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Susan Seidelman on the Sex And The City pilot she directed: “The opening line of the script is “Once upon a time …” The opening starts off as a happy fairy tale and then it gets dark.”

In the first instalment with Susan Seidelman on her memoir, Desperately Seeking Something (St. Martin’s Press), we were joined by music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman, who over 40 years ago worked with Susan during the late stages of the editing process for her début feature film Smithereens (which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 1982), starring Susan Berman opposite Richard Hell and Brad Rijn.

In the second instalment Susan Seidelman discusses Dianne Wiest, Emily Lloyd, and Brenda Vaccaro in Cookie, her Sex And The City pilot, friendship and fashion, fairy tales and their dark side, Lina Wertmüller, the passing of Mark Blum, and the lack of female role models in.

Even the antagonists in Dragon Ball are worthy of respect; there’s a lot of fight in them. Creators and the ones who’ve animated them deserve more respect. Especially when it comes to characters like Cell. The character certainly had one of the best designs in the series.

Sparking Zero‘s latest clip shows developers’ justice to the character, with the details that can keep anyone hooked on the screen. People aren’t simply saying its a peak game for no reason. Even in the regular battles, it feels like an episode of anime we never saw before.

Dragon Ball Fans Are Intrigued by the Perfection it Seems

Akira Toriyama expressed some regret back in the day after designing one of the strongest characters in the series. But now that he’s watching from above, he might be happy to see how badly fans love the way he looks.

Rosanna Arquette is open to a Desperately Seeking Susan sequel. The actor recently opened up about the beloved 1980s classic from Orion Pictures and whether she would ever reunite with Madonna for a follow-up film.

While speaking with film critic and journalist Anna Smith on her Girls On Film podcast (via Deadline), Arquette expressed interest in a Desperately Seeking Susan 2, noting that legacy sequels to popular '80s movies are all the rage right now. "I always had a fantasy about what happened to them?" she said of Roberta Glass, the character she plays in the comedy-drama, and Madonna's titular Susan Thomas. "Who are they now? It would be so great to make that movie. And see where everybody ends up. Do Dez [Aidan Quinns character] and her stay together? What happens to them?"

Related 'I Didn't Give a F': Spike Lee Defends Madonna's Casting in 1996 Comedy

Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee breaks down...

Susan Seidelman’s enduring breakout hit Desperately Seeking Susan turns 40 next year, and Rosanna Arquette, one of the film’s stars, has said she still has hypothetical dreams of revisiting the pic in a sequel.

Speaking on film critic and journalist Anna Smith’s popular Girls On Film Podcast, Arquette said the thought of returning to the feature popped into her mind because sequels are now frequently being produced.

“I always had a fantasy about what happened to them?” she said of the character she plays in the pic alongside Madonna, who made her acting debut in the film. “Who are they now? It would be so great to make that movie. And see where everybody ends up. Do Dez [Aidan Quinn’s character] and her stay together? What happens to them?”

Directed by Seidelman from a screenplay by Leora Barish, Desperately Seeking Susan tells the story of Roberta (Arquette...

Susan Seidelman with Anne-Katrin Titze and music producer/99 Records founder Ed Bahlman: “Music has always been important in my movies.”

In the first instalment with Susan Seidelman on her memoir, Desperately Seeking Something (St. Martin’s Press), and her career as a filmmaker, we start out discussing the jacket choices for Susan Berman, Madonna, Ann Magnuson (Frankie in Making Mr. Right with John Malkovich), and Emily Lloyd.

Susan Berman as Wren in Smithereens and Madonna as Susan in Desperately Seeking Susan

We move on to the influence of Jacques Rivette’s Celine And Julie Go Boating, her love of Billy Wilder films, being named after...

It’s New York City, 1989. Susan Seidelman is in the delivery room, in labor with her son. “Siskel and Ebert” plays on the TV, and in between contractions, the two critics are tearing apart her new movie “She-Devil.” “Watching them review my film literally with the doctor’s hand inside of me telling me to push was very strange,” Seidelman recalls.

That surreal scene is just one of the memorable moments the trailblazing director recounts in “Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls.” By turns reflective and celebratory, the book covers the surprises and setbacks of a career carved out at a time when women filmmakers were a rarity.

When Seidelman first realized she could aspire to become a movie director, she could barely find a role model. Outside of Elaine May, there was only a small handful of women directing. But Seidelman kept at it,...

When Susan Seidelman first decided she wanted to become a filmmaker, she didn’t have any guidebooks to help the Philadelphia native on her chosen journey. With her new autobiography, “Desperately Seeking Something,” she hopes to change that.

“When I would read books about what it was like directing, it was John Ford or John Houston or Alfred Hitchcock, these guys writing from a very male perspective,” she told IndieWire during a recent interview. “I had to kind of figure stuff out for myself, so I thought it might be nice to write a memoir about what my experience was like, but also with advice for the next generation, the next few generations, hopefully.”

Seidelman’s book, out this week, charts her wild — and incredibly varied — ride through indie filmmaking (like taking her debut film “Smithereens” all the way to Cannes), keen casting (she gave Madonna her first big role...

Black Mirror is a British anthology series that first aired in 2011. The science-fiction series uses advanced technology as a backdrop for episodes that range from horror and thriller to drama and dark comedy, and the boldness of the short stories made the series quickly stand out. After two seasons, Netflix purchased the show and started releasing all episodes of each season simultaneously. Black Mirror Season 7 is expected in 2025, which will include a sequel to a famous Season 4 episode.

Although all seasons of Black Mirror are good, some impressed fans more than others with the overall quality of the episodes. A common opinion is that the show had better seasons before it became a Netflix commission, with Season 1, Episode 1, "The National Anthem" being one of the most memorable episodes of the entire series. However, recent episodes prove that Black Mirror is still as good as ever and continues to push boundaries...

Netflix’s “Black Mirror” returns to the Emmy Awards after a four-year break with its sixth season that premiered back in June 2023. The trajectory of the Charlie Brooker anthology series at the Emmys has been a tumultuous journey, particularly in recent years. The science-fiction dystopia used to dominate the limited/movie genre, winning Best Television Movie for three consecutive years at its height, before the Television Academy ruled that it must compete for the drama categories for its fifth season in 2020, ending its streak. Then the following year, the top category for limited series was changed to Best Limited or Anthology Series, placing “Black Mirror” back into the genre, but in the more competitive limited series race rather than the standalone television movies.

Despite the many radical switches, the program has managed an impressive eight wins out of 14 nominations overall. With its new string of six anthology episodes that star various actors including Salma Hayek,...

Susan Seidelman's 1985 comedy "Desperately Seeking Susan" is about an unhappy housewife named Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) who notices that two people appear to be communicating through mutually placed personal ads in her local newspaper. The correspondents are "Jim" and "Susan," and Roberta becomes involved in their progressing print-only drama. Audiences also see that Susan (Madonna) is an itinerant drifter who is having an affair with a mobster. She is involved in a crime drama of her own. All the same, Roberta manages to see a meeting between Susan and Jim from afar and then buys some of Susan's clothes after Susan sells them to a thrift store.

Naturally, through some exciting contrivances, Roberta is not only mistaken for Susan, but she hits her head and contracts amnesia, soon believing that she, too, is Susan. It's an exciting, high-concept comedy that introduced Madonna to the world and was inspired by Jacque...

Throughout the early 2000s, the rock ‘n’ roll film festival “Don’t Knock the Rock” was one of the highlights of any L.A.-based cinephile’s year, an impeccably assembled program of movies, live performances, and panels celebrating the intersection between rock ‘n’ roll and cinema. Created by writer-director Allison Anders and music supervisor Tiffany Anders, “Don’t Knock the Rock” was beloved for its determination to showcase difficult-to-see music documentaries and for the breadth and depth of its programming.

The festival last graced L.A. screens in 2016, but now it’s returning to Hollywood via the American Cinematheque with a line-up that’s one of the best ever. From May 23-27, “Don’t Knock the Rock” will screen an eclectic mix of documentaries, music-themed narrative films, and essential retrospective programs at the Cinematheque’s Los Feliz venue, with an added virtual component that will stream from May 23-July 31. Among the...

Ron Nyswaner will soon be traveling to New York to reunite with his Writers Guild of America East fellows for a grand occasion. The Oscar-nominated screenwriter, producer and showrunner has been selected to receive the Walter Bernstein Award at the 76th Writers Guild Awards at New York’s Edison Ballroom on April 14.

The honor — named after the late screenwriter who was blacklisted for his political views only to persevere and get his career back on track with such credits as Fail-Safe, Semi-Tough and Yanks — is presented to writers “who have demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity,” per the organization.

Nyswaner has been doing that for pretty much his entire career. A prime example is Jonathan Demme’s 1993 film Philadelphia. Penned by Nyswaner, the Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington-starrer was the first major Hollywood film to dramatize the real-world...

Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind films including Philadelphia and The Painted Veil and most recently the Matt Bomer-starring Showtime miniseries Fellow Travelers, is receiving this year’s Walter Bernstein Award from the Writers Guild of America East.

The honor will be bestowed April 14 at the WGA Awards’ East Coast ceremony in New York, which takes place concurrently with the WGA’s West Coast ceremony in Los Angeles.

The Bernstein award goes to writers “who have demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.” Nyswaner becomes the second person to win the award, after Jelani Cobb won in 2017 for his Frontline documentary Policing the Police.

Nyswaner penned the original screenplay for Philadelphia, which was groundbreaking when the Jonathan Demme-directed film starring Tom Hanks debuted in 1993; it was the first major motion picture to focus on the discrimination suffered by people with AIDS,...

Scott's role as Lord Rollo in "Catherine Called Birdy" showcases his comedic talent and nuanced portrayal of a struggling father In the "Black Mirror" episode "Smithereens," Scott's performance as a grieving rideshare driver battling grief is dark and emotional. Scott's key role in "1917" as Lieutenant Leslie, a wearied lieutenant helping young soldiers, highlights his impactful presence in a short time.

Andrew Scott is an incredible actor with some serious credits in his career, but in all of his performances, he put in an enormous effort to create convincing and emotionally rich characters. Scott was born in Dublin, Ireland, and developed a passion for acting from an early age. At 6 years old, he appeared in a TV commercial for a popular porridge brand in Ireland. He then pursued his passion for acting by joining a theater group where he continued to perform in increasingly larger productions before working in Ireland's most famous playhouse,...

Oscar Contender

Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga Kapoor (“The Elephant Whisperers”) and Michelin-starred chef and filmmaker Vikas Khanna (“The Last Color”) have boarded Oscar-qualified animated short “American Sikh” as executive producers.

The film tells the true story of an American-born, turban-wearing Sikh illustrator, writer, performance artist, diversity speaker and creator of Sikhtoons.com, Vishavjit Singh, who after a lifetime of facing prejudice, self-doubt and violence, finally finds acceptance in a superhero costume. Singh is publicly known for his Captain America persona — a turbaned and bearded Sikh — fighting against bigotry, intolerance and perceptions of what an American should look like post 9/11.

“American Sikh” was created in partnership with Singh as the director-producer and director Ryan Westra. It was animated by Studio Showoff, a Melbourne-based production house founded by Ivan Dixon and Sean Zwan that has produced work for Childish Gambino, HBO and Cartoon Network.

The film has won best short animation at Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham,...

This article contains spoilers for Our Flag Means Death season 1.

The sitcom Our Flag Means Death has behaved in a very piratey way, quite frankly. When it burst onto the scene last year, it unexpectedly plundered fans’ hearts, leaving their new favorite ship – between Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet and Taika Waititi as Blackbeard – wrecked, and left us stranded on a cliffhanger of a finale desperate for a second series.

Thankfully, the treasure that is season two of Our Flag Means Death is released on Max on Oct. 5, and it’s as adorable as ever, with a whole crew of new characters to fall in love with:

Let’s meet the new characters, and discover which returning cast members are back:

New Cast Ruibo Qian as Susan

Susan runs a soup stand in the Republic of Pirates, which she acquired by savage means, but she seems to have more depth...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Bleecker Street will open “One Life” in select theaters March 15, 2024.

Like OBEs, middlebrow British prestige biopics symbolize a desire to raise national morale by bestowing laurels upon an extraordinary individual. These subjects require no special case-making, for their efforts speak for themselves. The result tends to be patronizingly risk-averse, as story dots are joined with the goal of spoon-feeding a historic achievement to the masses. An inspirational message becomes a claim to contemporary relevance while a popular actor leads the charge towards awards recognition.

What sets Anthony Hopkins as Sir Nicholas Winton aside from Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game” and Eddie Redmayne as Steven Hawking in “The Theory of Everything,” is that while these two men are known for their scientific inventions, Winton acted from an instinctive desire to do something humane.

“I wanted to tell stories about people who I wanted to watch on screen,” says Susan Seidelman, the director behind a number of landmark ‘80s films that range from the fearless punk drama “Smithereens” to the Madonna-led classic “Desperately Seeking Susan.” It was never much of a mystery as to who those people were: Over the course of a career that would continue to shape American culture for the rest of the 20th century and beyond (later credits include the pilot for “Sex and the City”), Seidelman has consistently focused her sharp lens on the changing place of women in American society, and the work she made in the 1980s helped fundamentally reshape our national self-image in ways that are still being felt today.

Seidelman came to the cinema after studying fashion at Drexel University, where a film appreciation class had reawakened the fierce love for genre films that...

Since Netflix recently released a sixth season of Black Mirror, a lot of people are reflecting on some of the most interesting and shocking quotes from previous seasons. This science fiction show became a fan favorite from day one for discussing in a controversial way the dangers of technology.

Many quotes in Black Mirror are included to make people think about their attitudes. Several episodes propose ethical questions about delicate subjects, such as death, punishment, and murder. Because of this, Black Mirror has some of the most interesting quotes in TV shows.

Related: The 10 Best Long-Running Netflix Series, Ranked

"He Thinks He's Got Free Will." Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)

The 2018 Black Mirror film, Bandersnatch, deals with themes like volition, destiny, and control. In fact, viewers can change the ending and duration of the movie based on their choices. In the same way, the main character of the film, Stefan, is making...

Every time a new season of “Black Mirror” debuts, viewers everywhere stop what they’re doing and start feverishly debating which episode was their favorite. (Wars have been started over less.) Emmy voters gave three consecutive Best TV Movie awards to “San Junipero” (2017), “USS Callister” (2018) and “Bandersnatch” (2019), but what does the entire fandom think are the show’s best and worst installments ever? We’ve consulted the cumulative IMDb rankings for all seasons and come up with the definitive list of “Black Mirror” episodes ranked by fans. Can You guess their #1 choice? (Scroll through our photo gallery above or click here for direct access.)

Season 6 was released in June 2023 and brought the total number of episodes and specials to 28. Created by Charlie Brooker, the sci-fi anthology series began on the UK’s Channel 4 in 2011 before moving to Netflix (and becoming a worldwide phenomenon) in 2016. The show took a four-year...

Every time a new season of “Black Mirror” debuts, viewers everywhere stop what they’re doing and start feverishly debating which episode was their favorite. (Wars have been started over less.) Emmy voters gave three consecutive Best TV Movie awards to “San Junipero” (2017), “USS Callister” (2018) and “Bandersnatch” (2019), but what does the entire fandom think are the show’s best and worst installments ever? We’ve consulted the cumulative IMDb rankings for all seasons and come up with the definitive list of “Black Mirror” episodes ranked by fans. Can You guess their #1 choice?

Season 6 was released in June 2023 and brought the total number of episodes and specials to 28. Created by Charlie Brooker, the sci-fi anthology series began on the UK’s Channel 4 in 2011 before moving to Netflix (and becoming a worldwide phenomenon) in 2016. The show took a four-year break after Season 5, thanks in part to the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, but...

The Black Mirror "Smithereens" ending is one of the most talked about in the popular series, and as puzzling as it is, there are answers. "Smithereens" sees Andrew Scott playing a man who takes a social media company's intern hostage and threatens to shoot him if he doesn't get connected on the phone to the company's CEO. It's a tense ride that slowly untangles the mystery of who the man is and what pushed him to this extreme action - but the ending deliberately leaves one big question unanswered. It begins with a man who the audience later learns is called Chris Gilheany (Scott) waiting near the building of a company called Smithereen.

Chris is waiting to accept ride-share requests from people leaving the building. He picks up Jaden (Damson Idris) and kidnaps him, believing him to be a high-level employee. However, Jaden is an unlucky Black Mirror character as...

Several times throughout sci-fi anthology Black Mirror‘s run, creator Charlie Brooker has intimated that the show’s seemingly unrelated installments take place in a shared universe. The show itself has continually confirmed Brooker’s theory, featuring a series of familiar Easter eggs throughout many episodes.

Speaking to Thrillist in advance of the show’s third season (and first on Netflix) in 2016, Brooker said: “We had the Irma Thomas song come back in because it does sort of nest the whole thing together in some kind of artistic universe, to sound wanky for a moment. So it is deliberate, but it’s not part of some grand unveiling that this is all set in the year 2030 or something.”

Then, in 2017, Brooker told DigitalSpy that season 4 finale “Black Museum” does actually “now seem to imply that it is all a shared universe.”

With the launch of Black Mirror season 6, however, the...

Warning: spoilers for season 6 of “Black Mirror”.

Upon “Black Mirror”‘s epic return after a four-year hiatus, fans have already spotted numerous Easter eggs from previous seasons in each of the five new episodes.

The mind-bending anthology series — that reveals humanity’s worst traits, greatest innovations, and more — released its sixth season today, and it’s full of new and cryptic surprises, whether in outer space or an alternate reality.

Read More: Annie Murphy Says She And ‘Black Mirror’ Co-Star Salma Hayek Are Desperate To Star In A Buddy Comedy Together: ‘Please, We’re Begging You!’

While filming the new season last September, series creator, Charlie Brooker, said he “always felt that ‘Black Mirror’ should feature stories that are entirely distinct from one another, and keep surprising people — and myself — or else what’s the point?”

Despite season 6’s more frightening approach, Brooker still managed to connect the “Black Mirror...

Warning: contains spoilers for the Black Mirror episode “Loch Henry”

“Pretty wee thing you’ve captured.” So says Janet McArdle to her son about his new girlfriend on first meeting her. Janet, a walking cardigan with a tiny voice, turns out to know a thing or two about capture…

Played by Monica Dolan in her second Black Mirror role after season five’s “Smithereens”, Janet lives alone, surrounded by kitsch ornaments and home-recorded VHS tapes of 1980s cosy crime series Bergerac, in the remote Scottish town of Loch Henry. She’s been a widow since the death of her police officer husband Kenny years earlier. When her student filmmaker son Davis (Samuel Blenkin) and his partner Pia (Myha’la Herrold) visit from London, it’s clear how unexciting and provincial they find Janet and her lifestyle. If only they knew.

Over the course of “Loch Henry”, Davis and Pia find out exactly who Janet is,...

After four years, “Black Mirror” is back for Season 6 and considering it’s the premiere destination for storytelling that comes swinging at big tech, it was only a matter of time before it took aim at the streaming industry. Season 6 comes out of the gate hitting directly at Netflix — the streamer in which it airs — with the arrival of the Streamberry app in the hyper-meta episode “Joan Is Awful.” And hoo boy, does Streamberry shake up the current understanding of the “Black Mirror” universe.

Not least of all because the Streamberry homepage is jam-packed with familiar titles that reference episodes from every season of “Black Mirror.” Some of the shots go by in a hurry, and not everyone has time to pause (over and over again) to obsess over the details, so we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to all the Easter Eggs, callbacks and references you’ll find in the Streamberry lineup.

A Black Mirror season 6 trailer announces its return on Netflix and teases a brand-new set of eerie episodes. The dystopian show last premiered four years ago when it dropped three standalone episodes, such as "Striking Vipers" and "Smithereens." Anticipation for season 6 started thereafter, but possibilities for new episodes seemed dubious due to issues regarding IP rights and creator Charlie Brooker and executive producer Annabel Jones leaving the series, citing the show's declining public interest. However, season 6 was unexpectedly renewed in May 2022, with the expectation of more than three episodes.

Now, after a three-year hiatus, Netflix has finally released the first Black Mirror season 6 trailer. Check it out below:

The official season 6 teaser reveals what audiences can expect from the brand-new batch of episodes from its star-studded cast, dark and dystopic themes, and heightened violence.

Everything Revealed By The Black Mirror Season 6 Trailer

First and foremost, what's most notable about the...

Rami Malek is circling his next lead role in the thriller "Amateur" from 20th Century Studios. Deadline reports that James Hawes — who directed all six episodes of the first season of "Slow Horses," the Gary Oldman-led Apple TV+ series — has also boarded the project. Right now, it's still in the development stages, with Malek in line to executive produce alongside Hutch Parker and Dan Wilson.

The plot of "Amateur" reportedly "follows a CIA cryptographer who, after his wife is tragically killed in a London terrorist attack, demands his bosses go after them." The CIA isn't having any of that, and "when it becomes clear they won't act due to conflicting internal priorities," the cryptographer takes matters into his own hands and "blackmails the agency into training him."

Malek is no stranger to thriller territory, having starred in "Mr. Robot" for four seasons before the show ended in 2019. Since winning...

After a lot of behind-the-scenes complications, "Black Mirror" is officially returning for a sixth season on Netflix. Now that fans have something to look forward to again, it's worth looking back on the show's most widely-derided string of episodes: season 5. The season started off with "Striking Vipers," an episode whose biggest claim to fame was the "I f**ked a polar bear" line. This was followed by "Smithereens," an episode that most people considered entertaining, but whose message was often conflated to nothing more than a "don't text and drive" PSA. This was followed by "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too," which is widely considered to...

The post Why Season 5 of Black Mirror is Better Than You Remember appeared first on /Film.

“Black Mirror” will return for a sixth season on Netflix, Variety reported on Monday.

The popular dystopian series, which finds the darkness that lurks behind technological advances, last aired new episodes in 2019. Variety reported that the new season will feature more standalone episodes, with each being considered as an “individual film.” (The last season of “Black Mirror” featured three episodes.)

Created by Charlie Brooker, “Black Mirror” has won numerous Emmy Awards and its anthology format has allowed for multiple major stars to participate in the show’s skewed universe. But new episodes were far from assured despite the success: Back in 2020, Brooker said he didn’t expect to revisit “Black Mirror” during the coronavirus pandemic due to the mood of the moment. “I don’t know what stomach there would be for stories about societies falling apart, so I’m not working away on one of those,” he told U.

Black Mirror is returning to Netflix for a sixth season, Deadline has confirmed.

Charlie Brooker’s dystopian show has been one of the streamer’s landmarks since being picked up from Channel 4 after series two, setting the bar for high quality and innovative thinking.

The sixth season will likely follow the same pattern as the fifth, which reduced the number of episodes down to three but extended them to feature film length, a source confirmed.

Season five was preceded by innovative playalong feature Bandersnatch and was comprised of three episodes: Striking Vipers with Anthony Mackie and Yahya Abdul-Matteen II, Smithereens with Sherlock star Andrew Scott and Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too, which starred Miley Cyrus as a popstar.

Black Mirror is now produced by Brooker and Annabel Jones’ indie Broke & Bones, which has investment and a deal with Netflix. It was previously produced by the pair’s Banijay-backed shingle...

America has officially celebrated Women’s History month since the 1980s when a feminist surge for equal job opportunities and education blossomed out of local celebrations and the International Women’s Day holiday, as well as Women’s History Week. And for the entire month of March, the streaming service HBO Max is celebrating Women’s History Month with programming devoted entirely to stories about women.

HBO Max is stacked with movies and shows that show complex female leads, and along with their spotlight page offerings, HBO is offering a first ever in-app trivia experience to celebrate the event. The HBO Max Women’s History Month Trivia tray allows fans to discover entertainment milestones that all involve women. To reveal the answer, viewers can simply click or tap the tile.

HBO Max has curated a list of films, TV shows and documentaries that reflect empowering and challenging female characters, overlooked and underrated performances,...

Alamo Drafthouse, the movie theater du jour of cinephiles, is finally ready to open the doors to its first Manhattan location.

Starting on Oct. 18, customers will be able to visit the Alamo Drafthouse Lower Manhattan to get their fix of popcorn, buffalo cauliflower and beer while watching the latest blockbuster unfold on the big screen. The soft launch period will run through Oct. 21, a time during which guests will receive special discounts on select food and non-alcoholic beverages while staff members train and find their bearings. Located in the Financial District at 28 Liberty Street, the 14-screen multiplex and 598-seat theater is the company’s third New York-based operation following Yonkers and Brooklyn.

“The last 18 months have been a rollercoaster for our industry, but through it all we’ve believed in the future of this industry,” says Alamo Drafthouse CEO Shelli Taylor. “Opening our Lower Manhattan theater is an expression of...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

China Lost and Found: Eight Films by Jia Zhangke

One of the greatest directors to emerge in this young century, Jia Zhangke has captured his native country like few others. The Criterion Channel is now spotlighting his stellar body of work, including the new restoration of his debut Xiao Wu (1997), along with Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013), and Mountains May Depart (2015). Also playing is the documentary Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang from 2014.

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)

In the quarter-century since its debut, Olivier Assayas’ hilarious, mischievous, altogether unclassifiable Irma Vep stands merrily uninterested in many things contemporary movies are meant to be interested in—not ultra-sophisticated narrative gimmickry...

For a certain generation of women, director Susan Seidelman’s second feature, “Desperately Seeking Susan,” is a formative text, an indelible record of New York in the ‘80s, from Madonna’s iconic hair bow to Rosanna Arquette’s spirited performance as the lead. With its cast of New York underground habitués, and fizzy pace set to the tune of Madonna’s “Into the Groove,” “Desperately Seeking Susan” was a fashion-forward change of pace from the teen comedies and slick action fare of the time.

Seidelman’s first feature, the scrappy microbudget “Smithereens,” shocked everyone when it was selected as one of the first American independent films to be accepted into official competition at the Cannes Film Festival. With a cast that included proto-punk rocker Richard Hell, the 1982 “Smithereens” captured the East Village in all its grungy, pre-gentrification glory, and has become a cult classic.

A die-hard New Yorker, Seidelman never felt comfortable in Hollywood.

The winners of the 2020 Irish Film & Television Academy Awards were announced last night, with Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson pic Ordinary Love winning Best Film, presented by Martin Scoresese. Tom Vaughan-Lawlor won Best Actor in Film for Rialto, which also scooped the Scriptwriter prize for Mark O’Halloran. Paddy Breathnach took Best Director for Rosie. Jessie Buckley won two awards: Best Actress In Film for Wild Rose as well as Supporting Actress Drama for Chernobyl. Niamh Algar also took two prizes: Supporting Actress Film for Calm With Horses and Leading Actress Drama for The Virtues. Also on the TV side, Blood won Best Drama, Andrew Scott took Best Actor Drama for Black Mirror: Smithereens, Mark O’Halloran won Supporting Actor Drama for The Virtues, Dearbhla Walsh won Director Drama for The Handmaid’s Tale, and Mark O’Rowe won Scriptwriter Drama for Temple. Aisling Franciosi Won the Screen Ireland Rising Star prize.

Four of the men nominated for Drama Guest Actor already have at least one Emmy Award on their mantle, while the other two nominees are looking for their first win. A dynamite episode submission is a key factor in deciding a winner. We have weighed the pros and cons of every episode submission to better help you deduce who might win the Drama Guest Actor race this year. Who will win at the Creative Arts Emmys on Saturday, September 19? Follow the links below for each episode analysis.

See 2020 Emmy nominations complete list: All the nominees for the 72nd Emmy Awards

Jason Bateman, “The Outsider”

Jason Bateman is a ten-time Emmy nominee. For acting, he has two Comedy Lead Actor bids for “Arrested Development” and three Drama Lead Actor bids for “Ozark.” The latter series also netted him two Drama Series nominations and two Drama Directing nominations. He won Drama Directing last year.

Egregiously snubbed at last year’s Emmys as the portrayer of “Fleabag’s” Hot Priest, Andrew Scott is back with his red-hot turn on “Black Mirror” installment “Smithereens.” As none of the fifth season’s three standalone episodes met the 75-minute runtime requirement to contend as a TV movie, the TV academy ruled the Netflix anthology a drama series for the first time, allowing Scott, who appeared in one of three, to compete as a guest actor. Celebrating his career-first Emmy bid in Best Drama Guest Actor, the Irish actor is “Black Mirror’s” sole representation at this year’s awards.

Scott plays Chris Gillhaney, a London-based rideshare driver who picks up and abducts an intern of the social media company Smithereen, Jaden Tommins (Damson Idris), initially convinced that he’s an important employee. After spotting a bag on Jaden’s head, two police officers engage in a car chase,...

Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Hot Priest (Andrew Scott) didn’t live happily ever after on “Fleabag,” but their portrayers could get a happy ending together at the Creative Arts Emmys in September. Both are up for guest awards — she for comedy guest actress for “Saturday Night Live“; he, drama guest actor for “Black Mirror” — so now the question is if voters will kneel to both of them.

Both could benefit from any “Fleabag” afterglow from last year when the series bagged six Emmys, including three for Waller-Bridge for Best Comedy Series, Best Comedy Actress and Best Comedy Writing. Thirteen days later, she hosted the second episode of “SNL’s” 45th season — and brought her new friends along for the ride.

Waller-Bridge, who’s also nominated as executive producer of drama series contender “Killing Eve,” is in third place in our odds, trailing Wanda Sykes (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) and Maya Rudolph (“The Good Place”), respectively.

“Black Mirror” is the three-time reigning champion in Best TV Movie, an Emmy race ostensibly for one-off productions. The dystopian satire was expected to contend to extend its record, which it set when it won for the second time, but its victories were so controversial that the academy amended eligibility requirements. Movies (and episodes entering as movies) now must have a minimum 75-minute runtime to qualify for Best TV Movie. This disqualified all episodes from the fifth (and probably final) season of “Black Mirror,” which had already been produced when the academy announced the change.

SEEour slugfest with initial reactions to the nominations.

Despite the rule seemingly being introduced only to force “Black Mirror” out of Best TV Movie, Netflix lobbied the academy for an exception, which they inexplicably granted. Rival networks complained and the academy caved again. They reversed the reversal, opting to play by their own new rules...

Nominations for the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards were announced on Tuesday morning— virtually, by Leslie Jones (SNL), Laverne Cox (Orange Is the New Black), Josh Gad (Frozen) and Tatiana Maslany (Perry Mason) — and HBO’s Watchmen led the pack with 26 total nominations, including for Outstanding Limited Series and stars Regina King and Jeremy Irons.

Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel placed second with 20 total nods, followed by Netflix’s Ozark and HBO’s Succession, which amassed 18 apiece.

More from TVLine2020 Primetime Emmys to Go VirtualEmmys 2020: The 30 Biggest SnubsEmmy Nominations 2020 Live Stream: Watch Announcements and Weigh In

Going by outlet,...

The Emmy Awards ballot for Best Drama Writing lists 240 episodes (from 147 series), so there will be seven nominees in this category for the first time since 1987, per the new rules. The six nominees last year were:

“Better Call Saul” season 4: “Winner” (Peter Gould & Thomas Schnauz) “Bodyguard” season 1: “Episode 1” (Jed Mercurio) “Game of Thrones” season 8: “The Iron Throne” (David Benioff & D. B. Weiss) “The Handmaid’s Tale” season 2B: “Holly” (Bruce Miller & Kira Snyder) “Killing Eve” season 2: “Nice and Neat” (Emerald Fennell) Winner — “Succession” season 1: “Nobody is Ever Missing” (Jesse Armstrong)

“Better Call Saul” and “Game of Thrones” are out of contention, but “Big Little Lies,” “The Crown” and “Stranger Things” are all back, having been nominated at the Emmys for their writing the last time that they were eligible. “Black Mirror” was snubbed in Best Movie/Limited Writing last year after consecutive wins; this is its...

The British anthology series “Black Mirror” won Best TV Movie at the Emmys for the last three years: “San Junipero” in 2017, “USS Callister” in 2018, and “Bandersnatch” in 2019. The show is back in the 2020 awards race, but now it’s in brand new territory. The TV academy ruled that the series’s standalone episodes were too short to compete as movies. But will it be just as popular with voters as a drama series? Scroll down to see the show’s 28 entries across the Emmy ballots.

“Black Mirror” tells a different story in every episode, but with a common theme: the future of technology and its potentially sinister effects on humanity. The most recent season consisted of only three episodes: “Striking Vipers” about college friends reuniting later in life, “Smithereens” about a dramatic drive with a ride share driver, and “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” about a teenager longing to connect...

Last year the TV academy forced FX’s “American Horror Story” to submit in the drama categories for the first time, since the “Apocalypse” season contained continuing storylines and characters from both “Murder House” and “Coven.” Because of the switcheroo, “Ahs” scream queen Jessica Lange was able to nab an Emmy nomination in Best Drama Guest Actress — a category she wouldn’t have been eligible for had the show stayed as a limited series. (Lange lost to Cherry Jones for “The Handmaid’s Tale.”) At this year’s Emmys, the exact same thing could happen to Andrew Scott for his one-and-done role on Netflix’s “Black Mirror.”

SEETopher Grace (‘Black Mirror: Smithereens’) on what geniuses have in common with each other [Exclusive Video Interview]

Because none of the Season 5 entries of “Black Mirror” — “Smithereens,” “Striking Vipers” and “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” — are long enough to compete in Best TV Movie (the new rule...

“The Handmaid’s Tale” has dominated the drama guest acting races at the Emmys of late, winning both categories last year for Cherry Jones and Bradley Whitford. Now that the Hulu hit is back in the running with another slew of contenders, will it run both categories once again, or can other shows break through? I joined Gold Derby contributors Riley Chow and Kevin Jacobsen to discuss this very question in our most recent slugfest (watch above).

“I don’t think there is a clear front-runner,” Jacobsen says about the race for Best Drama Guest Actor. Currently, he’s betting on Charles Dance for his portrayal of Lord Mountbatten in the third season of “The Crown.” Although he isn’t at the top of my predictions, I agree that he’s probably “the safest bet [for a nomination] at the moment,” following “The Crown’s” triumph for best drama ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Netflix’s “Black Mirror” allowed us to see Topher Grace in yet another light. After playing such characters as KKK Grand Wizard David Duke in “BlacKkKlansman” and the pastor of a church in “Breakthrough,” the “Black Mirror” episode “Smithereens” presents Grace as Billy Bauer, the CEO of an addictive social media company. “I don’t know when I’ll be out of this phase, but this phase to me is about whenever someone tells me, ‘I’m not sure if you could do that or if you’d be the right guy for that,’ just doing it,” Grace says in an exclusive new webchat with Gold Derby. Watch the full video interview above.

SEEAndrew Scott rockets into Emmy top 6 after savvy (and correct!) ‘Black Mirror’ placement

Grace’s scenes are very separate from the main action of “Smithereens,” which centers on a ride-share driver named Chris (Andrew Scott) who takes...

“Black Mirror’s” category confusion at the Emmys may just work itself out in the end for one star. After Netflix confirmed last week its acting categories for the anthology series, which is now competing in drama, Andrew Scott has shot up into fourth place in our Best Drama Guest Actor odds.

The actor, who headlines “Smithereens” as a twisted rideshare driver, has two Experts and four Editors predicting him for the win. Former champ Ron Cephas Jones (“This Is Us”) is in first, followed by Jason Bateman (“The Outsider”) and Charles Dance (“The Crown”). The late Robert Forster (“Amazing Stories”) is in fifth and James Cromwell (“Succession”) is in sixth.

After the TV academy shuffled “Black Mirror” to drama, as “Smithereens” falls five minutes short of the TV movie category’s new 75-minute requirement rule, Netflix had to decide where to submit the season’s episodic stars. Performers who...

“Black Mirror’s” Emmy journey this season has had more twists than a “Black Mirror” episode. After getting permission to stay in the Best TV Movie category, despite its submission “Smithereens” being five minutes short of the new 75-minute requirement, the show was shunted to drama last week. That means instead of the limited/TV movie acting races, “Black Mirror’s” Season 5 stars can now choose to enter in drama lead, supporting or guest. And if any of them or Netflix are torn, take it from us: Go guest.

Current Emmy rules stipulate that performers who appear in less than 50 percent of a show’s season are eligible to compete in guest, but are not required to, so they can pick whatever category they want. But to put it bluntly, guest is arguably where all “Black Mirror” actors belong. The show is an anthology series with a different cast every episode.

The Television Academy has confirmed to IndieWire that “Black Mirror” will not be eligible to compete in the 2020 Emmy race for Outstanding Television Movie, a category the Netflix science-fiction anthology series has dominated for the last several years. A source close to Netflix also confirmed the show had been booted from the Television Movie category. THR first reported the news. Netflix submitted the fifth season “Black Mirror” episode “Smithereens” into the 2020 Television Movie race but the Academy has ruled it must compete for Best Drama Series instead.

Moving “Black Mirror” into the Best Drama category radically shakes up the Emmys race and suggests that the science-fiction anthology’s dominant run at the Emmys is more or less over for now. “Black Mirror” has won the Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie for three years in a row thanks to the episodes “San Junipero,” “USS Callister,” and “Bandersnatch.” Allowing “Black Mirror” to...

“Black Mirror” is one of the buzziest Netflix original shows whenever new episodes debut, but does a world plagued by a viral epidemic really need the added existential dread of the science-fiction anthology series? “Black Mirror” creator Charlie Brooker doesn’t think so. The mind behind the anthology smash hit was recently asked by Radio Times about a Season 6 update, with the outlet reporting that Brooker said “he’s not sure if audiences could stomach another season at the moment.” “Black Mirror” debuted its fifth round of episodes in June 2019 and often takes over a year off in between seasons.

“I’ve been busy doing things. I don’t know what I can say about what I’m doing and not doing,” Brooker said. “At the moment, I don’t know what stomach there would be for stories about societies falling apart, so I’m not working away on any...