Updated every Friday 12:00 PM
December 22 - December 28

APPLE TV
Apple TV+ was recognized over the weekend by the second annual Children’s & Family Emmy Awards with wins for beloved Apple Original series, including “Pinecone & Pony,” “Life By Ella,” “Jane” and “Best Foot Forward.” Additionally, Apple’s Tara Sorensen was honored as a Silver Circle inductee, along with Ellen Coons for Individual Achievement in Animation — Character Animation for “Shape Island.” ...

Oppenheimer: Live in Concert featuring a 53-piece orchestra under the direction of the film’s Oscar-winning composer Ludwig Göransson, conducted by Anthony Parnther, is coming to UCLA’s Royce Hall on Jan. 10. The event, presented by Universal Pictures and Syncopy, will include an introduction by writer, director and producer Christopher Nolan. The awards hopeful has been nominated for 13 Critics Choice Awards and eight Golden Globe Awards, including best motion picture, director and original score. Since the film’s release, the Oppenheimer soundtrack has become the top catalog-selling album for Universal, with 175 million streams across all digital streaming platforms (as of Dec. 8), according to the studio. Göransson’s Oppenheimer score also has been nominated for a Grammy, and was cited by numerous critics groups. He won an Oscar for 2018’s Black Panther and also previously scored Nolan’s Tenet.  Parnther served as conductor for the recording of the Oppenheimer film score and is the music director of the San Bernadino Symphony Orchestra. He also conducted orchestras for productions including Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Tickets for the Jan. 10 performance are now on sale for $13 each...

The Museum of the Moving Image and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have announced the winners of the 2023 Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize and 2023 Sloan Student Discovery Prize, who will each receive $20,000 to develop their science-themed screenplays. Justine Beed of USC has won the Grand Jury Prize for her series pilot “La Forza,” while Lara Palmqvist of University of Texas at Austin was awarded the Discovery Prize for her feature script entitled “The Garden.” Beed and Palmqvist were selected from a group of 10 nominees by a jury including Dr. Dwaipayan Banerjee (MIT), Dan Berger (President, Oscilloscope Laboratories), writer/director Sophie Barthes (“The Pod Generation”), actor/writer/director Anna Konkle (“PEN15”), Dr. Reyhaneh Maktoufi (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) and Dr. Katina Michael (Arizona State University)...

Toho is celebrating the legacy of their iconic kaiju in a unique way with Godzilla: The Official Cookbook. The titular reptilian monster first made his debut in the self-named 1954 movie, having since gone on to appear in 37 additional movies, 33 of which were produced by the Japanese studio and exist in their own continuity. The Godzilla franchise has been one of the most influential in the monster movie genre since its inception, with its blend of political themes and grand-scale action inspiring everything from Bong Joon-ho's The Host to Steven Spielberg's work on both Jurassic Park and Jaws. The book, written by chef Kayce Baker and whose early cover can be seen above, will feature over 60 recipes that include everything from "soft and alcoholic drink selections" to "meat creations", and "vegetarian and vegan options" featuring both easy-to-follow recipes and stunning photography that will "transport you to the heart of epic culinary battles". The cookbook, which is being published by Titan Books in a gorgeous hardcover format, is set to hit shelves on September 10, 2024...

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes director Wes Ball teases the movie's new adversary, a chimpanzee who has rediscovered electricity. The original smash hit sci-fi classic released in 1968, with many sequels to follow, as well as a Tim Burton-directed reboot in 2001. With the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes release date still months away, director Ball just teased some new information about the film’s intriguing new “adversary,” a character he calls not technically a villain, who has rediscovered some old technology generations after the collapse of human civilization and the rise of the apes...

As of December 17, 2023, The Boy and the Heron’s domestic gross stands at $23.1 million, giving it the highest domestic gross for an anime film that’s a wholly original property and not part of an established franchise. With The Boy and the Heron being such a success at the box office, that also calls to mind comparisons to other anime films. While it does have the highest domestic box office for a domestic property, The Boy and the Heron only has the seventh-highest domestic gross for an anime film, in general, and with a worldwide gross of approximately $106 million, it's the 23rd highest-grossing Japanese film of all time. Both of those statistics show that it does fall short compared to its contemporaries, but The Boy and the Heron is still a major success in its own right, regardless...