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Actress Selma Blair accused of biting flight crew
Actress Selma Blair was arrested Sunday night after allegedly attempting to open an airplane door midflight and assaulting two flight attendants aboard a Delta flight from Los Angeles to New York, according to multiple reports. Blair, 54, allegedly punched one…
The centerpiece scene of “Babygirl” cleverly redefines how we see sex and pleasure onscreen
There’s nothing subtle about a movie where Nicole Kidman crawls on her knees to lick milk out of a saucer. And yet, Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl” is perhaps the most thematically complex and provocative film of the year, kitty-play and all…
“The Debut” finds joy and fear in starting over
It’s audition day at New Jersey’s Brook Arts Center, and everyone is a bundle of nerves. Actors dot the lobby, doing vocal warm-ups between mini panic attacks and greeting old friends from past shows. This year’s production is “Nosy Neighbors,”…
Your soup needs a little drama
When I was a kid, I absolutely adored Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes, those sprawling soup-and-salad buffets where, for a certain kind of child (me), the prospect of choosing from several enormous vats of soup constituted a genuinely thrilling night out.…
Trump gets richer while gas prices soar
In mid-September, Chinese scientists announced a breakthrough in extracting hydrogen and fresh water from the ocean with about 15% better energy efficiency than older techniques. Their research, published in Nature Energy on Sept. 15, underscores that China continues to dominate…
“The Social Reckoning” is the journalism thriller’s last stand
Though writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” fancies itself a journalism thriller, the film offers only a handful of real thrills. Fans of the subgenre, known and loved for its depiction of journalism’s slow yet effective behind-the-scenes processes, might see…
SNL” declares “public executions are back
“Saturday Night Live” took aim at President Donald Trump‘s Nobel Peace Prize complaints and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s plans for a televised military execution, turning two of the administration’s latest controversies into punchlines. Colin Jost opened Saturday’s show portraying Hegseth…
The AI drive-thru wars aren’t really about your order
A few years ago, an experimental McDonald’s drive-thru system became convinced that two customers needed an almost ceremonial quantity of chicken McNuggets. As a video of the exchange showed, the number kept climbing: 240, 250, 260. The customers shouted for…
TV never left “The Twilight Zone”
“Serling” author Alan Sepinwall didn’t know it, but he was about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind and, in his telling, unexpected connections. The scene was Los Angeles, where the veteran…
Josh Hartnett turned heartthrob fame into a career of risks
Of all the tawdry delights in “Verity” — Michael Showalter’s adaptation of bestselling author Colleen Hoover’s massively popular psychological thriller — the best and most unexpected is how well the film hides its secrets. Now, don’t get me wrong: The…