“Alan Hawkins [animation supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks] got really excited about that and broke the pipeline to create this new way of morphing characters — and, if you still frame through that, it’s really exciting,” said director Mike Rianda. “He came up with a new way to animate with customized rigging.” In fact, producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller (“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”) were totally blown away by the Stealthbots: “I remember Alan Hawkins showing us that first test: What if they moved like this?...

Despite its haphazard form, the 2021 edition of TIFF provided an opportunity to witness the unique challenges and opportunities of pressing ahead with a physical event in the time of COVID, no matter the ubiquitous reservations. “It felt like it had that very human scale this year,” said TIFF co-head and artistic director Cameron Bailey as the closing weekend began. “We were all blinking and out in the world again.”...

According to a new survey from Preply (via The Wrap), American viewers have a harder time following Tom Hardy’s dialogue than any other actor. And “Peaky Blinders,” a show that Hardy frequently appears on, was named the hardest-to-understand TV show. Fans of Hardy will likely find the results to be unsurprising, as the actor is famous for playing roles that require him to mumble. He can currently be seen in the sixth and final season of “Peaky Blinders” on Netflix, and stars in Gareth Evans’ “Havoc” later this year....

Last year’s Scripter film winners were “Nomadland” screenwriter Chloé Zhao and author Jessica Bruder (non-Scripter nominee “The Father” took home the Oscar); past winners include “Call Me By Your Name,” “Moonlight,” “The Big Short,” and “The Imitation Game,” which all won Oscars. In fact, before 2019, eight Scripter Award winners went on to win Oscars. The finalist writers for film adaptation are, in alphabetical order by film title: Screenwriters Eric Roth, Jon Spaihts, and Denis Villeneuve for “Dune” (Warner Bros....

A young widow, played by “Avengers: Endgame” star Elizabeth Olsen, struggles to make sense of her world after the sudden, untimely loss of her partner. She finds herself bereft, struggling to make sense of a future that now looks impossibly bleak, and attempts — sometimes through destructive behavior that hurts herself, as well as everyone around her — to reconcile not just the sorrow of losing her husband, but also the destruction of her hopes and dreams....

A Cannes prize can help a Screenplay winner like “Boy from Heaven” to land distribution, including in North America. And it boosts a film’s chances of being submitted for the Oscar by its home country, although neither Swedish-Egyptian filmmaker Tarik Saleh’s “Boy from Heaven” nor Iranian-Danish Ali Abbasi’s “Holy Spider” (Mubi), which won Best Actress for Zar Amir Ebrahimi as a journalist fighting for justice for slain prostitutes, will be submitted by Egypt or Iran, respectively....

Now, Goldberg is looking back on her legacy thanks to a new cover story featured in Variety. Goldberg, who is widely regarded as one of the best Oscars hosts of all time, now serves on the board of governors for the actors’ branch. When she’s not hosting “The View” or gearing up to reprise her role as Deloris Van Cartier in “Sister Act 3” for Disney+, Goldberg is apparently working on writing a script of her own....