Director Chris Smith, who previously documented a peculiar form of American exploitation with his look at the mangled “Fyre” music festival, seems uniquely suited to unearthing some answers. His compelling and sometimes overwrought follow-up presents an infuriating breakdown of the corrosive forces that allow affluent people to buy their way into institutions of higher learning. “Operation Varsity Blues” provides more than proof that the American educational system is broken; it shows how many people want it to stay that way....

While Jenkins did not disclose the original ending of 2017’s “Wonder Woman,” she did say it was far more pared down than what Warner Bros. forced her to include. The studio-mandated ending featured Diana (Gal Gadot) facing off against Ares (David Thewlis) in a VFX bonanza, but this climax was widely panned by film critics. Jenkins said it’s been disappointing to see so many critics and fans get so hung up on the ending when it’s not something she came up with herself....

The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker shared on Facebook that he waited to watch the indie thriller starring Aubrey Plaza after assuming it was connected to Netflix series “Emily in Paris.” The Lily Collins-led viral series returned for a third season December 21, while film “Emily the Criminal” is also streaming on the platform. “I didn’t take notice of ‘Emily the Criminal’ because I somehow confused it with ‘Emily in Paris.’ So it slipped past,” Schrader wrote....

Per an official release, “Master Gardener” follows “a meticulous horticulturist (Edgerton) who is devoted to tending the grounds of a beautiful estate and pandering to his employer, the wealthy dowager (Weaver). When she demands that he take on her wayward and troubled great niece, it unlocks dark secrets from a buried violent past.” “When the idea first started it was one of my male protagonists but then these two women intervened and it became something more complex and unique,” Schrader said about the project....

The intriguing synopsis for the special, courtesy of Hulu, suggests that Anna and Maya are still tumbling through the pain and awkwardness of adolescence: “On vacation with Curtis, Anna and Maya are introduced to new crippling insecurities. The girls try to ignore them but a mystical turn makes their self doubt impossible to forget.” The series started out as a niche hit with the novel premise, featuring two 30-something women (Konkle and Erskine) as preteens, and its now a multi-Emmy-nominated favorite, with nods this year for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series....

Released in 2016, “Persona 5” was hardly the first entry in the series to focus on the ever-complicating relationship between ego and technology in the modern world; previous games have explored subjects like the perniciousness of online rumor-mongering, and television’s ability to distort the truth. But this one elevated the series to new heights of global popularity with a picaresque adventure that met the social media era on its own terms — it was a turn-based Tokyo story about trauma, talking cats, and how the internet makes everything feel so possible that most people can’t help but want more of themselves....

The new print will first bow at the upcoming Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, before moving on to open exclusively at the Metrograph in New York and on the theater’s digital platform October 1. A nationwide expansion will follow on October 15. While the film won Isabelle Adjani the Best Actress prize at Cannes for her ferociously engulfing performance as a woman coming down with a hallucinatory rage, “Possession” didn’t make much impact at the time of its release....