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Warning: contains spoilers for Star Trek #2!Data just advanced a shocking argument that humans are the true gods of the Star Trek franchise. Faced with the Shapers of Sarkadesh - beings who disdain other lifeforms as less advanced than their own breathtaking technology - the humans of Starfleet get a major vote of confidence from their android ally.

Interestingly, this isn't the first time that Star Trek has alluded to the fact that humanity can become like gods. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Hide and Q," Picard touches a nerve with Q when he quotes a passage from Hamlet where humanity is compared to a god. Naturally, his godly tormentor takes offense to the comparison, but Picard wonders if Q reacted so vehemently because it's a legitimate fear of the Q Continuum that humanity could one day surpass them. Now, Data seems to be confirming that is indeed the case.

Sir Kenneth Branagh celebrates his birthday on December 10. Much like the late Laurence Olivier, he has directed and starred in seven Shakespeare plays on the big screen. He was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has been its president since 2015. He kept behind the camera in such films as 1992’s “Peter’s Friends,” “2006’s “The Magic Flute, “2007’s a remake of “Sleuth,” 2011’s “Thor,” “2014’s “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” a 2015 live-action version of “Cinderella” for Disney and 2020’s “Artemis Fowl.”

SEEKenneth Branagh interview: ‘Belfast’ director/writer/producer

His 2021 film “Belfast” earned Branagh a victory for Best Original Screenplay, his first-ever Oscar win. The film based on his youth during the Irish troubles also competed for Best Picture and Best Director. Branagh has been nominated for eight Academy Awards and is the first individual to be nominated in seven different categories.

Tour our photo gallery focused on his acting performances,...

Sir Kenneth Branagh celebrates his birthday on December 10. Much like the late Laurence Olivier, he has directed and starred in seven Shakespeare plays on the big screen. He was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has been its president since 2015. He kept behind the camera in such films as 1992’s “Peter’s Friends,” “2006’s “The Magic Flute, “2007’s a remake of “Sleuth,” 2011’s “Thor,” “2014’s “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” a 2015 live-action version of “Cinderella” for Disney and 2020’s “Artemis Fowl.”

His 2021 film “Belfast” earned Branagh a victory for Best Original Screenplay, his first-ever Oscar win. The film based on his youth during the Irish troubles also competed for Best Picture and Best Director. Branagh has been nominated for eight Academy Awards and is the first individual to be nominated in seven different categories.

Tour our photo gallery focused on his acting performances, ranked from worst to best.

Click here to read the full article.

For writer-director Robert Eggers, Focus Features’ The Northman really began when the filmmaker and his wife took a vacation to Iceland. “It was the first time I became interested in old Norse culture,” recalls Eggers. It was on that same trip that Eggers met singer-songwriter Björk (who has a small role in The Northman as the mysterious Seeress). She introduced the director to her frequent collaborator Sjón, the Icelandic poet, lyricist and screenwriter, who ultimately co-wrote the historical epic with Eggers. “The Northman was birthed on that trip,” he adds.

Starring Alexander Skarsgård, the film is a retelling of the Scandinavian legend of Amleth (which also inspired William Shakespeare’s Hamlet). After witnessing the murder of his father and kidnapping of his mother at the hands of his uncle, young Amleth escapes his home and vows to avenge his father. Many years later,...

When Jonathan Majors was a student at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, he taped a photocopied black and white headshot of Oscar-winning actor, director and activist Sidney Poitier on his wall.

“That’s the thing about Sidney, a lot of people know him from all his beautiful film work, but this is a theater-trained actor, that’s how I got to know him,” Majors tells Variety of the impact Poitier had on his career. “That’s why he was up in my dorm room — because I didn’t know anything about film — I just knew this man played Walter Lee [Younger from ‘A Raisin in the Sun’] on Broadway — the Hamlet, the King Lear of the African American canon.”

When Poitier died in January, at age 94, tributes poured in from across the industry and among the salutes was the Gotham Film and Media Institute’s posthumous presentation of the 2022 Icon tribute, which Majors,...