Movies

Yes, there's a giant bear and, yes, it does a ton of coke. And, yes, just as you probably suspected, the movie blows.

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood is gearing up for the 95th Academy Awards, where “Everything Everywhere All at Once” comes in the lead nominee and the film industry will hope to move past “the slap” of last year’s ceremony. Here’s everything you need to know about the 2023 Oscars, including when they are, where to watch the live show and this year’s controversies.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rihanna will follow-up her soaring Super Bowl halftime show with a performance at the Super Bowl of movies — the Oscars.

Though gently restrained and delicately crafted, “The Quiet Girl” has managed to make plenty of noise. Colm Bairead's modestly scaled drama, his narrative directorial debut, is the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time.

NEW YORK (AP) — On Dec. 22, 1985, The Associated Press reported the following from Blue Ridge, Georgia:

“Investigators searching for cocaine dropped by an airborne smuggler have found a ripped-up shipment of the sweet-smelling powder and the remains of a bear that apparently died of a multimillion-dollar high.”

NEW YORK (AP) — The honors keep coming in for fiction writer-poet Percival Everett.

On Tuesday, Everett was one of 19 new members announced for induction this spring into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the honor society that has included luminaries from Mark Twain to Toni Morrison over the past 120 years.

Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music and video game platforms this week.

NEW YORK (AP) — Phase five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe may have gotten off to a rocky start, but Ant-Man is bigger than ever at the box office.

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" opened with $104 million in domestic ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, easily surpassing the box-office debuts of the previous two Ant-Man films.

LONDON (AP) — Antiwar German movie “All Quiet on the Western Front” won seven prizes, including best picture, at the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, building the somber drama’s momentum as awards season rolls toward its climax at next month’s Oscars.

LONDON (AP) — Winners of the 2023 British Academy Film Awards, announced Sunday:

The Directors Guild of America handed its top prize for feature filmmaking to Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” putting them on course to win at the Academy Awards next month.

BERLIN (AP) — Just hours before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, actor Sean Penn had his first on-camera meeting with the country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Ben Affleck was 12 years old in 1984 and growing up in the Boston area. The Celtics were NBA champions. The Red Sox and Patriots were respectable. The Bruins got swept in the first round of the playoffs.

Stella Stevens, a prominent leading lady in 1960s and 70s comedies perhaps best known for playing the object of Jerry Lewis’s affection in “The Nutty Professor,” has died. She was 84.

Stevens’ estate said she died Friday in Los Angeles after a long illness.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly a year after Bruce Willis' family announced that he would step away from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, his family says his “condition has progressed.”

That name on the book cover is our first warning bell.

Only two minutes into “Emily,” a bold and audacious retelling of Emily Brontë’s life starring an uncommonly compelling Emma Mackey, we spy freshly bound volumes of “Wuthering Heights,” her only novel and life’s achievement.

The richly hard-boiled terrain of detective Philip Marlowe has always been, to quote Raymond Chandler, “a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.”

Chandler's Los Angeles gumshoe has stretched across some of the most fertile decades of American cinema, from Howard Hawks' seductively cryptic “The Big Sleep” (1946) to Robert Altman's “The Long Goodbye” (1973).

NEW YORK (AP) — Raquel Welch, whose emergence from the sea in a skimpy, furry bikini in the film “One Million Years B.C.” would propel her to international sex symbol status throughout the 1960s and '70s, has died.

SANTA FE. N.M. (AP) — Production is expected to resume this spring on the movie “Rust” that was halted in October 2021 after a fatal shooting on the set involving actor-producer Alec Baldwin.

Rust Movie Productions also announced Tuesday that a related documentary will detail the completion of the film and the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who died shortly after being wounded during rehearsals at a ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Hundred Acre Wood has seen some pretty unsettling things over the years. A honey jar shortage. Rather blustery days. The omnipresent threat of a Heffalump.

But in “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” a new microbudget R-rated horror film, Pooh wades into far darker territory than even Eeyore could have ever imagined.

Peyton Reed’s “Ant-Man” films have generally served as a kind of palate cleanser to the world-ending stakes of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang is just an ordinary dude, or so they keep telling us, who still can’t really believe that he’s part of the Avengers at all.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Actor Idris Elba says he's going to stick with being the tormented detective John Luther — not James Bond.

Speaking Tuesday to the World Government Summit in Dubai, Elba brought up the persistent discussions about him taking over as Ian Fleming's famed British spy.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — The slap sat front and center at Monday's Oscar nominees luncheon.

LONDON (AP) — There is no bigger cheerleader of awards season than Richard E. Grant.

He brings joy to the red carpet, snapping selfies with stars and posting congratulations to nominees on social media.

Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music and video game platforms this week.

The third installment in the “Magic Mike” series danced its way to the top of the box office charts this weekend with a James Cameron double header, “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Titanic” (yes that “Titanic”), looming close behind.

LONDON (AP) — Hugh Hudson, a British filmmaker who debuted as a feature director with the Oscar-winning Olympics drama “Chariots of Fire” and later made such well-regarded movies as “My Life So Far” and the Oscar-nominated “Greystoke,” has died at age 86.

NEW YORK (AP) — Danielle Deadwyler says racism and misogynoir played a role in this year's Academy Awards nominations, where she and Viola Davis were overlooked in the best actress category.

MADRID (AP) — Carlos Saura, Spain’s celebrated filmmaker whose career spanned over seven decades during which he earned three Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film has died. He was 91.

If you decide to settle in and watch “Your Place or Mine” to see the sparks fly between Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, you'll be initially disappointed.

At least Julia Roberts was invited to the wedding.

I heard myself saying that out loud, rather indignantly, about halfway into “Somebody I Used to Know,” the new wedding-crashing rom-com directed by Dave Franco and starring real-life partner (and co-writer) Alison Brie, in which parallels to “My Best Friend’s Wedding" come early and often.

The words Magic Mike may conjure up images of sweaty, sculpted, undulating men, dancing unthreateningly for hoards of screaming women, but there has always been a backdrop of brutal economic reality looming over the fantasy world.

Disney is working on sequels for “Toy Story,” “Frozen” and “Zootopia,” three huge hits as the entertainment powerhouse attempts to find its footing under newly returned CEO Bob Iger.

Almost invariably, we root for the con artist.

Seldom does the ingenuity and cleverness of a good hustler, card sharp or con man not win us over. They are, of course, walking metaphors for the movies.

NEW YORK (AP) — Long before a bemused Riz Ahmed read its name on Oscar nominations morning, the title of Pamela Ribon’s short film has tended to have an effect on those who hear it.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Simu Liu, who's best known for playing Marvel superhero Shang-Chi, wants everyone who attends an event at Chase Center to feel welcome, comfortable and supported, just as he has been in the five months since opening up about his own challenges with anxiety.

NEW YORK (AP) — Middle seats at many U.S. movie theaters just got more expensive.

AMC Theaters, the nation's largest movie theater chain, on Monday unveiled a new pricing scheme in which seat location determines how much your movie ticket costs.

Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music and video game platforms this week.

NEW YORK (AP) — For the first time in almost two months, the box office doesn't belong to blue people.

After seven weeks as the top film in theaters, “Avatar: The Way of Water” was finally knocked out of the No.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi was released on bail Friday, two days after going on hunger strike to protest his imprisonment last summer, his supporters said.

NEW YORK (AP) — When Lukas Dhont was 12, a camera was thrust into his hands. For Dhont, who would come out as gay as a young adult, the camera was an escape from the strains and stereotypes he was beginning to feel pushed on him.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Singer-songwriter Jessy Wilson was ready to give up her musical dream when a film about female African warriors showed her the power of perseverance.

Replete with spellbinding multiverses, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” topped the 95th Academy Awards nominations with 11 nods. Elsewhere, stories of friendship and family permeated 2022 cinema and the nominations this year, as did big-budget blockbusters.

Tom Brady has officially — and finally, he insists — retired from the National Football League. Based on his new movie “80 For Brady,” it's also time that he immediately retire from filmmaking.

Knock. Knock.

It being mid-winter (typically a doldrums in movie theaters), it's a cozy relief to be able to throw open the door and find M. Night Shyamalan standing there with his near-annual helping of high-concept thriller.

NEW YORK (AP) — There is so much left to be said about “Airplane!”

Surely. (Shirley?)

“Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!” will be published Oct. 3 by St. Martin's Press, the publisher announced Wednesday.

NEW YORK (AP) — After a review of the awards campaign for the indie drama “To Leslie," the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said Tuesday that Andrea Riseborough will not be stripped of her Oscar nomination for best actress.

NEW YORK (AP) — New DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran debuted their plans for a revamped and newly unified DC Universe of films and television series, including a new Superman film in 2025, a Wonder Woman prequel and a Batman movie that won't star Robert Pattinson.

NEW YORK (AP) — Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are reteaming for a fourth “Bad Boys” movie, in one of Smith's most high-profile new projects since the slap.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nothing — not Tom Cruise's snub nor Austin Butler's lingering Elvis Presley inflections — has caused quite as much a stir around this year's Oscars as the best-actress nomination for British actress Andrea Riseborough.