That’s the good news. The less-good: Summer revealed and reinforced the ongoing weaknesses of post-Covid exhibition and they’re ones that even a $1.5 billion global blockbuster can’t touch. Summer’s domestic box office — traditionally defined as the first weekend of May through Labor Day — will total about $3.35 billion. That’s about 77 percent compared to the summer of pre-Covid 2019. However, we’ve seen the definition of the summer box-office start shift to the release of the first Disney Marvel film....

After a trio of films that saw François Ozon feeling out the far extremes of his interest and ability — 2016’s monochrome interwar melodrama “Frantz,” the winking De Palma-esque mindfuck “Double Lover,” and last year’s journalistic Catholic priest exposé “By the Grace of God” — the precocious and pétillant “Summer of 85” finds the prolific French auteur circling back to the kind of lurid, playful, and unapologetically queer psychodramas that first made him famous in the late ’90s....

“In this unique year that has asked so much of so many, the Academy is determined to present an Oscars like none other, while prioritizing the public health and safety of all those who will participate,” stated a spokesperson for the Academy. “To create the in-person show our global audience wants to see, while adapting to the requirements of the pandemic, the ceremony will broadcast live from multiple locations, including the landmark Dolby Theatre....

Still, White has spent ample time professionally in the Windy City and considers it “a third home” (in addition to New York City and Los Angeles) so we put a mitraillette to his head and made him name his favorite Chicago sandwich joint. “People are gonna make fun of me,” he warned IndieWire. Try us. “We didn’t shoot ‘Shameless’ really in Chicago — we shot it in Los Angeles mostly — but we would go kind of like two weeks a season,” White said....

Film is an extremely dynamic art form, and camera motion makes our favorite movies feel alive. The speed and energy found in a great moving shot is part of the reason why our favorite movies can elicit so much emotion from us. But no matter how good your camera is, unintentionally shaky footage is always unpleasant to watch. That’s where camera stabilizers come in. Attaching your camera to a handheld stabilizer allows you to move it around while maintaining the stability of a tripod (or pretty close to it)....

In an unprecedented occurrence, the same three titles top the lists for Apple TV, Google Play, and FandangoNow. “The Croods: A New Age” (Universal), “Tenet” (Warner Bros.), and “Greenland” (STX), all available to rent at $19.99, lead whether the charts calculate by number of purchases or total revenue accrued. Meantime, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” became the first of Netflix’s film awards contenders to open at #1 on their film chart (as well as on their broader listings)....

Of course, none of those films were available in theaters. Instead, the only new wide release was graphic novel adaptation “The Empty Man,” a 20th Century title (released by Disney) produced in summer 2017. And while we don’t know the numbers for those home releases, “The Empty Man” placed fourth with $1.265 million, one of only four films that surpassed $1 million in gross. “The Empty Man” is a typical Halloween-timed horror release, but it’s unusually long (137 minutes!...