Cinema United is now Team Ellison in the Warnermount legal drama

Cinema United, the largest movie theater trade organization, has changed course after opposing the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. The group is now calling for California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Paramount CEO David Ellison to reach a settlement, stating, “Global exhibition believes in a bold future for this industry, but reaching our full potential requires working together.” Matt Belloni and Lucas Shaw dive into the latest developments in the ongoing Warnermount saga.

How ‘The Daily Show’ correspondent Desi Lydic ‘Foxsplained’ her way to another Emmy nomination

Eric Deggans speaks with Desi Lydic, a longtime correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. She talks about how a pandemic-era segment satirizing Fox News evolved into her Emmy-nominated digital series Desi Lydic Foxplains. Lydic also shares how The Daily Show’s post-Trevor Noah rotation of hosts has opened the door for more voices, and jokes about how her conservative parents once envisioned her as either a Fox News journalist or a Hallmark movie star.

Janelle James: What’s It Like To Embody A Diva?

Comedian Janelle James became a star after playing the selfish, scamming, yet hilarious principal Ava Coleman in Abbott Elementary.

She’s since been nominated for five Emmy awards for the role. But Janelle spent years grinding through the standup scene before finding television success. She told Sam about what inspired her to try comedy years ago, and what she’s learned about herself from playing a larger-than-life character in a sitcom. Plus, Janelle breaks down her forthcoming Hulu show inspired by her own childhood in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

This conversation took place in front of a live audience at KCRW’s Annenberg Performance Studio in Santa Monica.

Weekend Film Reviews: Insidious: Out of The Further, It Ends, American Doctor

It’s rarely a good sign if you’ve devoted hours to a horror franchise and you still aren’t sure what it’s about. But film critic Alonso Duralde gave it a try with Insidious: Out of The Further. “I’ve seen five of the six Insidious movies, and I feel like I still couldn’t pass a pop quiz about what ‘The Further’ is and how it works,” says Duralde, the co-host of the podcast Linoleum Knife. “It is a kind of twisted purgatory for people who aren’t able to move on to whatever the next plane of existence is, and it is constantly causing trouble for the protagonists of the Insidious movies.”

But Duralde’s Linoleum Knife co-host Dave White says that actually works in this latest installment’s favor. “People might wonder, ‘How do I drop into a Part 6 of something?’ The film succeeds best, I think, in the earlier acts where the confusion is part of the terror,” White says. “We don’t know why this is happening to these people, we don’t know what’s coming next, and that provides scenes of genuine fright.”

Duralde and White also review It Ends, Franz, and American Doctor.

‘Late Fame’ director Kent Jones on keeping time in his new film

Kent Jones has worn many hats in the film world. He has written film criticism, collaborated with Martin Scorsese on several of his documentaries, and he served as director of the New York Film Festival. As a director, his work includes the documentary Hitchcock/Truffault and his feature film debut Diane.

His latest film is Late Fame, starring Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee and adapted from an 1895 Arthur Schnitzler novella. Dafoe plays a poet who is rediscovered and celebrated by a younger generation. Jones tells Elvis how the film diverges from the novella, why he's glad he didn't direct films until later in life, and he shares why he believes the “beat” of a film should not be set in the editing.