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Oscar winner Chloé Zhao tried to shake up the Marvel Cinematic Universe with her debut in the franchise, “Eternals.” The cosmic, time-spanning epic about an advanced race of aliens living on Earth in secret netted a respectable pandemic box office, topping $300 million worldwide. While the film had its fans and detractors, no MCU entry from the director of such vérité, magic hour–burnished tone poems as “Nomadland” and “The Rider” was going to please everybody....

Eleven years ago, Gabby Giffords was a popular U.S. Congressman visiting constituents in Arizona when she was shot in the head. Six people died and 19 were injured at the hands of a mentally ill gunman in a parking lot outside Safeway, while Giffords sustained severe brain injuries that left her with aphasia, a condition that makes it difficult for her to put the thoughts in her head into words. That harrowing backstory strikes a jarring contrast to the chipper woman who arrived for a Zoom interview last week to discuss “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down,” the new documentary that tells the story of how she and her husband, astronaut-turned-senator Mark Kelly, rebuilt their lives....

The study found that 9.1% of series regular characters on scripted primetime television this season are LGBTQ, a slight decrease from last year’s record high. For the first time, the report found that over half of LGBTQ characters on cable are people of color. While the steady numbers may look good from the outside, the fact that four powerhouse creators did the lion’s share of the work shows how tenuous such milestones are....

The ending of Season 1 saw Deborah offering Ava the chance to go with her on the road to try out the new material the young woman has crafted for her. But is that necessarily going to make for a career home run? As Downs said during the festival, “What we were most interested in exploring was what it’s like for someone like her to keep bombing. It might be something novel and might be something exciting in the beginning, but someone like her who has fans that come to see her, and sells out a 2,000-seat theater in Vegas and crushes, what is it like when you’re on the road in small venues and not doing well?...

Officers include: As he continues to cast movies, Rubin begins his ninth year as a governor representing the Casting Directors Branch. While he ran unopposed, Board term limits dictate that he has to exit both the presidency and the board next year for a minimum of two years. Then he might be able to come back for one last Board term of three years. So a new president will be elected next year....

The problem lies in the follow-through, an inconsistency problem that has plagued Hollywood for decades. In 2019, according to IndieWire’s own research, out of the top 100 movies of 2019, the number directed by filmmakers of color fell from 26 percent in 2018 to 18 percent in 2019. White men still account for over 80 percent of film directors at the studio level (and make up a third of the U....

“I’ve been in this position [of casting true stories] a couple of times, and I do think there are added responsibilities and challenges,” casting director Terri Taylor told IndieWire. “It goes beyond physical resemblance, because you don’t want to just cast a lookalike. You want to be able to capture the essence of the human being, but also stay true to the kind of story the filmmakers are trying to tell....