In terms of the ongoing question of will the Oscars become better at recognizing a more diverse set of nominees, it is all in the hands of the voters. The edict that “diversity sells” doesn’t seem to have much impact on what projects the awards body chooses to honor. The Academy tends to lean into prestige projects over accessible box office hits. There is a chance that as many as four big-budget sequels make it into the Best Picture category — not just for being popular, but for being some of the best reviewed films of the year — and they all made it a point to have ensembles that are racially diverse....

You don’t have to be obsessed with nostalgia to appreciate the aesthetic of a vintage movie poster — but it definitely helps. Vintage movie posters are multi-functional as far as gift giving goes. They’re perfect for movie lovers, they’re collectible, and they add a bit of character to any room. Whether you’re shopping for a gift for your home or office, or buying a present for someone else, we gathered up a short list of Old Hollywood movie posters to purchase online....

The pandemic changed the way that we do everything from going to work to watching movies. It also inspired people to pick up fun new hobbies such as chess (and who can forget the banana bread craze?). “The Queens Gambit” played a big part in the board game becoming that much more popular in the last year. The Netflix series, which is set in the 1960s and follows an orphaned chess prodigy, increased chess sales by more than 1,048% in 2020, compared to the previous year....

Variety’s sources, meanwhile, are disputing Smith was ever asked to leave at all. As TMZ reported, “The Academy could have buttonholed the Best Actor presenters and told them in advance … if Will won, simply say he’s not invited on stage and then quickly say ‘We’ll be right back’ and then they would go to commercial. That didn’t happen, and we’re told the reasoning was [that] the Academy officials felt it would make a bad situation even worse....

As with most of the truly valuable things in this world, the Solé family’s traditions seem permanent right until the moment they’re snatched away forever. In “Alcarràs,” change first rears its head in the form of a tractor that roars out of the clear blue sky and snatches up the abandoned Volkswagen in which six-year-old Iris (Ainet Jounou, anchoring a cast of local actors) and her siblings were playing just a few minutes earlier — the kids pretending the old rust-bucket was actually a spaceship flying too close to the sun....

“This new film by director Tom McCarthy, starring Matt Damon, is ‘loosely based’ or ‘directly inspired by’ the ‘Amanda Knox saga,’ as Vanity Fair put it in a for-profit article promoting a for-profit film, neither of which I am affiliated with,” Knox wrote. “I want to pause right here on that phrase: ‘the Amanda Knox saga.’ What does that refer to? Does it refer to anything I did? No. It refers to the events that resulted from the murder of Meredith Kercher by a burglar named Rudy Guede....

A rep for the actress told outlets that, following her car accident last week, she remains in critical condition. “Unfortunately, due to her accident, Anne suffered a severe anoxic brain injury and remains in a coma, in critical condition,” the rep said in a statement. “She is not expected to survive.” The rep continued, “It has long been her choice to donate her organs and she’s being kept on life support to determine if any are viable....