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Tag: Animation and comics

  • Movie Review: In the Oscar-nominated ‘Arco,’ an apocalypse kids can get behind

    In all the dystopian visions of the future that the movies have trotted out over the last few decades, the one that sticks the most, surprisingly, is “WALL-E.” That’s not just because of the chastening sight of an over-polluted Earth or those sedentary humans glued to their screens. It’s because those quite plausible possibilities mean something different in a kids movie. It’s their future, after all.

    Some of the same can be said about Ugo Bienvenu’s “Arco,” a charming and dreamy sci-fi animated movie where environmental catastrophe and cartoony fun collide. Like “WALL-E,” there are heroic robots in “Arco,” an Oscar nominee for best animated feature. But it’s the film’s plucky young protagonists that give Bienvenu’s future-set film its heart.

    The film opens in a distant future where a family lives on “Jetsons”-like platforms in the clouds. They wear drab onesies (fashion sense has seemingly been lost along with the Earth’s surface) but sport rainbow cloaks that enable them to fly through time, leaving a rainbow streak behind.

    Though 10-year-old Arco (voiced by Juliano Krue Valdi in the English dub) has been told he can’t fly until he’s older, he sneaks off with his sister’s cape and, hoping for a glimpse of the dinosaurs, accidentally crash lands in 2075.

    “Arco” is the unusual movie to exist in two future times, never our present. And it can take a moment to acclimate to both its jumbled timeline and the sheer amount of rainbows. But Bienvenu, a French comic-book artist making his directorial debut, richly imagines a 2075 future of recognizable extremes.

    Storms have become so violent that homes now have protective bubbles around them. Adults work such long hours in a distant city that they are usually mere holograms to their kids — an image that will send shudders down the spine of any parent who Zooms from a work trip. For Iris (voiced by Romy Fay) and her baby brother, the family robot does most of the parenting. In fact, robots do most things: teaching, construction, medical aid.

    Iris, a sharp young girl, sees Arco’s rainbow fly into the woods and runs to find him. At the same time, three bumbling, oddly dressed fellows, dressed in primary colors and wearing rainbow glasses, come looking for him. This trio — voiced in the English dub by Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg and Flea — are a goofy and very French addition to the movie. Ferrell and company are a marked improvement from the original.

    But there’s no harm in giving “Arco” some Saturday-morning-cartoon slapstick to go with the apocalyptic doom. Those three, believing they’re hot on a time-travel trail, stay in pursuit while Arco and Iris develop a friendship and learn about each’s eras.

    Parents remain largely absent. In “Arco,” kids are left to fend for themselves in a world of technology and ecological disaster. (In one of the movie’s most damning moments, the kids find refuge in a library because no one goes in there anymore.) But while there’s no shortage of films that comment on our overly digital lives, technology is far from a villain in “Arco.” It is closer to the savior.

    So while Bienvenu’s film bears similarities to movies before it — Arco is far from the first future boy to fall from the sky — it’s the first that I recall that so directly confronts ecological apocalypse and yet still finds a thrillingly optimistic note to end on. Thrilling because it puts the future in the hands of the young. “Arco” dares to imagine, for them, a rainbow after the storm.

    “Arco,” a Neon release in theaters Friday, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for action/peril, mild thematic elements and a brief injury image. Running time: 89 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

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  • Box Office: ‘28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ opens behind ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’

    “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” may have scored well with critics, but slightly more moviegoing audiences chose to spend the holiday weekend catching up with “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” James Cameron’s epic topped the North American box office charts for the fifth straight weekend with $13.3 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Walt Disney Co. also celebrated another win as their Thanksgiving release “Zootopia 2” became the highest grossing animated Motion Picture Association release of all time.

    Meanwhile “The Bone Temple,” directed by Nia DaCosta, landed in second place with $13 million through Sunday. By the end of Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, it’s expected to be at $15 million, still trailing “Avatar’s” projected $17.2 million. The film, released by Sony Pictures and starring Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell, opened wide this weekend in 3,506 theaters on a wave of hype and strong reviews. It currently has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 72% of audiences said in a PostTrak poll that they would “definitely recommend” the movie. Considering it’s also solidly in the horror genre and arriving in January, often a dumping ground for lesser movies, “The Bone Temple” should have done better. Internationally, it made $16.2 million from 61 markets.

    But perhaps in a case of too much too soon, the sequel also comes less than a year after the previous installment, “28 Years Later,” which opened to $30 million in June. Going into the weekend, “The Bone Temple” was expected to make at least $20 million through Monday. With a reported $63 million production budget, not including marketing and promotion, it also has a long journey to break even.

    “It’s one of those head-scratchers,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends for Comscore. “There may be a little bit of confusion from audiences. But word-of-mouth might sustain it in this marketplace, like we saw with ‘The Housemaid’ and ‘Zootopia 2.’”

    Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, the team who started it all with “28 Days Later,” which came out in 2002, are also working on a third installment.

    Third place went to “Zootopia 2,” with $8.8 million in its eighth weekend. With global grosses currently at $1.7 billion, it surpassed “Inside Out 2” as the highest grossing MPA animated release of all time. The MPA distinction means that the Chinese blockbuster “Ne Zha 2,” which has made over $2.2 billion, is not included in the rankings. “Zootopia 2” is also now the ninth biggest global release of all time

    “The Housemaid,” one of the other major blockbusters of late, landed in fourth place with $8.5 million. Made for only $35 million, the Lionsgate release has grossed nearly $250 million worldwide.

    Rounding out the top five was “Marty Supreme,” which became A24’s highest grossing North American release with a running gross of $79.7 million, unseating “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Josh Safdie’s mid-century adrenaline rush may get another boost after Oscar nominations are announced Thursday.

    “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Towers” were also back in theaters this weekend and both in the top 10, grossing $3.6 million and $2.4 million respectively.

    Outside of the top 10, Focus Features’ “Hamnet,” which won best drama and best female actor for Jessie Buckley at the Golden Globes last weekend and is considered another top Oscar contender, expanded to 718 locations this weekend where it made $1.3 million through Sunday.

    With final domestic figures being released Tuesday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore:

    1. “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” $13.3 million.

    2. “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” $13 million.

    3. “Zootopia 2,” $8.8 million.

    4. “The Housemaid,” $8.5 million

    5. “Marty Supreme,” $5.5 million.

    6. “Primate,” $5 million.

    7. “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” $3.6 million.

    8. “Greenland 2: Migration,” $3.4 million.

    9. “Anaconda,” $3.2 million.

    10. “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” $2.4 million.

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  • ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ tops box office for fourth straight week

    LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Avatar: Fire and Ash” kept on smoldering at the box office, taking the top spot for a fourth straight week on a relatively quiet weekend as the January doldrums began setting in for the industry.

    The third chapter in James Cameron’s Pandora epic brought in $21.3 million in North American theaters for The Walt Disney Co., according to studio estimates Sunday.

    In total after four weeks, “Fire and Ash” has grossed $342.6 million in North America and $888 million in the rest of the world. Last week it joined its two predecessors as a billion-dollar earner.

    The week’s top-grossing new release was Paramount Pictures rampaging-chimp horror film “Primate,” which earned $11.3 million domestically.

    Disney’s “Zootopia 2” has shown remarkable staying power since its November release. It continues to be a global juggernaut and a sensation in China. Globally, the animated sequel has piled up $1.65 billion. That put it just on the edge of becoming Disney’s highest grossing animated movie ever, trailing only the $1.66 billion brought in by 2019’s photorealistic “The Lion King.”

    In its seventh week, it was fourth at the North American box office with $10.1 million for a domestic total of $378.8 million.

    The Sydney Sweeney-driven thriller “The Housemaid” continues to be a good earner for Lionsgate, which earlier this week greenlit a sequel. It collected $11.2 million in North America in its fourth weekend for a total of $94.15 million after costing just $35 million to make.

    The figures came on a Sunday when much of Hollywood’s attention is on the Golden Globe Awards. “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and “Zootopia 2” are nominated for two awards apiece.

    But among contenders in top categories at the Globes, only A24’s “Marty Supreme” is in this weekend’s box office top 10, finishing sixth with a $7.6 million take and a $70.1 million four-week total in North America.

    It’s nominated for best picture musical or comedy, with star Timothée Chalamet nominated for best actor in a comedy and cowriter and director Josh Safdie nominated for best screenplay.

    On the whole, Hollywood started 2026 strongly. Revenues this weekend were up 23% from the same weekend in 2025, according to data firm Comscore. And the 2026 total so far is also up 23% from last year.

    The movie industry is coming off a poor 2025, where domestic moviegoing continued to slide. But studios are hoping 2026 could be the best box-office year of the decade as they await the releases of new “Avengers,” “Spider-Man,” “Toy Story,” “Super Mario Bros” and “Dune” movies.

    With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

    1. “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” $21.3 million.

    2. “Primate,” $ 11.3 million

    3. “The Housemaid,” $11.2 million.

    4. “Zootopia 2,” $10.1 million.

    5. “Greenland 2: Migration,” $8.5 million

    6. “Marty Supreme,” $7.6 million.

    7. “Anaconda,” $5.1 million.

    8. “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,” $3.8 million.

    9. “David,” $3.1 million.

    10. “Song Sung Blue,” $3 million.

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  • Betty Boop and ‘Blondie’ enter the public domain in 2026, accompanied by a trio of detectives

    LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Betty Boop and “Blondie” are joining Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh in the public domain.

    The first appearances of the classic cartoon and comic characters are among the pieces of intellectual property whose 95-year U.S. copyright maximum has been reached, putting them in the public domain on Jan. 1. That means creators can use and repurpose them without permission or payment.

    The 2026 batch of newly public artistic creations doesn’t quite have the sparkle of the recent first entries into the public domain of Mickey or Winnie. But ever since 2019 — the end of a 20-year IP drought brought on by congressional copyright extensions — every annual crop has been a bounty for advocates of more work belonging to the public.

    “It’s a big year,” said Jennifer Jenkins, law professor and director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, for whom New Year’s Day is celebrated as Public Domain Day. “It’s just the sheer familiarity of all this culture.”

    Jenkins said that, collectively, this year’s work shows “the fragility that was between the two wars and the depths of the Great Depression.”

    Here’s a closer look at what will enter the public domain on Thursday, based on the research of Jenkins and her center.

    Betty Boop began as a dog. Seriously.

    When she first appears in the 1930 short “Dizzy Dishes,” one of four of her cartoons entering the public domain, she’s already totally recognizable as the Jazz Age flapper later memorialized in countless tattoos, T-shirts and bumper stickers. She has her baby face, short hair with groomed curls, flashy eyelashes and miniature mouth. But she’s also got dangling poodle ears and a tiny black nose. Those would soon morph into dangling earrings and a tiny white nose.

    She started as essentially the Minnie Mouse to a popular anthropomorphic dog named Bimbo, whom she would eventually outshine — and push aside. She’s got a supporting role in “Dizzy Dishes,” performing a slinky song-and-dance in a tiny black dress. She’s not named, but sings “boop boop, a doop.”

    Jenkins suggests this canine Betty Boop could be rich for exploitation in new works, and has a free idea: “She was bitten by a radioactive dog, that’s why she had this weird backstory,” she said with a laugh. “This movie needs to be made.”

    The character was designed and owned by Fleischer Studios, and the shorts were released by Paramount Pictures. She was based at least in part on singer Helen Kane, known as the “Boop-Oop-a-Doop Girl,” thanks to a hit 1929 song. Kane would lose a lawsuit over Betty Boop’s character and use of the phrase. During the proceedings the defense alleged Black singer Esther Lee Jones used similar phrases first.

    Artists are now free to use this earliest Boop in films and similar work. But making merch won’t be free. In an important distinction often raised by Disney over Mickey Mouse, a character’s trademark is distinct from the copyright of works that feature them. The Fleischer Productions trademark of Betty Boop remains intact.

    Boops and doops were apparently in the air in 1930. Blondie Boopadoop was, like Betty, a young flapper, and the central character of Chic Young’s newspaper comic strip that debuted in 1930. It inspired a film series and radio show, and is still running today in papers that still have comics.

    The strip followed her carefree breeze through life with her boyfriend, Dagwood Bumstead. The two would marry (and she would change her name) in 1933, and the strip would become the sandwich-heavy domestic comedy familiar to later readers. Though the strip was meant to be based on a woman’s life, Dagwood would in many ways become its breakout star — a proto- Adam Driver, if you will, as the breakout actor from “Girls.”

    Nine new Mickey Mouse cartoons also are becoming public domain, two years after “Steamboat Willie” made the first version of him public property. He’s joined this year by his dog Pluto, who, in 1930, was known as Rover. (He would get his long-term moniker the following year.)

    The books entering the public domain this year open the door to three iconic detectives from the 20th century:

    — The teen sleuth Nancy Drew, whose first four books came in 1930, starting with “The Secret of the Old Clock.” They were written by Mildred Benson under the pen name Carolyn Keene.

    — The middle-aged(-ish) sleuth Sam Spade, who debuted via the full-book version of Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon.” (It had been serialized in a magazine the previous year.)

    — The elderly sleuth Miss Marple, who solves her first mystery in Agatha Christie’s “Murder at the Vicarage.”

    A year after his “The Sound and the Fury” became public, William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” becomes public domain. It would help lead to his Nobel Prize in literature.

    And kiddie lit legends Dick and Jane, who taught generations to read and became essential parody fodder for decades, become public via the “Elson Basic Readers” textbooks.

    A year after their film debut, “The Cocoanuts,” entered the public domain, the Marx Brothers’ beloved “Animal Crackers” joins it, as they entered their prime of high cinematic antics. The film finds Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo invading a Long Island society party celebrating an explorer of Africa.

    Other movies entering the public domain include:

    — “The Blue Angel,” the German film from Josef von Sternberg that emblazoned Marlene Dietrich’s top-hatted image into film lore.

    — “King of Jazz,” featuring the first screen appearance of Bing Crosby.

    — A pair of Oscar best picture winners, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which won in 1930, and “Cimarron,” which won in 1931. The award was known as “Outstanding Production” then, and the Academy Awards eligibility period didn’t sync with the calendar year.

    The coming decade will bring a true bounty of Hollywood Golden Age films into the public domain. 2027 will be a truly monster year, literally, with the original 1931 Universal Pictures versions of “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” among the titles due.

    As in the last several years, a whistle-worthy stream of tunes from the Great American Songbook will become public:

    — Four cherished classics written by George Gershwin, with lyrics by his brother Ira: “Embraceable You,” “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” “But Not for Me” and “I Got Rhythm.”

    — “Georgia on My Mind,” written by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell.

    — “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” written by Gus Kahn, Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt.

    Different laws regulate the actual recordings of songs, and those newly in the public domain this week date to 1925. They include Rodgers and Hart’s “Manhattan” by the Knickerbockers, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” by Marian Anderson and “The St. Louis Blues” by Bessie Smith, featuring Louis Armstrong.

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  • ‘Zootopia 2’ reclaims No. 1 spot at box office, grosses $1B worldwide

    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — “Zootopia 2” regained the No. 1 spot at the domestic box office with $26.3 million in its third weekend of release, according to studio estimates Sunday, as The Walt Disney Co. animated sequel became the year’s second film to gross $1 billion worldwide.

    With “Avatar: Fire and Ash” arriving Friday, it was a relatively quiet weekend in theaters. There were no major new releases, leaving holdovers “Zootopia 2” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” to duke it out for the top spot.

    The edge went to “Zootopia 2,” which has quickly amassed $1.14 billion in global ticket sales thanks significantly to its enormous success in China. There, it’s grossed $502.4 million, making “Zootopia 2” the biggest Hollywood hit in the country in years.

    The only other 2025 Hollywood title to surpass $1 billion worldwide was Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” ($1.04 billion). The highest grossing movie of the year, though, is the Chinese blockbuster “Ne Zha 2,” which collected nearly $2 billion just in China.

    In its second weekend of release, the Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions sequel “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” collected $15.4 million, a brutal drop of 70% from its above-expectations debut. Still, with a domestic total of $95.5 million, the $36 million production is a big win for Blumhouse, adding another horror franchise to its portfolio.

    The weekend’s most notable new release was James L. Brook’s “Ella McCay,” his first directed film in 15 years. “Ella McCay” earned a scant $2.1 million from 2,500 locations, making it one of the year’s worst wide releases.

    But box-office expectations weren’t high coming in from “Ella McCay,” a comic drama about a 34-year-old woman (newcomer Emma Mackey) who becomes governor of her home state. Reviews (22% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes) were poor, and the kind of award-winning comic dramas movies that Brooks (“Terms of Endearment,” “Broadcast News”) has long specialized in today seldom find large audiences in theaters. “Ella McCay,” featuring a supporting cast including Jamie Lee Curtis, Ayo Edebiri and Woody Harrelson, cost $35 million to make.

    With overall ticket sales on the year running close to even with last year’s disappointing grosses, according to Comscore data, Hollywood will be hoping the coming holiday corridor, traditionally the busiest moviegoing period of the year, ends 2025 on a high note. Movies on tap include “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,” “Marty Supreme,” “Anaconda” and “Song Sung Blue.”

    With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

    1. “Zootopia 2,” $26.3 million.

    2. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” $19.5 million.

    3. “Wicked: For Good,” $8.6 million.

    4. “Dhurandhar,” $3.5 million.

    5. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” $2.4 million.

    6. “Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution,” $2.1 million.

    7. “Ella McCay,” $ 2.1 million.

    8. “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000), $1.9 million.

    9. “Eternity,” $1.8 million.

    10. “Hamnet,” $1.5 million.

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  • ‘Zootopia 2’ reclaims No. 1 spot at box office, grosses $1B worldwide

    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — “Zootopia 2” regained the No. 1 spot at the domestic box office with $26.3 million in its third weekend of release, according to studio estimates Sunday, as The Walt Disney Co. animated sequel became the year’s second film to gross $1 billion worldwide.

    With “Avatar: Fire and Ash” arriving Friday, it was a relatively quiet weekend in theaters. There were no major new releases, leaving holdovers “Zootopia 2” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” to duke it out for the top spot.

    The edge went to “Zootopia 2,” which has quickly amassed $1.14 billion in global ticket sales thanks significantly to its enormous success in China. There, it’s grossed $502.4 million, making “Zootopia 2” the biggest Hollywood hit in the country in years.

    The only other 2025 Hollywood title to surpass $1 billion worldwide was Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” ($1.04 billion). The highest grossing movie of the year, though, is the Chinese blockbuster “Ne Zha 2,” which collected nearly $2 billion just in China.

    In its second weekend of release, the Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions sequel “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” collected $15.4 million, a brutal drop of 70% from its above-expectations debut. Still, with a domestic total of $95.5 million, the $36 million production is a big win for Blumhouse, adding another horror franchise to its portfolio.

    The weekend’s most notable new release was James L. Brook’s “Ella McCay,” his first directed film in 15 years. “Ella McCay” earned a scant $2.1 million from 2,500 locations, making it one of the year’s worst wide releases.

    But box-office expectations weren’t high coming in from “Ella McCay,” a comic drama about a 34-year-old woman (newcomer Emma Mackey) who becomes governor of her home state. Reviews (22% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes) were poor, and the kind of award-winning comic dramas movies that Brooks (“Terms of Endearment,” “Broadcast News”) has long specialized in today seldom find large audiences in theaters. “Ella McCay,” featuring a supporting cast including Jamie Lee Curtis, Ayo Edebiri and Woody Harrelson, cost $35 million to make.

    With overall ticket sales on the year running close to even with last year’s disappointing grosses, according to Comscore data, Hollywood will be hoping the coming holiday corridor, traditionally the busiest moviegoing period of the year, ends 2025 on a high note. Movies on tap include “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,” “Marty Supreme,” “Anaconda” and “Song Sung Blue.”

    With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

    1. “Zootopia 2,” $26.3 million.

    2. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” $19.5 million.

    3. “Wicked: For Good,” $8.6 million.

    4. “Dhurandhar,” $3.5 million.

    5. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” $2.4 million.

    6. “Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution,” $2.1 million.

    7. “Ella McCay,” $ 2.1 million.

    8. “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000), $1.9 million.

    9. “Eternity,” $1.8 million.

    10. “Hamnet,” $1.5 million.

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  • Rick Atkinson’s Revolutionary War trilogy to be adapted into graphic editions

    Military historian Rick Atkinson, known for his Revolutionary War trilogy, is venturing into graphic books

    NEW YORK — Prize-winning military historian Rick Atkinson, a comic book fan growing up, hadn’t imagined his own work being suitable for the illustrated format.

    Ten Speed Graphic announced Tuesday that a graphic edition of “The British Are Coming,” the first volume of Atkinson’s acclaimed Revolutionary War trilogy, will be out next June, shortly before the country’s 250th anniversary. Five more graphic books are planned, to be written by Nora Neus and illustrated by Federico Pietrobon, with Atkinson in close collaboration.

    “They are entirely amenable to my suggestions, ‘This isn’t quite right,’ or ‘I think this needs to be explained,’” Atkinson told The Associated Press. “With the drawings, I pointed out that John Adams, at the time the revolution began was a relatively young man. And they had made him look like the paunchy, bald John Adams of the vice presidency. And they fixed it.”

    Atkinson, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his World War II book “An Army at Dawn,” has been working on his revolutionary trilogy for a decade and published the second volume, “The Fate of the Day,” this spring. Widely regarded as among the best living military historians, he was a featured commentator in Ken Burns’ “The American Revolution” documentary and has made numerous joint appearances with the filmmaker. He is currently working on the final book of his trilogy.

    The author says that he was initially skeptical about the new project. With early memories of Superman comics, he wondered how any illustrator might adapt deeply-researched books that run longer than 500 pages. But the graphic format has been used on everything from “The Odyssey” to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Atkinson changed his mind after Ten Speed Graphic, a Penguin Random House imprint, sent him several adaptations, including of the life of Frederick Douglass and Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny.”

    “I saw that the comic books of my youth have evolved considerably and I was enthused about it,” Atkinson said. “They said, ‘We acknowledge this is serious history that you do. We don’t intend to dumb it down. Our ambition is to widen the audience, to pitch this story of the American founding to an audience that perhaps might be intimidated by a 560 page book.’”

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  • Comic books once stoked fears of crime, but a California city wants to confront that history

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — On a recent day at Sacramento native Lecho Lopez’s comic shop in the city, his 5-year-old nephew read his first word aloud: “bad.” It was from a graphic novel.

    There was irony in that being his first word, because Lopez credits comic books with many positive things in his life. That’s why he supports repealing a city ordinance dating back to 1949 that bars the distribution of many comic books to kids and teens. It’s not enforced today.

    “It’s a silly law,” said Lopez, who has a red-and-black tattoo of the Superman logo on his forearm, in an interview at his store, JLA Comics. “A lot of good things come out of comic books.”

    A City Council committee unanimously voted this week to advance the repeal and designate the third week of September as “Sacramento Comic Book Week.” It now heads to the full council for a vote. The ban applies to comic books prominently featuring an account of crime that show images of illegal acts such as arson, murder or rape.

    In the mid-20th century, as comic books were on the rise, fears spread over their impact on children, with some arguing they could lead to illiteracy or inspire violent crime. The industry decided to regulate itself, and local governments — from Los Angeles County to Lafayette, Louisiana — passed bans to shield certain comics from young people. While some cities like Sacramento still have those laws on the books, they are rarely if ever enforced.

    Now, proponents of repealing the Sacramento law say it’s necessary to reflect the value of comics and help protect against a modern wave of book bans.

    Comic book author Eben Burgoon, who started a petition to overturn Sacramento’s ban, said comics “have this really valuable ability to speak truth to power.”

    “These antiquated laws kind of set up this jeopardy where bad actors could work hard to make this medium imperiled,” he said at a hearing Tuesday held by the city council’s Law and Legislation Committee.

    Sacramento is a great place to devote a week to celebrating comics, Burgoon said. The city has a “wonderful” comic book community, he said, and hosts CrockerCon, a comics showcase at a local art museum, every year.

    Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, said “there is no good reason” to have a ban such as Sacramento’s on the books, saying it “flies in the face of modern First Amendment norms.”

    The movement to censor comics decades ago was not an aberration in U.S. history, said Jeff Trexler, interim director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which fights to protect the free-speech rights of people who read or make comics.

    New York, for example, created a commission in the 1920s dedicated to reviewing films to determine whether they should be licensed for public viewing, based on whether they were “obscene” or “sacrilegious” and could “corrupt morals” or “incite crime,” according to the state archives.

    “Every time there’s a new medium or a new way of distributing a medium, there is an outrage and an attempt to suppress it,” Trexler said.

    The California Supreme Court ruled in 1959 that a Los Angeles County policy banning the sale of so-called “crime” comic books to minors was unconstitutional because it was too broad. Sacramento’s ban probably doesn’t pass muster for the same reason, Trexler said.

    There’s not a lot of recent research on whether there’s a link between comic books and violent behavior, said Christopher Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University in Florida. But, he said, similar research into television and video games has not shown a link to “clinically relevant changes in youth aggression or violent behavior.”

    Leafing through comics like EC Comics’ “Epitaphs from the Abyss” and DC’s and Marvel’s collaboration “Batman/Deadpool,” Lopez showed an Associated Press reporter images of characters smashing the windshield of a car, smacking someone across the face and attacking Batman using bows and arrows — the kinds of scenes that might be regulated if Sacramento’s ban were enforced.

    But comics with plot lines that include violence can contain positive messages, said Benjamin Morse, a media studies lecturer at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

    “Spider-Man is a very mature concept,” said Morse, who became an “X-Men” fan as a kid and later worked at Marvel for 10 years. “It’s a kid who’s lost his parents, his uncle dies to violence and he vows to basically be responsible.”

    Lopez’s mother bought him his first comic book, “Ultimate Spider-Man #1,” when he was around 9 years old, he said. But it was “Kingdom Come,” a comic featuring DC’s Justice League, that changed his life at a young age, with its “hyper-realistic” art that looked like nothing he’d ever seen before, he said.

    He said his interest in comic books helped him avoid getting involved with gangs growing up. They also improved his reading skills as someone with dyslexia.

    “The only thing that I was really able to read that helped me absorb the information was comic books because you had a visual aid to help you explain what was going on in the book,” Lopez said.

    And a comic book can offer so much more, Burgoon said at this week’s hearing.

    “It makes imaginative thinkers,” he said. “It does not make widespread delinquency. It does not make societal harm.”

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  • ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ is officially eligible for the Oscars

    “KPop Demon Hunters” is one step closer to another golden moment: The Oscars. The Netflix phenomenon is among 35 films features eligible for the animated feature film category at the 98th Academy Awards.

    The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released on Friday lists of all the films eligible for animated, documentary and international feature prizes at next year’s Oscars.

    Though “KPop Demon Hunters” made its name on Netflix, it also received a qualifying theatrical run in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco in June, which satisfied the film academy’s requirements for Oscar consideration. Its UK theatrical run was not enough to qualify for the BAFTAs, however.

    Other animated titles that qualified for the Oscars animated feature category were Neon’s “Arco,” Disney’s “Elio” and “Zootopia 2,” GKids’ “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain,” Netflix’s “In Your Dreams” and Crunchyroll/Sony’s “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” and “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc.” Notably, the Chinese blockbuster “Ne Zha 2” was not among the 35 titles listed.

    “KPop Demon Hunters,” which Netflix has said is its most watched film of all time, has amassed more than 541 million hours viewed worldwide. It’s the highest charting soundtrack of 2025 with eight of its songs landing on the Billboard Hot 100. It also made a splash in theaters in August where it was estimated to have made around $18 million (which would have topped the charts if Netflix released theatrical earnings) and got a subsequent release over Halloween weekend. Netflix won their first animated feature Oscar in 2022 for “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.”

    There are also 201 documentaries and 86 international features eligible, including “Sentimental Value” (Norway), “Sirât” (Spain), “The Secret Agent” (Brazil), “It Was Just an Accident” (France), “The Voice of Hind Rajab” (Tunisia) and “My Father’s Shadow” (United Kingdom). “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” a co-production between the AP and PBS Frontline, is eligible in both categories. Both documentary and international titles will be winnowed to a 10-film shortlist that will be revealed on Dec. 16.

    “KPop Demon Hunters” fans will have to wait for nomination morning on Jan. 22 to hear whether or not they made the cut for animated feature. It’s largely expected to be a player in the original song category as well, where “Golden” is among the songs being submitted.

    The 98th Oscars will air live on ABC on March 15 at 7 p.m. ET.

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  • ‘Chainsaw Man’ anime film topples Springsteen biopic, ‘Black Phone 2’ at box office

    LOS ANGELES — A big-screen adaptation of the popular anime “Chainsaw Man” has beaten out a biopic about the Boss and the horror sequel “Black Phone 2” to top the North American box office.

    It’s the latest win for an anime film, less than two months after “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle” debuted to a record $70 million, setting a new high mark for anime in theaters.

    “Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc” claimed the No. 1 spot by earning $17.25 million at theaters in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, according to Comscore. “Black Phone 2” fell to No. 2 with $13 million in its second week.

    Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” the first biopic about the rock legend, earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million respectively. “Tron: Ares” rounded out the top five with $4.9 million at the box office, according to studio-reported estimates released by Comscore.

    “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is a self-contained movie adaptation of the popular manga series about a demon hunter whose arms and head can transform into chain saws. Part love story, part hack-and-saw adventure, the movie is a self-contained story based on the manga series created by Tatsuki Fujimoto and adapted into an anime series in 2022.

    It’s another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released “Infinity Castle” last month.

    “Deliver Me From Nowhere” stars Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen, focusing on the Boss’ struggles while creating his “Nebraska” album, released in 1982. White had to learn to play the guitar and had little singing experience before taking on playing Springsteen, who was involved in the production.

    The film earned a B+ score on Cinemascore, while “Chainsaw Man” scored an A from audiences.

    “Black Phone 2” stars Ethan Hawke and Mason Thames in the sequel to hit 2021 original. It’s now earned nearly $50 million domestically.

    “Regretting You,” a tragicomedy starring Dave Franco, Alison Williams, Scott Eastwood and Thames, is the latest adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel.

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  • What to Stream: Gucci Mane, ‘Loot,’ Danielle Deadwyler, Pokémon and ‘The Diplomat’

    A new Pokémon game and Danielle Deadwyler starring in the apocalyptic thriller “40 Acres” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Rapper Gucci Mane returns with a new full-length titled “Episodes,” an animated Roald Dahl adaptation and Keri Russell’s political drama “The Diplomat” premieres its third season.

    — An animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “The Twits” is coming to Netflix on Friday, Oct. 17. The mean, hateful couple are voiced by Johnny Vegas and Margo Martindale, in this film about their rise to power in the city and the group of children who team up to fight for goodness. Animation veteran Phil Johnson (“Wreck-It Ralph,” “Zootopia”) directed and co-wrote the film, which features a starry voice cast including Natalie Portman, Emilia Clarke and Jason Mantzoukas. David Byrne also contributed some new songs, with Paramore’s Hayley Williams.

    — Danielle Deadwyler stars in the apocalyptic thriller “40 Acres” about a family, the Freemans, surviving on a farm while the rest of society has collapsed in the wake of plagues and wars. But their survivalist existence is put in jeopardy when her eldest son meets a woman outside of their property. It will be on Hulu starting Friday, Oct. 17.

    — Two standout Sundance documentaries are also worth checking out. “The Alabama Solution,” about horrifying conditions in the Alabama prison system, is already streaming on HBO Max. The Associated Press has written extensively about the problems in the state’s prison system, including high rates of violence, low staffing, a plummeting parole rate and the use of pandemic funds to build a new supersized prison. Also coming on Friday, Oct. 17, to Netflix, “The Perfect Neighbor” from Geeta Gandbhir uses police bodycam footage to reconstruct a neighborhood dispute in Florida that turns deadly. It’s a riveting real life look at the state’s “stand your ground laws.”

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    — The rapper Gucci Mane returns with a new full-length, “Episodes,” two months after his Gangsta Grillz mixtape “Greatest of All Trappers” dropped. What more would you expect from one of the most prolific trap stars of the last few decades?

    — The influence of Australian psychedelic musician Kevin Parker, aka Tame Impala, is hard to undersell – there’s a reason some of the biggest names in the business have been running to work with him, a list that recently includes Dua Lipa for her “Radical Optimism” album. On Friday, he’ll release his fifth album, “Deadbeat,” his first full-length in five years. It’s as dreamy as ever.

    — In independent music circles IRL and URL, the subgenre shoegaze (marked by distortion, feedback, loud guitar pedal effects as popularized by the Jesus and Mary Chain ) has experienced a revival. In the modern era, those familiar-to-some sounds are meshed with other indie rock styles. No band has been simultaneously influential and underrated for said impact than Philadelphia’s They Are Gutting A Body of Water. That may change on Friday with the release of their next album, “LOTTO” their first for ATO Records and their best to date. For those who like their bands fuzzy, freaky and future-seeking.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    — Alex Murdaugh, the disbarred South Carolina attorney convicted of murdering his wife and son along with committing financial crimes, is serving a life sentence in prison. The story is told in a new true crime dramatization for Hulu called “Murdaugh: Death in the Family,” premiering Wednesday. It stars Jason Clarke as Alex and Patricia Arquette as his wife, Maggie. The series is based on the reporting by South Carolina journalist and podcaster, Mandy Matney, whose investigative work was pivotal in the coverage of Murdaugh. Matney is also an executive producer and Brittany Snow plays her in the series.

    — If you need a palette cleanser, the delightful comedy “Loot” returns to Apple TV+ Wednesday for its third season. Maya Rudolph stars as a billionaire who finds her purpose in philanthropy after her tech-bro husband divorces her. It also stars Nat Faxon, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Joel Kim Booster and Ron Funches.

    — Keri Russell’s political drama “The Diplomat” premieres its third season Thursday on Netflix. Allison Janney also returns as a series regular alongside… wait for it… her old buddy from “The West Wing,” Bradley Whitford. He plays her husband.

    — Another one for the true crime fans: a new limited-series on Peacock is about the serial killer John Wayne Gacy.“Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy,” premieres Thursday, and dramatizes the time period in 1978 when police begin to suspect Gacy for the murder of a young man in Des Plaines, Illinois. As they conduct surveillance 24/7, Gacy seems to at first enjoy the attention but his behavior becomes more and more erratic over time and leads to his arrest.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    — Pokémon Legends: Z-A brings a major change to Nintendo’s 30-year-old franchise: For the first time, the creatures are competing in real-time fights rather than turn-based battles. That means more of a focus on timing and reflexes, though it will also give your monster the ability to dodge enemy attacks. The story takes place in Lumiose City, a Paris-like metropolis that turns into a battle zone when the sun goes down. Plenty of old favorites like Pikachu and Charizard are on the roster, and if your Pokémon scores enough hits it may undergo “Mega Evolution” to become truly fearsome. You can start trying to catch ’em all Thursday on Switch.

    — Keeper is another bizarre concoction from Double Fine Productions, the studio that gave us the trippy Psychonauts. This time, you are a long dormant lighthouse that breaks free of its foundation and gains four legs. Joined by a curious seabird, you wander inland, passing through surrealistic, unpopulated villages as you make your way toward a looming mountain peak. There are no words — just a series of puzzles that look like they were conjured up by Salvador Dalí. The hike begins Friday, Oct. 17 on Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

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  • After two big weekends, the North American box office takes a hit

    Neither a Jordan Peele-produced horror nor a Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell romantic drama were enough to continue the September hot streak at the movies. After back-to-back weekends that had films majorly overperforming, first “The Conjuring: Last Rights” followed by the anime “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle,” the North American box office slowed significantly.

    Overall ticket sales were down nearly 50% from last weekend, with the holdover champion “Demon Slayer” edging out the newcomer “Him” for first place, according to studio estimates Sunday. Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures’ “Demon Slayer” added $17.3 million over the weekend, bringing its total to $104.7 million, which makes it the highest grossing anime film ever in North America.

    The football horror “Him” opened in second place with an estimated $13.5 million in ticket sales. Universal Pictures opened “Him” in 3,168 North American theaters, where the audience was 52% male and 65% over the age of 25. Internationally, it earned $400,000.

    Produced by Peele’s Monkeypaw and directed by Justin Tipping, “Him” is about a promising young quarterback (Tyriq Withers) who is invited to train with a veteran (Marlon Wayans) at an isolated compound.

    “Him” scored with neither critics (it carries a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes) nor audiences, who gave the film a C- CinemaScore. In his review for The Associated Press, film writer Jake Coyle wrote that the film “was made with the potent premise of bringing the kind of dark, satirical perspective that characterizes a Monkeypaw production to our violent national pastime. But that promise gets fumbled in an allegorical chamber play that grows increasingly tedious.”

    “Him” was also nearly upstaged by another horror, “The Conjuring: Last Rights,” which made an estimated $13 million in its third weekend. With a global total of $400 million, it’s now the biggest film in the Conjuring universe.

    In addition to “Demon Slayer,” Sony had a new film this weekend as well: The original romance “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” starring Robbie and Farrell, but that fizzled with audiences, earning only $3.5 million from 3,300 locations. It also received largely negative reviews and currently has a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes.

    In its second weekend, “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” added another $6.3 million, bringing its running total to $31.6 million. The Stephen King adaptation “The Long Walk” is also estimating $6.3 million in weekend two, down only 46% from its opening. Its domestic total of $22.7 million has already exceeded its production budget of $20 million (though that sum does not account for marketing and promotion).

    Ron Howard’s 1995 hit “Apollo 13” played in 200 theaters this weekend for its 30th anniversary as well. It made an estimated $600,000.

    Next weekend there is excitement surrounding the new Paul Thomas Anderson film “One Battle After Another,” although his biggest hit to date remains the 2007 film “There Will Be Blood,” which made just over $76 million worldwide, not accounting for inflation.

    And right on its heels is a very different kind of cinema experience: AMC Theaters is hosting a release party for Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, “ The Life of a Showgirl.” The 90-minute show, aptly titled “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” will play at all 540 AMC theaters in the U.S. from Oct. 3 through Oct. 5.

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  • ‘Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle’ opens to $70M, ‘The Conjuring’ sequel slips to 2nd

    LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle” carved out a place in box-office history this weekend as the Japanese anime film sliced straight to No. 1 — outpacing the horror sequel “The Conjuring: Last Rites.”

    The Sony-owned Crunchyroll release shattered expectations with a mighty $70 million debut in North America, according to Sunday estimates from Comscore. That haul marks the biggest domestic opening ever for an anime film, surpassing “Pokémon: The First Movie,” which opened with $31 million in 1999.

    The film extended its meteoric run, scoring the biggest anime opening of all time with a $132.1 million weekend, according to Comscore. Crunchyroll and Sony rolled it out across North America and 49 international markets, pushing the global total to $177.8 million.

    “This performance by this particular film shows the unpredictability of the box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “If we were sitting here, let’s say a month or even a couple of weeks ago, would we be thinking, ‘Wow, a Japanese anime film would be number one at the box office, overperform and bring in $70 million?’ If you predicted that, kudos to you.”

    The movie is the first in a three-film trilogy that brings the hit Shonen saga to its climactic showdown. The story follows Tanjiro Kamado, a kind-hearted boy who takes up swordsmanship after his family is slaughtered and his sister, Nezuko, is turned into a demon. Together, they fight a supernatural underworld of monstrous foes while clinging to what’s left of their humanity.

    The “Infinity Castle” opener hails from renowned studio Ufotable, whose lavish visuals and breakneck fight sequences have helped make the franchise a global sensation and juggernaut.

    The film’s domination also points to a September rebound after a sluggish August. Warner Bros.’ “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” which opened to $83 million last weekend, slipped to second with $26 million.

    The horror sequel has now scared up $131 million domestically.

    “This shows that two months of down trending box office can be totally reversed over the course of a couple of weekends,” Dergarabedian said.

    Focus Features’ “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” opened in third with $18.1 million. Set in the 1930s, the film finds Lady Mary embroiled in a public scandal as the Crawleys confront financial strain and the looming threat of social disgrace. While the aristocratic family adapts to change, the household staff prepares for a new chapter with the next generation leading Downton into the future.

    In fourth place, Lionsgate’s “The Long Walk” debuted with $11.5 million. Directed by Francis Lawrence, the adaptation of Stephen King’s first-written novel is a thriller that asks a chilling question: “How far would you go to survive?”

    Pixar’s “Toy Story (30th Anniversary)” brought Buzz, Woody and the gang back to the big screen, opening in fifth with $3.5 million across 2,375 theaters. Warner Bros.’ “Weapons” followed in sixth with $2.75 million, while Disney’s filmed musical “Hamilton” landed seventh with $2.2 million. “Freakier Friday” claimed eighth with $2.1 million.

    Rounding out the top 10: “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” debuted with $1.6 million, narrowly edging “The Sound of Music (60th Anniversary),” which sang up $1.4 million.

    Dergarabedian said he expects more September good fortunes with the release of Jordan Peele’s horror film “HIM” next week and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” coming out this month.

    “September, after a very modest month of August, is proving to be an absolutely fantastic post-summer month for movies and for audiences and for movie theaters,” he said.

    With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

    1. “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle” $70 million

    2. “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” $26 million.

    3. “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” $18.1 million.

    4. “The Long Walk,” $11.5 million.

    5. ““Toy Story (30th Anniversary),” $3.5 million.

    6. “Weapons,” $2.75 million.

    7. “Hamilton,” $2.2 million.

    8. “Freakier Friday,” $2.1 million.

    9. ““Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” $1.6 million.

    10. “The Sound of Music (60th Anniversary),” $1.4 million.

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  • Don’t look now, but there’s an AI-generated Italian teacup on your child’s phone. What does it mean?

    In the first half of 2025, she racked up over 55 million views on TikTok and 4 million likes, mostly from tweens glued to their cellphones. Not bad for an AI-generated cartoon ballerina with a cappuccino teacup for a head.

    Her name is Ballerina Cappuccina. Her smiling, girlish face is accompanied by a deep, computer-generated male voice singing in Italian — or, at least, some Italian. The rest is gibberish.

    She is one of the most prominent characters in the internet phenomenon known as “Italian Brain Rot,” a series of memes that exploded in popularity this year, consisting of unrealistic AI-generated animal-object hybrids with absurdist, pseudo-Italian narration.

    The trend has baffled parents, to the delight of young people experiencing the thrill of a new, fleeting cultural signifier that is illegible to older generations.

    Experts and fans alike say the trend is worth paying attention to, and tells us something about the youngest generation of tweens.

    The first Italian brain-rot character was Tralalero Tralala, a shark with blue Nike sneakers on his elongated fins. Early Tralalero Tralala videos were scored with a curse-laden Italian song that sounds like a crude nursery rhyme.

    Other characters soon emerged: Bombardiro Crocodilo, a crocodile-headed military airplane; Lirilì Larilà, an elephant with a cactus body and slippers; and Armadillo Crocodillo, an armadillo inside a coconut, to name a few.

    Content creators around the world have created entire storylines told through intentionally ridiculous songs. These videos have proven so popular that they have launched catchphrases that have entered mainstream culture for Generation Alpha, which describes anyone born between 2010 and 2025.

    Fabian Mosele, 26, calls themselves an “Italian brain rot connoisseur.” An Italian animator who lives in Germany and works with AI by trade, Mosele created their first Italian brain-rot content in March. Shortly after, Mosele’s video of Italian brain-rot characters at an underground rave garnered about a million views overnight, they said. It has since topped 70 million.

    Even as the hysteria over the absurdist subgenre has slowed, Mosele said the characters have transcended the digital realm and become an indelible part of pop culture.

    “It feels so ephemeral,” Mosele said, “but it also feels so real.”

    This summer, one of the most popular games on Roblox, the free online platform that has approximately 111 million monthly users, was called “Steal a Brainrot.” The goal of the game, as the title would suggest, is to steal brain rot characters from other players. More popular characters, like Tralalero Tralala, are worth more in-game money.

    Sometimes, the games’ administrators — who are also players — cheat to steal the characters, a move called “admin abuse” that sent many kids and teens into a frenzy. One video of a young child hysterically crying over a stolen character has 46.8 million views on TikTok.

    In the non-virtual world, some have made physical toy replicas of the characters, while others have created real-life plays featuring them.

    The nonsensical songs have at times gestured to real-world issues: One clip of Bombardiro Crocodilo sparked outrage for seemingly mocking the war in Gaza.

    But ultimately, the majority of videos are silly and absurd.

    Mosele said Italian brain-rot consumers largely don’t care about how the images relate to what is being said or sung. They often don’t even care to translate the nonsensical Italian to English.

    “It’s funny because it’s nonsense,” Mosele said.

    “Seeing something so dark, in a way, and out of the ordinary, that breaks all the norms of what we would expect to see on TV — that’s just super appealing.”

    Italian brain rot didn’t go viral in a vacuum. “Brain rot,” the 2024 Oxford University Press word of the year, is defined as the numbing of an intellectual state resulting from the “overconsumption of trivial or unchallenging material.”

    It can also be used to describe the brain-rotting content itself.

    Lots of content falls into that category. Consider videos of the game “Subway Surfer” split-screened next to full episodes of television shows, or “Skibidi Toilet,” an animated series featuring toilets with human heads popping out of their bowls.

    Those not chronically online might instinctively recoil at the term brain rot, with its vaguely gory connotations, especially as concern about the potential harms of social media for adolescents mounts.

    When brain rot was crowned word of the year, Oxford Languages President Casper Grathwohl said the term speaks to “one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.”

    Emilie Owens, 33, a children’s media researcher, agreed that endless scrolling poses dangers for young people. But she said that the concern about brain rot is misguided.

    It’s normal to “view the thing the newest generation is doing with fear and suspicion,” she said, pointing to how past generations have had similar concerns about the detrimental effects of comic books, television and even novels at one time.

    Concerns about brain rot — that it is unproductive and pointless — actually reveal a great deal about their appeal, Owens said. Brain rot is an acute rejection of the intense pressures on young people to self-optimize.

    “It’s very normal for everyone to need to switch their brains off now and again,” she said.

    ___

    Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Comic-Con Africa draws thousands of fans and cosplayers to Johannesburg

    JOHANNESBURG — Tens of thousands of South African comic book fans and cosplayers flocked to Johannesburg on Saturday to celebrate the sixth edition of Comic-Con Africa, the continent’s biggest celebration of pop culture and gaming.

    The four-day festival, which began Thursday, celebrated anime, gaming, comics and cosplay with a variety of entertainment, including vintage arcade games, esports and costume competitions.

    Fans dressed up as their favorite comic book heroes and villains, snapping selfies in replicas of famous local sets and donning original character outfits inspired by their own imagination.

    “This year’s Comic-Con has been bigger and bolder than ever before,” said Comic-Con Africa Show Director Carla Massmann, adding they anticipate a total of 70,000 fans having walked through the gate by Sunday.

    Nkosinathi Skhosana, 24, called Comic-Con Africa “nothing short of amazing” because it was another “safe space” where South Africans of all races and classes could forget their social issues and have fun together.

    “Just like Rugby brings people of all races together, Comic-Con is also creating that kind of space for us,” said Skhosana.

    International celebrities were featured on the main stage, including U.S. actor Jessie T. Usher from the Amazon Prime series “The Boys.” Also in attendance were actor, comedian and writer Dan Fogler, known for playing Jacob Kowalski in the Harry Potter spinoff “Fantastic Beasts,” and Misha Collins, best known for his role as Castiel in “Supernatural.”

    Fans were delighted to be treated to autograph and photograph opportunities with international stars, but they also gushed over each other’s outfits.

    “The first picture I took was with Sailor Moon, my favorite character of all time,” said Owami Sibanyoni, 23, who was dressed as Musa from the animated franchise ”Winx Club.”

    The event, which is usually held at the end of September, was moved to August to make way for the G20 summit, which will be held at the same venue later this year.

    ____

    AP’s Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

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  • The 33 most anticipated movies of the fall

    The 33 most anticipated movies of the fall

    The seasonal differences of the movie calendar have eroded a little bit with time. Neither of the last two Oscar juggernauts — “Oppenheimer,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — opened in the fall, the traditional launching pad of Academy Awards hopefuls.

    And just the same, f all tends to be nearly as stuffed as summer is with sequels, horror thrillers and would-be blockbusters. Still, some of the old rules still apply. A large percentage of 2024’s best movies are set to unspool in the coming months.

    So with that in mind, here are some of the most anticipated films of this fall, from large to small and everything in between.

    A psychedelic trip makes for an unusual meeting in the latest from director Megan Park (“The Fallout”). After sipping some mushroom-infused tea, 18-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) finds herself joined by her future self, played by Aubrey Plaza, on a camping trip on the lakes of Muskoka, outside Toronto. (Sept. 13, in theaters)

    When former “Saturday Night Live” writer Harper Steele came out as trans, she sent an email to friends and family. An old friend and “SNL” colleague, Will Ferrell, responded with the suggestion that they travel the country together. The result is this tender and contemplative documentary, by “Barb and Star Go to Del Mar” director Josh Greenbaum, about their 16-day road trip. (Sept. 13; on Netflix Sept. 27)

    Christian Tafdrup’s 2022 Danish horror film was potent enough that it led to this Blumhouse remake just two years later. James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis and Aisling Franciosi star in a thriller about how much can go wrong on a idyllic countryside vacation. (Sept. 13, in theaters)

    Sebastian Stan stars as Edward, an actor with neurofibromatosis who, after experimental surgery, is cured of his facial disfigurement. But the changes for Edward, who lives next to a friendly playwright (Renate Reinsve of “The Worst Person in the World”), turn out to be a mixed blessing. With a compelling co-starring turn by actor Adam Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis. (Sept. 20, in theaters)

    Writer-director Azazel Jacobs’ latest stars Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters who gather in the New York apartment of their dying father. A highlight of the season, “His Three Daughters” is one of the most memorable tales of siblinghood, and of a death in the family, in recent memory. (Sept. 20 on Netflix)

    A hit out of the Cannes Film Festival, Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror parable stars Demi Moore as a TV star who’s deemed too old by male producers. A mysterious service, though, offers her the ability to change into a younger twin (Margaret Qualley) — so long as she doesn’t remain so for too long. “The Substance” seems sure to go down as a classic satire of Hollywood ageism and youth obsession. (Sept. 20, in theaters)

    Brad Pitt and George Clooney play rival fixers who discover they’ve been hired for the same job in Jon Watts’ comic caper. Presumably more charming actors weren’t available, so Watts had to suffice with Clooney and Pitt. (Sept. 20, in theaters; Apple TV+ on Sept. 27)

    Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s documentary seeks to capture the full arc of Reeve’s life, from the massive stardom that followed 1978’s “Superman” to his resiliency following an accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down in 1995. (Sept. 21, in theaters)

    This DreamWorks Animation release, adapted from Peter Brown’s popular book series, follows a robot (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) who crash lands in a forested wildness where it, seeking a task, raises a runt goose (Kit Connor) until it’s able to fly. (Sept. 27, in theaters)

    Francis Ford Coppola’s first film in 13 years stars Adam Driver as Caesar, a visionary with dreams of a utopian New York. Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne and Shia LeBeouf co-star in this wildly ambitious epic that has already earned a wide spectrum of reaction. (Sept. 27, in theaters)

    Five years after their rabble-rousing Oscar nominated DC Comics blockbuster, director Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix are back for more antihero fun. This time, it’s a musical, and Lady Gaga is playing Harley Quinn. (Oct. 4, in theaters)

    Saoirse Ronan stars in Nora Fingscheidt’s adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s memoir of addiction. Ronan plays a young woman just out of rehab and returning home to the Orkney Islands in Scotland. (Oct. 4, in theaters)

    Opening just weeks before the U.S. election is Ali Abbasi’s portrait of a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) under the tutelage of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). The film, which the Trump reelection campaign has called “pure malicious defamation,” is made with some of the ’80s aesthetics of its setting. (Oct. 11, in theaters)

    What’s cooler than a documentary about your life? What about a documentary made with Lego? In this film, directed by Morgan Neville (“Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”), Pharrell Williams tells his life story brick by brick. (Oct. 11, in theaters)

    While all eyes will be on “Saturday Night Live” on the small screen this fall, the sketch comedy show will also have an origin story in theaters. Director Jason Reitman (“Juno,” “Up in the Air”) directs this mid-’70s dramatization of the chaotic infancy of the NBC institution, with Gabriel LaBelle as creator Lorne Michaels. (Oct. 11, in theaters)

    Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield star in this human-scaled drama, directed by John Crowley (“Brooklyn,” “The Goldfinch”) about a relationship charted not always chronologically, through romance, sickness and parenthood. Tissues are recommended. (Oct. 11, in theaters)

    Sean Baker (“The Florida Project,” “Red Rocket”) has long been one of most vital American independent directors. But he takes a step further with “Anora,” the Palme d’Or winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It stars Mikey Madison as a Brooklyn sex worker whose Vegas marriage to the son of a Russian oligarch prompts a farcical effort by his family’s henchmen to have it annulled. (Oct. 18, in theaters)

    RaMell Ross’ feature directorial debut, selected as the opening night film at the New York Film Festival, adapts Colson Whitehead’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two Black teens (Ethan Harisse, Brandon Wilson) who become wards of juvenile reform school in 1960s Florida. Ross previously directed the Oscar-nominated documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening.” (Oct. 25, in theaters)

    Tom Hardy is back as the most volatile split-personality superhuman: Eddie Brock and his symbiote Venom — arguably the most captivating double act in comic book movies. In this, the third in the series following 2018’s “Venom” and 2021’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” both are on the run. (Oct. 25, in theaters)

    Writer-director Mati Diop (“Atlantics”) creates testimonials for a few dozen African artworks taken from the West African kingdom of Dahomey during France’s colonial rule in this, the winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Diop dramatizes the artworks’ stories through what she’s called “magical documentary.” (Oct. 25, theaters)

    Adam Elliot’s stop-motion drama, some 10 years in the making, follows the life of Grace Puddle (voiced by Sarah Snook), who begins collecting snails after her mother’s death. After her father dies, too, she and her twin brother (Kodi Smit-McPhee) are separated. (Oct. 25, theaters)

    Director Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”) returns to World War II for this drama set in a London under siege from Nazi bombs. Saoirse Ronan plays a single mother trying to protect her young son (Elliott Heffernan). (Nov. 1, theaters)

    A new Pope is needed. Enter Ralph Fiennes. In director Edward Berger’s follow-up to “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Fiennes stars as Cardinal Lawrence, one of the Vatican figures who gather for a conclave to choose a new pontiff. When Lawrence uncovers a secret that others would rather stay hidden, the conclave teeters toward going up in smoke. (Nov. 1, theaters)

    It’s not every day we get a musical about a Mexican drug lord who transitions into a woman. Even more surprising is that French director Jacques Audiard pulls it off. Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez star in one of the more audacious movies of the year. (Nov. 1 in theaters; on Netflix Nov. 13th)

    Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks have a long and fruitful history together dating back to “Forrest Gump” and “Cast Away.” Less good was 2022’s “Pinocchio,” so hopefully the pair are back on track in “Here.” Appearing to be filmed in one take, Zemeckis’ latest chronicles a single spot of land through history. After a home is built on it, Hanks and Robin Wright move in and raise a family. (Nov. 1, in theaters)

    Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed and stars in this buddy dramedy about two cousins (the other is played by Kieran Culkin) who travel to Poland to honor their grandmother. The two are near opposites played to type: Eisenberg is a sensitive neurotic, Culkin a charismatic idler. Together, they create a funny, poignant two-hander. (Nov. 1, in theaters)

    British filmmaker Andrea Arnold has dabbled in TV and documentary in recent years, which makes “Bird” her first film since 2016’s “American Honey.” Here, she returns to a working-class English backdrop for a gritty story laced with fable. A 12-year-old girl (Nykia Adams) who lives with her father (Barry Keoghan) is visited by a peculiar stranger (Franz Rogowski). (Nov. 8, in theaters)

    The distance Hugh Grant has traveled from rom-com protagonist seems likely to reach a new peak in this A24 horror thriller from “A Quiet Place” co-writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East play a pair of proselytizing Mormon missionaries who knock on the wrong door. (Nov. 15, in theaters)

    Payal Kapadia’s ode to female friendship, a prize-winner at Cannes, is about two Mumbai nurses (Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha) striving for love and happiness while working and commuting long hours in the Indian metropolis. (Nov. 15, in theaters)

    Twenty-four years after “Gladiator,” Ridley Scott is back with more swords, sandals and … a rhino. Yes, that horned mammal makes its way into the Colosseum this time, but it’s far from the only new addition. Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal star in this sequel, set several decades following the events of the original movie. (Nov. 22, in theaters)

    Before “Wicked” was a Broadway smash, it was a 1995 book and nearly a movie. The big-screen was, perhaps, always the most fitting medium for a “Wizard of the Oz” riff. In this Jon M. Chu-directed film, Cynthia Erivo plays the woman who’ll become the Wicked Witch of the West, while Ariana Grande plays Glinda. This “Wicked” will be split in two, with part two arriving in late 2025. (Nov. 22, in theaters)

    Washington has set himself the task of bringing August Wilson’s plays to the big screen. In this adaptation of Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winner, he produces while son Malcolm Washington directs, and son John David Washington stars. Led by a powerhouse performance by Danielle Deadwyler, “The Piano Lesson” depicts a Pittsburgh family in 1936 reckoning with a family heirloom, a piano, which doubles as a metaphor for the legacy of slavery. (Nov. 22, on Netflix)

    A little “Moana” confusion would be understandable. There’s a separate live-action “Moana” in development and this film was originally planned as a series. But “Moana 2” ultimately, came together as a big-screen sequel to the 2016 original. Lin-Manuel Miranda isn’t returning on the music front, but most everyone else is, including voice actors Auliʻi Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson. The film, set about three years after the original, finds Moana heading back on an ocean adventure, this time with her sister (voiced by Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda) aboard, as well as several others. (Nov. 27, in theaters)

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  • Robert Downey Jr. is returning to ‘Avengers’ films as a villain in 1 of Marvel’s Comic-Con twists

    Robert Downey Jr. is returning to ‘Avengers’ films as a villain in 1 of Marvel’s Comic-Con twists

    SAN DIEGO (AP) — Marvel Studios returned to San Diego Comic-Con with dancing Deadpool variants and a choir for a panel that included news about the next two “Avengers” films and surprise guests, including Harrison Ford and Robert Downey Jr.

    Downey is returning to Marvel’s films, but not as Iron Man. He’ll play the villain Victor Von Doom, or Doctor Doom, in at least one of the upcoming “Avengers” movies. Downey kicked off Marvel’s movie successes in “Iron Man” and played the popular character in nine films, but on Saturday appeared wearing Dr. Doom’s mask and a green cloak.

    “New mask, same task,” Downey said to frenzied cheers.

    The Russo brothers, who will be directing the movie featuring Downey, said his appearance in the film is “proof of the unimaginable possibilities in the Marvel multi-universe.”

    The reveal capped a jubilant return by Marvel to Comic-Con’s Hall H.

    Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige kicked off the panel by saying that due to this weekend’s success of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe had now topped $30 billion in box-office earnings. In a nod to a scene in the movie, a choir sang Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” before Feige spoke.

    “Deadpool & Wolverine,” released Thursday, has already broken one record and could shatter more in its opening weekend. Feige used Saturday’s panel to chart the course ahead for the MCU, revealing Ford’s character in the next “Captain America” film and revealing “Avengers: Secret Wars and “Avengers: Doomsday” as the titles of the next two films in the epic superhero team-up series. “Doomsday” will hit theaters in 2026.

    Feige said all the actors introduced Saturday would appear in the upcoming “Avengers” movies, which will be directed by Joe and Anthony Russo. The brothers guided the “Avengers” franchise through its sprawling storyline capped by “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019 that included the death of Downey’s Tony Stark/Iron Man character.

    “When we directed ”Avengers: Endgame,” Joe and I truly believed that it was the end of the road for us in the Marvel Cinematic Universe because we had put all of our passion, our love, our imagination into “The Winter Soldier,” into “Civil War,” into “Infinity War,” climaxing all of it with “Avengers: Endgame,” Anthony Russo said. “That four movie run was incredible and it left us creatively spent with all of our emotions on the film. In the time since, through a very special story, Joe and I have come to potentially see a road forward with you.”

    They called “Secret Wars” the “biggest story that Marvel Comics ever told,” and Joe said it was the first comic book run he read as a child that made him “fall in love with comics.”

    Saturday’s session comes after Marvel skipped the convention last year due to the Hollywood strikes, which prevented writers and actors from speaking on panels.

    The cast of “Captain America: Brave New World” — Giancarlo Esposito, Tim Blake Nelson, Danny Ramirez and Anthony Mackie — joined the stage first and teased details about the upcoming film. Esposito revealed that he will be playing the villain, Seth Voelker, also known as Sidewinder.

    When asked about what it was like to join a Marvel project, Esposito said it was a “dream come true.

    “When your dreams come true and you get the call, you walk through the door,” he continued. “I have a great deal of gratitude for all the fans who really had this dream come true, because it was fan casting that linked us together.”

    The cast then stepped aside to share a scene from the movie on the big screen, which revealed that President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, played by Ford, is hoping to rebuild the Avengers with Mackie’s Sam Wilson. It also showed Ford’s character transform into the Red Hulk.

    Ford joined the panel after fans were treated to clips from the movie and flexed his muscles to the roaring crowd. He also expressed excitement over his latest role, saying, “I am delighted, and proud to become a member of the Marvel Universe.”

    The cast and director of “Thunderbolts(asterisk)” also surprised fans with a short clip from the movie. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan and David Harbour (in full costume and speaking in character as the Red Guardian at first) stormed the stage and shared some more details about their characters.

    The film is slated to be released in May 2025.

    The final film teased at the panel was “The Fantastic Four,” starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. The movie will begin filming on Tuesday in London, Feige said.

    He said the film will hit theaters in almost exactly one year in July 2025.

    Following a video director Matt Shakman created specifically for Comic-Con that featured the cast in full ’60s glory, he and Feige revealed the official title of the film, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

    The session included no mention of Jonathan Majors, who played the villain Kang the Conqueror and was previously a major part of Marvel’s “Avengers” plans. The actor was fired by the studio after he was convicted in December of assaulting a former girlfriend. He was sentenced to a yearlong counseling program in April and avoided jail time.

    Marvel already took over Hall H on Thursday with an electric panel celebrating “Deadpool & Wolverine,” in which the audience was treated to a full screening and surprise guests joining stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman on stage.

    The mounting enthusiasm for the film at Comic-Con was reflected across the country as the fans rushed to see it in theaters, securing the film as the new record holder for the Thursday preview for an R-rated movie. The comic book film sold an estimated $38.5 million worth of movie tickets from preview screenings Thursday.

    The “Deadpool & Wolverine” success woke up a sleepy year for Marvel and assuaged worries about its box-office underperformance in late 2023. The superhero factory hit a record low in November with the launch of “The Marvels,” which opened with just $47 million.

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  • Japanese animation studio founder Miyazaki isn’t ready to retire just yet, after latest Oscar win

    Japanese animation studio founder Miyazaki isn’t ready to retire just yet, after latest Oscar win

    TOKYO — Ghibli, the Japanese studio that just won its second Oscar for feature animation for “The Boy and The Heron,” hasn’t said yet what it plans next.

    But founder Hayao Miyazaki, who at 83 was the oldest director ever nominated in that category, won’t rule out making another film, even if his next project is a short instead of a full-length feature.

    Miyazaki, according to a longtime confidante, is a bit embarrassed about having pronounced a decade ago that he would no longer make movies, citing his age.

    “He regrets having announced to the world he won’t make another film,” producer Toshio Suzuki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, said after the latest win.

    When the Oscar was announced early Monday in Japan, a cheer went up in the tiny, humble building that houses the studio on the fringes of sprawling Tokyo where dozens of invited media had crammed in to watch the ceremony on a big screen.

    It was a big day for Japanese filmmaking, with “Godzilla Minus One” winning the award for best visual effects, marking Japan’s first win in that category.

    Japanese media heaped praise on both the Ghibli and Godzilla films, noting that a double win at the Oscars hadn’t happened for the country since 2009. An editorial Tuesday in the mass-circulation Yomiuri newspaper heralded “a new page in the history of Japanese filmmaking.”

    Japan is also very much in the backdrop of “Oppenheimer,” which won seven Oscars, including best picture. The biopic centers on an American scientist working on the atomic bomb. The film has yet to be released in Japan.

    “Perfect Days,” Wim Wenders’ touching film about a sanitation worker, was nominated in the international feature film category but did not win. Japanese actor Koji Yakusho, who portrays a gentle and lonely man who takes photos and cares for plants, won best actor for his performance at Cannes in May last year.

    “War is Over,” which won for short animation, was inspired by Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s music. Their son Sean, who co-wrote the film, gave a shout-out to his mother, who is Japanese, at the Academy Awards.

    Miyazaki celebrated his Oscar win in private at his atelier and did not attend the studio event, Suzuki said. When asked why Miyazaki had shaved off his trademark beard, Suzuki said: “He doesn’t want to look important.”

    Suzuki said he spent time analyzing why Ghibli’s latest film was chosen, wondering if it was because of the Old Testament references in the storyline, which centers on a young boy dealing with his mother’s illness and death, and the relationship he develops with a talking bird. Suzuki said Ghibli’s hand-drawn illustrations were more effective than computer graphics in portraying the bird’s metamorphosis.

    Ghibli didn’t do much publicity for the film, choosing instead a low-key approach for a work that was 10 years in the making and released after Miyazaki was supposedly retired.

    “We thought it was OK to make something we really wanted to make,” said Suzuki.

    ___

    Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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  • Oscar nominees for films from ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Barbie’ to documentary shorts gather for luncheon

    Oscar nominees for films from ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Barbie’ to documentary shorts gather for luncheon


    LOS ANGELES — The casts of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer gathered Monday for the annual Academy Award nominees luncheon along with other Oscar hopefuls coming together for photos, hugs and congratulations.

    The luncheon is a warm, feel-good, egalitarian affair where little-known first-time nominees in categories like best animated short get to rub shoulders and share tables with acting nominees like Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.

    Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, whose snubs for best director and best actress, respectively, for “Barbie” caused a major stir, were both present for the nominations they did get and were all smiles before lunch.

    Gerwig, nominated for adapted screenplay, was surrounded by selfie-seekers as soon as she entered the ballroom.

    Robbie, up for best picture as a “Barbie” producer, beamed nearby as she hugged and chatted with a woman who got one of the best actress spots, Sandra Hüller of “Anatomy of a Fall.”

    The centerpiece of the event in Beverly Hills, California, is a class photo of the entire group of nominees. Nearly all of them usually attend, both as part of the Oscars experience and as part of their unspoken campaigns for votes.

    Before the luncheon began, nominees including Cillian Murphy, a favorite for best actor for “Oppenheimer,” and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, a favorite for best supporting actress for “The Holdovers,” made the rounds of media outlets whose reporters are set up in cabanas around the Beverly Hilton pool.

    Steven Spielberg, nominated for best picture as a producer of “Maestro,” chatted with a small group on the patio.

    Less famous nominees packed into the ballroom and posed for group pictures.

    They’ll later be seated for a vegetarian menu of king oyster mushrooms and wild mushroom risotto.

    The event is also a chance for the leadership of the Academy, including President Janet Yang to give speeches and address their prominent members in person.

    She used last year’s luncheon to address what she called the Academy’s “inadequate” response to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the previous year’s ceremony.

    The leaders may address some serious issues this year, but it’s likely to have a lighter tone.

    This year’s invited guests include director Christopher Nolan and stars Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt of “ Oppenheimer,” the most nominated film with 13 nominations and the favorite in many key categories.

    Other top nominees include “The Holdovers,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Poor Things.”

    And while “ Barbie ” director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie were snubbed in their main categories, both will be among the invitees — Gerwig as an original screenplay nominee, Robbie as a producer of a best picture nominee.



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  • What to stream this week, Super Bowl edition: Usher, classic commercials and lots of puppies

    What to stream this week, Super Bowl edition: Usher, classic commercials and lots of puppies


    Usher’s first new solo album in eight years and the “Abbott Elementary” debuting its third season on ABC are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Justin Hartley of “This is Us” debuts his new CBS series “Tracker,” Sony’s new multiplayer military shooter Helldivers 2 and Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” an achingly tender film about making peace with the choices that shape our lives.

    — Celine Song’s “Past Lives” is an achingly tender film about making peace with the choices that shape our lives. Song’s directorial debut, which is nominated for best picture and best screenplay at the Academy Awards, is about a woman named Nora (Greta Lee) who, while married and living in New York, reconnects with a childhood friend (Teo Yoo) from Seoul. Though modest in scale, “Past Lives” gently reckons with existential quandaries that stretch across time and continents. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck called it “a gorgeous, achingly wistful feature debut.” Streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime.

    — The mind of Charlie Kaufman has produced some of the most memorable films (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Synecdoch, New York”) of the last few decades. But even when Kaufman last scripted an animated film, (“Anomalisa”), you wouldn’t call the results child-friendly. But in “Orion and the Dark,” Kaufman adapts Emma Yarlett’s illustrated children’s book about a fifth-grader (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) who’s afraid of the dark, among other things. He’s forced to confront his fears when visited the actual Dark (voiced by Paul Walter Hauser). In his review, AP’s Mark Kennedy said director Sean Charmatz’s film “is about fear and overcoming … but has too much junk clogging up the vision.” Streaming on Netflix.

    — Laura Chinn’s directorial debut “Suncoast,” which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, draws from Chinn’s own experience growing up in Florida and caring for her ill brother. With a cast including Laura Linney and Woody Harrelson, newcomer Nico Parker stars as the high-schooler Doris in this coming-of-age drama. “Suncoast” streams Feb. 9 on Hulu.

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    — It may very well be Usher’s world, and we’re just living in it. From an incredibly successful Las Vegas residency to scoring the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show, the “Confessions” singer is experiencing a well-deserved influx of attention — from a new and curious audience as well as those filled with nostalgia for his smooth ’00s R&B. There’s more great news: on Friday, Feb. 9, just two days before he appears at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for Sin City’s inaugural Super Bowl, Usher will release “Coming Home,” his first new solo album in eight years. He hasn’t missed a beat — “Good Good,” the single with Summer Walker and 21 Savage — is silky summertime R&B with some Atlanta bounce — a winning combination. Elsewhere on the album, Usher joins forces with Burna Boy, Latto, The-Dream, H.E.R., BTS member Jungkook and Pheelz. “Stacked” is the word.

    — Swedish pop singer Zara Larsson will release her fourth studio album, “Venus,” on Feb. 9 — an album full of shimmery synth-pop and Euro dance-pop that burns bright, hot and fast like a Saturday night. “On My Love” with EDM giant David Guetta proves it, but Larsson’s commitment to feel-good club bangers exists throughout: like on the strings of “End of Time,” which she said was inspired by Rihanna and ABBA in equal parts. Now that’s a combination.

    — If you frequent indie music corners of the internet, you might’ve seen the shirts released by Helado Negro, the musical moniker of Roberto Carlos Lange, before you heard his music: “Young and Latin and Proud,” they read, a celebration of the South Florida native born to Ecuadorian immigrants’ identity, but also the identity of many of his listeners. It’s a great framework to consider Helado Negro’s latest album, “Phasor,” a day-dreamy collection of experimental pop (like on “Best For You and Me”), psych rock (“LFO (Lupe Finds Oliveros)”) and alternative rhythms and flutes (“I Just Want To Wake Up With You.”) It is a celebration of an incredible diversity of Latin music, including one that gets lost when listeners focus too closely on geography: atmospheric sounds.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    — “Abbott Elementary” aired its season two finale last April and there are lingering questions that need answers. Can Janine and Gregory (series creator Quinta Brunson and Tyler James Williams) remain platonic after almost stepping outside the friend-zone on the field trip to the science museum? Did a summer at Harvard prompt Ava (Janelle James) to finally take her job as principal seriously? And will Mrs. Howard (Sheryl Lee Ralph) finally learn that Brian Tyree Henry’s name is not Brian Austin Green? Answers may be revealed Wednesday when school is back in session and “Abbott Elementary” debuts season three on ABC. Episodes also stream on Hulu.

    — Revisit popular Super Bowl ads from years past on “Super Bowl Greatest Commercials XXIII: The Ultimate Countdown,” on Wednesday on CBS. The show presents top commercials from over the years from brands including Budweiser, E-Trade and Coke. Hosts Boomer Esiason, the former NFL quarterback, and actor Danielle Ruah narrow down the competition to two finalists, and viewers can pick a winner by scanning a QR code on screen to vote live. The special will also stream on Paramount+.

    — There’s a four-legged alternative to Super Bowl Sunday: Puppy Bowl XX. This year marks the Bowl’s 20th year and 131 adoptable pups have been drafted from shelters and rescues across the U.S. to compete. Teams Ruff and Fluff square off for the coveted “Lombarky” trophy while also encouraging people to adopt and not shop for pets. Puppy Bowl XX will simulcast on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Discovery+, TBS, TRUTV, and MAX before the big human game on Sunday, Feb. 11.

    — Great American Family also wants in on the call-to-adoption programming. Year two of the Great American Rescue Bowl will feature both dogs and cats — all who have already been adopted — to highlight the kinds of pets you can find at a shelter or rescue instead of a store or breeder. The paw-some game between teams The Adorables and The Cuddlers begin at 12 p.m. also on Sunday, Feb. 11.

    — Justin Hartley of “This is Us” debuts his new CBS series “Tracker” in the prime spot after Super Bowl LVIII. Based on the book “The Never Game” by Jeffery Deaver, Hartley plays Colter Shaw, a guy with a skill for tracking down the missing and all he asks for in return is reward money. In an interview, Hartley says he was itching to roam around outside after years of being in kitchens and living rooms for “This Is Us.”

    — Alicia Rancilio

    — Sony’s new multiplayer military shooter Helldivers 2 invites you to “wage war for peace” and “die for democracy.” If those slogans sound like something out of the 1997 satire “Starship Troopers,” wait until you see the enemy, a species of giant insects called terminids. You can join forces with up to three friends as elite soldiers defending “Super Earth” from the aliens — which, of course, is best accomplished by attacking the monsters on their home planets with a spectacular assortment of high-tech weaponry, from your basic laser rifle to massive bombs. If you find yourself cornered by an alien “bile spewer,” well, that’s your problem. The invasion launches Thursday on PlayStation 5 and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.



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