The rise of chatbot marketing is happening as A.I. tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini hit mass adoption. OpenAI has said that 800 million people use ChatGPT weekly, while Google says its Gemini chatbot has more than 750 million monthly users. - The New York Times
“Department M, a production company founded two years ago by Mike Larocca and Michael Schaefer, is in talks to acquire a significant stake in Neon, the Oscar-winning studio behind Parasite and Anora.” - Variety
“Bay Fang, RFA’s president and chief executive, wrote in a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday: ‘We are proud to have resumed broadcasting to audiences in China in Mandarin, Tibetan, and Uyghur, providing some of the world’s only independent reporting on these regions in the local languages.’” - The Guardian
The union maintained that “Guild management has surveilled workers for union activity, terminated union supporters, and engaged in bad faith surface bargaining, showing no intention to come to an agreement on most of WGSU’s core issues.” - The Hollywood Reporter
CBS lawyers tried to block Stephen Colbert’s interview with Texas legislator James Talarico, but Colbert posted it online instead—where it exploded, drawing far more viewers than TV. By defying CBS and the FCC’s new “equal time” rule, Colbert turned attempted censorship into a viral publicity gift. - The New Republic
“Yes, casting directors are finding the right person to carry the weight of the movie, but they are also responsible for nearly every face you see onscreen, creating the whole human environment of the film. Perhaps the casting award is most akin to the one honoring production design.” - The New York Times
Mehdi Mahmoudian, who wrote the screenplay for the Cannes-winning film alongside director Jafar Panahi, has been released on bail after 17 days. He was among a group of people arrested for signing a statement condemning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for ordering the violent crackdown on protesters last month. - The Hollywood Reporter
Colbert said that CBS lawyers had told him “in no uncertain terms” that an interview he had planned for Monday’s show with State Representative James Talarico of Texas would not air on the show, even though the lawmaker was already in Mr. Colbert’s studio. - The New York Times
Train Dreams, Clint Bentley’s feature about an isolated logger in the early-20th-century Pacific Northwest, led the film categories with three wins. In the television categories, Adolescence, a British crime drama about a 13-year-old boy accused of stabbing a classmate to death, took four of the six prizes. - The Hollywood Reporter
“Warner Bros Discovery Inc. has agreed to temporarily reopen sale negotiations with rival Hollywood studio Paramount Skydance Corp., setting the stage for a potential second bidding war with Netflix Inc.” - Bloomberg (Yahoo!)
“The ‘dynamics of this novel are about otherness in various ways, and that otherness is in Heathcliff.’ Onscreen, however, Heathcliff has largely been played by white actors.” - The New York Times
“Paramount Skydance’s latest offer — No. 9 since last year — includes a premium ‘ticking fee’ for WBD shareholders of about $650 million for every quarter that the Paramount-WBD nuptials are not completed by Dec. 31, 2026.” - Variety
“When you read a book, you live inside it — you're intellectually and emotionally invested, because you create its world in your mind.” But a movie? You’re just visiting. - NPR
Not that we’re judging your trips to the cottage, but, for instance, "Tkaronto patiently and beautifully expresses that longing for connection through fleeting, thorny and bittersweet romantic interlude.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Some of them are startlingly cinematic, far beyond the workmanlike coverage we expect from seeing the same action on television.” - The New York Times
