Based on the best-selling YA novel by Angie Thomas, “On the Come Up” follows a rising rap star intent on making a name for herself while honoring her late father. “On the Come Up” embraces its fairy-tale feeling early on, opening with a title card that tells us it’s set “somewhere in America,” before zooming in on the fictional, mostly Black community of Garden Heights. But this fairy tale doesn’t have a happy start, as we meet young Bri (played in a short opening sequence by Noa Dior Rucker), her brother Trey, and mother Jada (Lathan) during an evening that Bri will later explain effectively ended her innocence....

Oscar Isaac confessed to surprising “Dune” director Denis Villeneuve by placing his “cock sock” covering in Villeneuve’s pocket. “At one point, when Denis wasn’t looking, I may have left my cock sock in his pocket, just so he had a little bit of me next to him when I left,” Isaac said on Entertainment Weekly’s Awardist podcast. “Just a little, musty handkerchief.” The on-set prank was used to bring some levity after the tense scene in which Isaac’s character Duke Atreides is tortured by nemesis Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård)....

“I’ve been in green screen space land for quite a few years and I was desperate to do a character study,” Isaac told press at Venice. “Star Wars” isn’t Isaac’s only trip to space, as Villeneuve’s “Dune” is another galaxy-spanning epic with Isaac playing a crucial role. The actor is currently in production on the Marvel Cinematic Universe television series “Moon Knight,” so Isaac’s relationship to CGI and green screens isn’t ending anytime soon....

Last Updated February 9: The production design Oscar nominees — “Dune” (Warner Bros.), “Nightmare Alley” (Searchlight/Disney), “The Power of the Dog” (Netflix), The Tragedy of Macbeth” (Apple TV+), and “West Side Story” (20th Century/Disney) — are all creative examples of world building which defy genre expectations. However, the ambitious and imaginative world building for Denis Villeneuve “Dune” is the frontrunner for production designer Patrice Vermette and set decorator Zsuzsanna Sipos. They oversaw an assortment of large-scale sets at Origo Studios in Budapest....

Up first was Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. Rock was a presenter for the Best Documentary category, which Thompson’s “Summer of Soul” won. Sure enough, the first question Thompson was asked concerned the Rock-Smith incident. “I’m not talking about that. This is about the Harlem Cultural Festival. We’re very happy right now to accept this award,” Thompson said. The interview room’s moderator offered this after Thompson continued answering the question: “I caution you to not ask you questions referring to anything else in the show other than the winners on stage....

So are interviews with Anderson himself. In conversation, the filmmaker veers from self-effacing humor to genuine appreciation for the medium he holds dear. “Licorice Pizza” inhabits both of those qualities. Partly inspired by Anderson’s long-time friend and producer Gary Goetzman, it follows a troublemaking teenager (Cooper Hoffman) and his unconventional friendship with a similarly wayward young woman (Alana Haim). As the pair careen through a series of ill-conceived odd jobs against the backdrop of the San Fernando Valley, the movie becomes an immersive, soul-searching portrait of reckless youth as only Anderson could conceive it....

And it was Snyder’s movie, not the 1978 original, that filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho recalled as his first encounter with the undead. “That was when I started my interest in zombies,” Yeon said, in an email interview through a translator from South Korea. Even today, he added, “it’s the most memorable and intense zombie movie I’ve ever seen.” Coming from the director of Korea’s massive zombie franchise-starter, 2016’s “Train to Busan,” and now its 2020 sequel “Peninsula,” that conviction means something....