oizumi Shay, who died in 2015, and Edward Albert Shay, who died in 1995. Her parents moved the family to Los Angeles from Tokyo in 1968, according to several news reports.Her father founded the defense contractor Pacific Architects and Engineers, which she and her brother Allen Shay sold to Lockheed Martin in 2006 for an estimated $700 million.Ms. Shay said on the show that she had been married and divorced four times.“I always meet people and then we become friends and that’s it,” Ms. Shay said, adding that all four spouses brought adventure to her life. (She met one of them when she was learning to fly helicopters, she said). Getting ready for a blind date on “Bling Empire,” she said she was open to marrying a fifth time. Ms. Shay never publicly shared her spouses’ identities.She is survived by a son, Kenny Kemp. A full list of survivors was not immediately available.Ms. Shay in a scene from “Bling Empire,” which ran on Netflix for three seasons.Netflix/Netflix, via Associated PressAfter the news of Ms. Shay’s death, her co-stars and other friends expressed their grief and posted tributes on social media.“We spent most of the pandemic together, slaying it on Rodeo Dr., grocery shopping, making Japanese plum wine and doing silly things,” Kane Lim, a fellow cast member who said he forged an off-camera friendship with Ms. Shay, wrote on Instagram.“You had a nonchalance about you that was mesmerizing,” he wrote. “I was lucky to get to know the real you.”She was known on “Bling Empire” for her personal style, a love for cooking and cutting zingers. In her first scene, she is seen sledgehammering a wall in her closet while wearing a red ball gown and a sparkling diamond necklace. When a friend asked what she was doing, she dryly answered, “I’m fixing my closet.”Ms. Shay was always surrounded by a security detail, including at her vast estate in Beverly Hills, something she said she had been used to from an early age as a member of a wealthy family.“My father, he was extremely protective as I was growing up,” Ms. Shay said on the show.Even though she spent much of her final years in front of cameras, she remained somewhat of a mystery. “Anna Shay can reach you, but you can’t reach Anna Shay,” Kelly Mi Li, another “Bling Empire” star, said on a podcast last year.“She was something special,” Pep Williams, an art photographer in Los Angeles, wrote on Facebook. “We used to race Ferraris and Lamborghinis from Beverly Hills to Palm Springs. So many good times just hanging out at the house talking about life, cars, and photography.”This spring, Netflix canceled “Bling Empire” as well as its spinoff, “Bling Empire: New York.”Mostly, Ms. Shay exuded a sense of confidence among the gossip and drama that the reality show inspires. “I don’t feel this need to compete,” she said in one episode. “I find it fiercely annoying.” More

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      Book Review: ‘Pageboy: A Memoir,’ by Elliot Page

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      In the “brutally honest” memoir “Pageboy,” the actor recounts the fears and obstacles to gender transition, and the hard-won happiness that’s followed.PAGEBOY: A Memoir, by Elliot PageThere’s a scene in the third season of Netflix’s hugely popular “The Umbrella Academy” where Elliot Page’s character, sporting a new, short haircut, walks up to the other members of the titular superhero team to suggest a plan.There’s a derisive response from one of them: “Who elected you, Vanya?”Page glances around, slightly tentative. “It’s, uh, Viktor.”“Who’s Viktor?”The subtitles describe “dramatic music playing” as members of the group eye one another. Page hesitates for a second. “I am. It’s who I’ve always been.” Another beat. “Uh, is that an issue for anyone?”There’s little hesitation: “Nah, I’m good with it.” “Yeah, me too.” “Cool.”And thus plays out what might be the most mundane — and yet quietly empowering — depiction of gender transition in popular culture I’ve ever seen. Were Page’s real-life journey to transition only as simple, straightforward or well received.Instead, as he details in a brutally honest memoir, “Pageboy,” his life story was marked by fear, self-doubt, U-turns, guilt and shame, before he ultimately seized control of his own narrative.A child actor from Canada who burst onto the scene at the age of 20 with a breakout performance in the title role of “Juno” in 2007, Page went on to take roles in films that ranged from indie (“Whip It,” “Freeheld”) to blockbusters (“Inception,” “X-Men: Days of Future Past”).But fame didn’t free him to explore his identity; instead it trapped him into a role studios wanted him to play, offscreen as well as on, as an attractive young starlet.Much of the memoir — told in non-sequential flashbacks and flash-forwards — centers on Page’s path to understand who he really was, against a backdrop of bullying, eating disorders, stalking, sexual harassment and assault. Page grew up in Nova Scotia, the child of divorced parents — a less than loving father and a mother hoping against hope for a more conventional child than the gender outlaw she seemed to be raising.“Can I be a boy?” Page asked his mother at the age of 6. He found escape in solitary play and a rich fantasy life that ultimately blossomed into a career as an actor.The nonlinear structure makes following a clear narrative difficult, but that’s less important than seeing, through his eyes, how Page slowly pieces together a clear sense of himself. In that, it follows a tradition of trans memoirs, from Jennifer Finney Boylan’s “She’s Not There” to Janet Mock’s “Redefining Realness” to Thomas Page McBee’s “Man Alive,” among others, that explore how we explore our identities.From furtive, closeted relationships — he relates how he held hands under a blanket with his then-partner as they were bused from location to location while working on a film together — to coming out as gay in 2014 (“more a necessity than a decision,” he writes), Page flirted with, but backed away several times from, the notion that he might be trans.“My shoulders opened, my heart was bare, I could be in the world in ways that felt impossible before,” he writes of coming out as gay. “But deep down an emptiness lurked. That undertone. Its whisper still ripe and in my ear.”It’s in that tortured, contradictory internal monologue — familiar to other trans people as we contemplate what seems to be an extraordinary, unimaginable truth — that “Pageboy” is most powerful. Page doesn’t really delve into questions of masculinity, or what it means to be a man, but he brings to life the visceral sense of gender dysphoria, or at least one type of dysphoria: the sense that your body is betraying you. It’s an utterly alien sensation for those who haven’t experienced it:Imagine the most uncomfortable, mortifying thing you could wear. You squirm in your skin. It’s tight, you want to peel it from your body, tear it off, but you can’t. Day in and day out. And if people are to learn what is underneath, who you are without all that pain, the shame would come flooding out, too much to hold. The voice was right, you deserve the humiliation. You are an abomination. You are too emotional. You are not real.Moments of joy pierce “Pageboy” as well: his first real queer kiss; scenes of passionate sex; the blossoming of his relationship with his mother after he came out; the reflection of his flat chest in the mirror.Page disclosed his transition in December 2020, a few weeks before I did the same. I suspect he, like me, had been prepared for a future where trans lives would be broadly accepted, or at least tolerated, albeit with sporadic incidents of hate. Both of us inhabit left-leaning spaces (media, movies) where the appearance of support is de rigueur.How could we have expected instead the tidal wave of anti-trans animus that is surging across the right, with hundreds of bills proposed — and some passed — in state legislatures that would in some cases bar adults from accessing trans care; undermine private insurance; allow medical personnel to discriminate against transgender patients; and restrict performances by drag performers and trans people, including possibly Page.Trans men and women are attacked in very different ways. Trans women are demonized as sexual predators; trans men, when people think of them at all, are portrayed as misguided and misled girls and women, confused and unable to understand their own identity. “When I came out in 2014, the vast majority of people believed me, they did not ask for proof,” Page writes. “But the hate and backlash I received were nothing compared to now.”It was an unwelcome regression to a time studios controlled his public persona: “I am sick of the creepy focus on my body and compulsion to infantilize (which I have always experienced, but nothing like this). And it isn’t just people online, or on the street, or strangers at a party, but good acquaintances and friends.”Still, Page has no shortage of fans as well, vociferous defenders of possibly the most famous trans man in the world, and one whose onscreen portrayal of a superhero offers an alternative conception of masculinity rooted in inner strength and sensitivity rather than brawn and muscles.His character’s arc from Vanya to Viktor offers hope, too, of a world where transition is matter-of-fact, accepted — and incidental. “Truly happy for you, Viktor,” another “Umbrella Academy” member concludes.Page and the showrunner Steven Blackman were at pains to ensure his character’s journey reflected the nuances of real trans lives, not least that being trans was a character trait, not the defining one. They brought in McBee to weave an authentic narrative into what was then an already tightly packed and carefully scripted season.In the memoir, Page reflects on his complex relationship with store windows, and his image in them — a reminder, pre-transition, of a body and identity he saw but did not want to inhabit. McBee crafted that memory into another telling “Umbrella Academy” scene, where Page’s Viktor pauses in front of a storefront and is asked what he sees.“Me.” A smile and a shrug. “Just me.”Truly happy for you, Elliot.Gina Chua is the executive editor at Semafor.PAGEBOY: A Memoir | By Elliot Page | 271 pp. | Flatiron Books | $29.99 More

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      Stream These 9 Shows and Movies Before They Leave Netflix in June

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      An eclectic mix of titles are leaving the service for U.S. subscribers by the end of the month. Catch them before they’re gone.In the month to come, Netflix in the United States will bid farewell to an eclectic mixture of genre movies, sketch comedy, reality TV and romantic comedies, as well as a beloved family feature and a documentary exploration of a peculiar corner of the entertainment industry. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘Bathtubs Over Broadway’ (June 8)One of the most delightful documentaries of recent years, this 2018 charmer chronicles how the “Late Show With David Letterman” writer Steve Young stumbled onto the long-forgotten world of “industrial musical theater”: original musical productions, created specifically for corporate events and solely to inspire sales, that nevertheless provided steady paychecks and opportunities for performers, composers and designers for decades. What begins as an ironic fringe interest, discovered while sifting through vinyl oddities, becomes something of an obsession for Young, and the film evolves into a quiet love letter to ephemeral art.Stream it here.‘The Mole’: Seasons 3-4 (June 13)One of Netflix most unexpected (but enjoyable) resurrection projects has been the reboot of the reality competition series “The Mole.” The streamer premiered its latest season, hosted by MSNBC’s Alex Wagner, last fall — 14 years after the show’s fifth and presumably final season aired on ABC. And for nostalgia’s sake, it also licensed the third and fourth of the original seasons. Those were the “Celebrity Mole” years, so viewers can enjoy the host Ahmad Rashad (the original host was Anderson Cooper) guiding viewers in the hunt for the saboteur among a group of decidedly mid-2000s celebs, including Stephen Baldwin, Angie Everhart, Kathy Griffin, Dennis Rodman and Frederique van der Wal.Stream it here.‘The Mist’ (June 21)The writer and director Frank Darabont’s third adaptation of Stephen King’s work was a far cry from his earlier, emotionally hefty, Oscar-courting films “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile”; if those were not what we think of as a “Stephen King movie,” this 2007 take on King’s 1980 novella certainly was. Set primarily in the supermarket of a small Maine town enveloped in a mysterious murky fog, the story features supernatural forces, killer creatures and protagonists cracking under pressure. It also features stellar performances from a stacked ensemble (including Andre Braugher, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Thomas Jane and Toby Jones) and one of the bleakest endings to ever sneak its way into a mainstream movie.Stream it here.‘Chappelle’s Show’: Seasons 1-2 (June 30)Say what you will about his current preoccupations (and there is much to say), but there’s no denying the impact, power and sheer comic virtuosity of Dave Chappelle’s Comedy Central sketch series, which scorched cable airwaves for these two brief seasons, from 2003 to 2004. (Chappelle notoriously walked off the show during production of its third season, with only enough material for three episodes in the can.) But in that brief time, a handful of memorable characters and sketches — including Chappelle’s impersonations of Rick James and Lil’ Jon and sketches about a blind Black white supremacist and a celebrity “racial draft” — became immediate comic sensations and pop culture reference points.Stream it here.‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’ (June 30)There may have been better early-2000s romantic comedies, but this 2003 hit from Donald Petrie may be the most early-2000s romantic comedy. All of the conventions are present and accounted for: an impossibly gorgeous, opposites-attract central couple (Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey); a plotline centering on a secret wager; Kathryn Hahn stealing scenes as our heroine’s BFF. But what it lacks in originality it makes up for in verve, with Hudson and McConaughey creating considerable sparks and Petrie directing with the proper, light-as-air touch.Stream it here.‘Jerry Maguire’ (June 30)In retrospect, it was really kind of genius — artistically and commercially — of the writer and director Cameron Crowe to combine the most stereotypically “dude flick” (the sports movie) with the most stereotypically “chick flick” (the romantic comedy). Yet by doing so, he proved how simplistic and suffocating such labels could be. In telling the story of a high-powered sports agent (Tom Cruise) whose nervous romance with a single mom (Renée Zellweger) makes him a better agent and a better man, Crowe drafted an unlikely Venn diagram, in which the common concerns of family, integrity and loyalty are of equal weight and audiences can’t help but root for both the underdog team and the unlikely couple.Stream it here.‘Puss in Boots’ (June 30)The “Shrek” movies made untold truckloads of money, but strangely, their most lasting cultural footprint seems to have come in the form of a side character who didn’t even appear until “Shrek 2.” Yet the suave, swashbuckling, Puss in Boots, voiced by Antonio Banderas, became not only one of the most popular characters in the series but also the star of his own delightful adventures. This 2011 treat offered the expected thrills and giggles for the little kids as well as some Easter eggs for their parents, including Banderas’s reunion with his “Desperado” co-star Salma Hayek and energetic voice performances by the likes of Guillermo del Toro, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Sedaris and Billy Bob Thornton.Stream it here.‘The Taking of Pelham 123’ (June 30)The original 1974 film adaptation of the crime novel “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” was so steeped in the specific circumstances of Fun City-era New York City that it was probably impossible for a remake to reanimate its specific, grimy thrills. But Tony Scott’s 2009 version offers up its own pleasures. Scott’s frequent leading man Denzel Washington brings tormented complexity to the grizzled hero, whose shift at M.T.A. dispatch is disrupted by a madman (John Travolta) whose crew takes over a subway car and holds its passengers hostage. And James Gandolfini is wonderful (and miles from Tony Soprano) as the city’s mayor.Stream it here.‘World War Z’ (June 30)Max Brooks’s 2006 novel about a zombie apocalypse was both a no-brainer for film adaptation (again, it details a zombie apocalypse) and a challenge, as so much of its power came from its epistolary-style, “oral history” structure. Those challenges made for something of a troubled production, and the stories of expensive reshoots and 11th-hour rewrites were so plentiful that it’s somewhat surprising the picture is as coherent as it is — well-crafted, tense and thrilling, alternating effective character beats with chilling set pieces.Stream it here.Also leaving: “Philomena” (June 19), “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” (June 29). More

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      How the Last Writers’ Strike Changed Things Onscreen

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      The impact included promising shows that lost their audiences, films rushed into production with flimsy scripts and turbocharging reality programming.The 2007 writers’ strike couldn’t have come at a worse time for the screenwriter Zack Stentz. After three years of being unemployed, Mr. Stentz was happily ensconced in a new job as an executive story editor on Fox’s “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.” He was working with a high-caliber group of writers on a show he described as “dark, thoughtful and weird.”Before the strike, the staff had successfully completed nine episodes of the show, which tracked the aftermath of events depicted in the blockbuster film “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” When the hourlong drama debuted in January 2008, it earned solid ratings and a loyal fan base. Still, Mr. Stentz, who has gone on to write for series like J.J. Abrams’s “Fringe” and Greg Berlanti’s “The Flash,” believes the 100-day strike ultimately sealed the show’s fate: a truncated two-season, 31-episode arc.“It was heartbreaking because we felt like we were doing something really special,” said Mr. Stentz, who recalled the show’s budgets being slashed during the second season, after the extended break caused ratings to plunge. “The conventional wisdom on the show is that it was ahead of its time and if it would have come out in the 2010s, it probably would have been a much bigger success.”“The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is just one of many television shows and movies whose fate was altered by the last writers’ strike, which cost the Los Angeles economy $2.1 billion in lost revenue. Movies like the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace,” “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” were among those rushed into production with unfinished scripts.Daniel Craig acknowledged he rewrote scenes for the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” while on set.Susie Allnutt/Columbia PicturesThings were so grim on “Quantum of Solace” that the star Daniel Craig later admitted to rewriting scenes himself while on set. The film’s director, Marc Forster, who declined to comment for this article, told the website Collider in 2016 that he considered quitting what was then his biggest budget movie to date.“At that time I wanted to pull out,” he said. “But everybody said, ‘No, we need to make a movie, the strike will be over shortly so you can start shooting what we have and then we’ll finish everything else.’”Not every project suffered because of the work stoppage. Take the series “Breaking Bad.” According to one of the show’s producers, Mark Johnson, the character of Jesse Pinkman, portrayed by Aaron Paul, was originally supposed to die in the final episode of the show’s first season.The strike, however, forced “Breaking Bad” to halt production after just seven episodes. And, Mr. Johnson recalled in a recent interview, once the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, realized how well the character played against Bryan Cranston’s chemistry teacher-turned-drug dealer Walter White, he decided to let him live.Jesse Pinkman lasted the entire 62-episode run, and Mr. Paul won three Emmys. “Because of the strike, we learned a lot about the show,” Mr. Johnson said. (Others have said the decision to keep Mr. Paul’s character was made before the strike, though other key plot elements of the show were adjusted.)The strike halted production on the first season of “Breaking Bad,” allowing major changes to be made to the plot arc of the show.Doug Hyun/AMCThe entertainment industry of today is much different from what it was 15 years ago, of course, and all the lessons learned during the last strike may not be applicable. Broadcast networks have cut back on scripted programming. Streaming services aren’t obligated to assemble a fall schedule. The major film studios have said they have enough movies in production to keep releasing them at a steady pace through the middle of 2024.“The dynamics are different now,” said Kevin Reilly, a veteran television executive. “Really, the only choke point is that at a certain point your development pipe gets a little bit dry. But I don’t think that’s even a speed bump in the streaming world. It would have to go on for at least six months for that to really start to feel the pressure. The same at the box office.”Studios have been leaning heavily into this narrative over the past few weeks. Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-chief executive, told investors during the company’s first-quarter earnings that because of its “large base of upcoming shows and films from around the world,” the streaming giant “can probably serve our members better than most.” Paramount Global’s chief executive, Bob Bakish, also said that the strike would have little impact on the company’s business in the short term.“We do have many levers to pull and that will allow us to manage through the strike even if it’s an extended duration,” he said during the company’s post-earnings conference call.Companies have said they have enough content in the pipeline to withstand the strike, but a prolonged work stoppage could have unforeseen consequences.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesBut a prolonged strike could have unforeseen effects just the same. Just one week into the shutdown, television shows like Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” HBO Max’s “Hacks” and Apple TV+’s “Loot” have halted production.It remains unclear how the studios will adjust should the strike be prolonged. As one writer, Joe McClean (“Resident Evil: Vendetta”), noted from the picket line last week, the 2007 strike led to a renewed boom in reality TV shows, which are relatively inexpensive to produce and don’t need writers.“There’s a pretty nice thread that can show that the last writers’ strike led to Donald Trump becoming president,” Mr. McClean said, referring to “Celebrity Apprentice,” which debuted in January 2008 and intensified Mr. Trump’s already significant television presence. “Because we had no writers and no good content on television, that was where all of the viewers were going, and it just elevated his star.” More

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      ‘The Mother’ Review: Are You My Sniper?

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      At the heart of this action-thriller, an expert killer, played by Jennifer Lopez, must rescue her daughter at all costs.A movie called “The Mother” is sure to have a lot of symbolism and this action-thriller, starring Jennifer Lopez as a trained killer who must protect the daughter she gave up, has plenty.In the opening scenes, Lopez’s character, known only as the Mother, is interrogated by F.B.I. agents who are trying to get information on two arms dealers she has worked, and slept, with. Agent Cruise (Omari Hardwick) is respectful. The other agent (Link Baker), not so much — and tells her so with a hectoring monologue. (One of the film’s guilty pleasures becomes anticipating when a mansplainer will get hushed.)In Niki Caro’s fast-paced film, Agent Cruise assures the Mother she’s safe. “No I’m not,” she says. Guess who’s right? Mayhem ensues and, in an act, stunning for its swift violence, we learn the Mother is pregnant. The newborn, Zoe, is placed with a loving family, and the Mother retreats to Alaska where the fellow soldier Jons (Paul Raci) has her back.This arrangement has kept the Mother and child safe for 12 years when Agent Cruise reaches out with news that Zoe (Lucy Paez) has been found by the Mother’s former partners: Adrian Lovell (Joseph Fiennes) and Hector Alvarez (Gael García Bernal). Lovell is a nasty-smooth piece of work. As Alvarez, Bernal basks in some candlelit cruelty when the action shifts to Cuba.What kind of resistance will the men encounter? Lovell trained the Mother as a sniper in Afghanistan. She also knows how to twist a blade.They shouldn’t fool with the Mother’s nature. Apart from some deadpan exchanges between the Mother and Zoe, Lopez plays the role fierce. Even so, it isn’t always clear which gestures in the film should be taken seriously, and which make sport of the genre’s masculine posturing while offering an allegory about a birth mother’s sacrifice.The MotherRated R for gun and knife violence, some language and brief drug use. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More