Entertainment

If April is the cruelest month, per T.S. Eliot, the Oscars surely must be the cruelest (and longest) season. Other awards shows push their way into the queue for moments of borrowed red carpet glory, but the Academy Awards are what the buildup is all about and the one people remember. Thankfully, the countdown can…

AUSTIN, Texas — “The Sun Never Sets” is filmmaker Joe Swanberg’s 10th indie to premiere at SXSW but his first to play the event since 2017. The astonishing pace with which he made his early work — loose, idiosyncratic stories that were progenitors of the emergent style known as mumblecore — has slowed significantly, but also given…

AUSTIN, Texas — One of the most anticipated events at this year’s SXSW Film & TV Festival wasn’t a movie at all, but a speaking appearance by director Steven Spielberg. The talk, a live taping of the podcast “The Big Picture” lead by co-host Sean Fennessey, covered many aspects of the Hollywood legend’s career, with a through…

It has been nearly three years since Hollywood writers went on a historic strike that lasted 148 days and ushered in an extraordinary period of labor unrest that virtually shut down the film and TV business. Now, writers are poised to commence another round of bargaining with the major studios on a new three-year film…

Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, one of the top Democrats running for California governor, on Friday blasted USC and the ABC affiliate in Los Angeles for hosting a debate that he argues purposely excludes all candidates of color. Becerra said and the other candidates were excluded from the televised debate unfairly,…

In Naples, Italy, the past isn’t relegated to what’s behind us. In its crumbled, ancient majesty, the past is quite visible. And when it comes to the legacy of Mount Vesuvius — able to change the sky and move the earth — history encompasses all that’s above and plenty that’s subterranean, too. The notion of…

NEW YORK — What makes life worth living? For hard-core “Harry Potter” fans with money to burn, it might be getting Broadway tickets to interact fleetingly with Daniel Radcliffe in “Every Brilliant Thing,” an ingenious and touching solo performance piece written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe on the subject of suicide — or more precisely, on…

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta called out the federal government for largely vacating its role as antitrust regulator, saying it’s now up to California and other states to look out for consumers’ interests. Bonta, the state’s top law enforcement officer, spoke Thursday at a Capitol Forum conference in Beverly Hills on antitrust issues and the…

Gender and racial representation on the big screen dipped once again in 2025, with the sharpest decline among women in lead roles, a new study found. The industry has failed “to better incorporate diversity,” according to the 2026 UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, released Thursday. The study, which analyzed 109 of the top English-language theatrical film…

The big question surrounding last year’s Academy Awards was whether the show would address the L.A. wildfires, which had rattled the city mere months prior. This year, the elephant in the room is the ongoing Iran war, which like last year’s wildfires, puts a celebration like the Oscars in sharp relief. But for Conan O’Brien,…