With cinemas closed and major titles delaying their release, the Academy has changed its rules to welcome some streaming titles. Will they regret it?

‘What about the Oscars?” might not be the question at the top of your mind as you consider the manifold uncertainties raised by the coronavirus pandemic. A Hollywood awards ceremony scheduled for the end of February 2021, one might think, has fewer immediate concerns than most cultural institutions do right now. Yet panic has been rising within the Academy: the show itself may go on, but with cinemas closed for the foreseeable future and dozens of major titles either rescheduling or indefinitely delaying their release dates, will it have have enough standout films to celebrate?

For some weeks now, the joke around the industry has been that Leigh Whannell’s hit psychothriller The Invisible Man – one of the few popular and critical successes to be released in the year’s early months – may as well collect its gongs now. But a crucial rule change announced on Tuesday by Academy CEO Dawn Hudson and president David Rubin has ensured that it will face some competition after all, even if its rivals never see the inside of a cinema.

An affectionate and absorbing documentary from film-maker Rachel Mason about her devout parents, who ran a famous adult bookstore in early-80s LA

Here is a documentary with an absorbing and unexpectedly complicated story to tell, whose paradoxes and sadnesses are not entirely resolved by the end. Artist and film-maker Rachel Mason has created an affectionate portrait of her elderly parents, Karen and Barry, who in many ways are like one of the (fictional) old couples in When Harry Met Sally.

Karen is a former journalist, devoutly Jewish, and Barry is a former special visual effects engineer who worked on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 and invented a modification for kidney dialysis machines. But they found themselves in a tough financial spot in the early 1980s and took over Circus of Books, a gay porn bookstore in Los Angeles that also sold movies called things like Confessions of a Two Dick Slut and Don’t Drop the Soap, and was one of Larry Flynt’s first distribution points. Under their shrewd management, the store boomed, opened another branch and became a well-known meeting place for LGBT people, while all the time, the Masons were a conventional family who kept their three children well away from the business. Karen movingly – and honestly – recounts how upset she was to discover that one of her sons was gay: the business and family life were that separate.

A talented trio of young actors enliven a familiar yet engaging tale of a queer love triangle at high school

There’s a satisfying ease to Netflix high school comedy The Half of It, a charming twist on the Cyrano de Bergerac formula that deserves slightly more attention than most of the streamer’s other made-to-order sleepover pics. A teen market that had been underserved by studios has now been exhaustively cornered by the company but often without much care or inventiveness, a conveyor belt of content that prioritises quantity over quality. It’s refreshing then to see a film such as this emerge from the same production line, slickly ticking all the same boxes but with a noticeable uplift in enthusiasm, grafting its own identity on to the boilerplate format.

Related: Never Have I Ever review – Netflix teen series slowly finds its voice

In another blistering attack on Donald Trump, the actor says the New York governor is doing what a president should do

Robert De Niro has said he would be keen to play New York state governor Andrew Cuomo in a future movie about the coronavirus epidemic, as the actor made another blistering attack on Donald Trump.

Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, De Niro expressed his admiration for Cuomo, saying: “He’s doing what a president should do.” He added: “I could see [a President Cuomo]. I am for Biden, and want everything to go well for Biden, but at least we have a person who is very capable, a very capable backup, if you will … he’s doing a great job, he’s doing what any president should do.”

Elizabeth Sankey’s fine documentary on the genre, premiering on Mubi, could be the perfect spark for your own romantic comedy love-in

Romantic comedies are a perennially undervalued genre: even very fine ones are often described as “guilty pleasures”. That’s always a nonsense term, given that no pleasure is without value or grace – least of all these days. Under lockdown, don’t you find yourself more inclined towards romantic comedies both great and mediocre, to sink yourself in the familiar warmth of stories driven by love and tenderness, where everything tends to turn out fine?

Mubi has thus chosen an opportune moment to premiere Romantic Comedy, a spry, affectionate documentary by musician turned film-maker Elizabeth Sankey that gives this maligned genre its due. A short, accessible film essay that did the festival rounds last year, it cuts to the heart of why romcoms have to work harder to be taken seriously – hint: they tend to prioritise the female viewer – and unpicks their history of flawed gender politics and heteronormative bias. But it’s a loving exercise, overlaid with droll personal commentary, and one that will have you jotting down a playlist of films to watch right after.

You know who you are. You know what you did. And to the driver who killed Nathan Beaulieu’s dog in a cowardly hit-and-run, the Winnipeg Jets defenceman wants you to ...

Football is back. It returned on a warm, cloudless Friday night in Jeonju, South Korea, a mid-sized city about 200 kilometres directly south of Seoul. The United States beat Mexico here ...

The White House is making "contingency plans" for a second wave of coronavirus after emails reportedly contradict their claims that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to safely reopen the economy were set aside because medical experts did not approve of them.

The winners and results of last night's Mega Millions lottery, plus how to avoid falling victim to a lottery scam.

It has been 60 years since the FDA first approved the birth control pill on May 9, 1960. It emerged as an essential pillar of women's ability to have good quality of life.

Audio of a private conversation shows the 44th president's unvarnished views about the former national security adviser's case and the White House's COVID-19 response.

Bill Maher said Republicans "don't care" about Tara Reade's sexual assault allegations, saying such claims are simply used as a "unilateral weapon" against Democrats.

More than 20 million Americans lost their jobs in the last month, and unemployment among African-Americans has hit 16.7 percent.

In fact, why not join them?

Video games can fill the productivity and social void in this unusual time

While the present-day Martian surface is generally dry and cold, its sedimentary rocks contain compelling evidence for the former presence of liquid water. According to a new analysis of orbital images of 3.7-billion-year-old sedimentary layers at Izola mensa, an outcrop in the northwestern rim of the Hellas impact crater on Mars, deep rivers were active [...]

Multiwavelength observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and Gemini Observatory combined with close-up views from NASA’s Juno spacecraft reveal that lightning strikes and huge storm systems that create them in Jupiter’s atmosphere are formed in and around large convective cells over deep clouds of water ice and liquid; the observations also confirm that dark [...]

Facebook’s dedicated Gaming app is now live on Android, months before its planned June release. The social media giant pushed the app out two months prior to its scheduled unveiling amid a global pandemic that’s left people all over the world isolated at home, rapidly burning through entertainment options. The New York Times announced the […]

Disruptor Beam, the mobile gaming startup behind Star Trek Timelines, has a new name and a new business. It’s now calling itself Beamable, and it’s selling a set of tools to help game developers add commerce and social functionality to their titles. The company’s direction became clear earlier this year when it sold Timelines to […]

Nintendo today confirmed earlier reports of account breaches dating back over the past few weeks. The gaming giant issued an update (via Nintendo Japan) noting that around 160,000 Nintendo Accounts were impacted, which found multiple being used to purchase digital items without the owner’s consent. Along with the purchasing powers, the offending parties may have […]

Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions into isolation, video games are seeing a surge in usage as people seek entertainment and social interaction. When we surveyed gaming-focused VCs in October, Andreessen Horowitz partner Jonathan Lai predicted that “next-generation games will be bigger than anything we’ve seen yet,” eventually reaching “Facebook scale.” This month, […]

Twitch is doubling down on esports in this new era of social distancing as a number of traditional sporting events have been cancelled. The company this week introduced a new esports directory on its site that will make it easier for viewers to find live matches, information on players, games with active competition leagues, a […]

Gaming platforms have earned serious clout with investors in recent years. Add in the VC excitement surrounding collaboration tools and it’s no surprised there’s interest in backing another gaming chat app. Guilded is creating a chat platform designed for competitive gaming and esports that focuses heavily on keeping gamers organized and connected with their teams. […]

With conferences canceled indefinitely, companies are increasingly reliant on online events to hype product launches. As they prepare to release a next-gen console before the end of the year, expect plenty of live streams and blogs from both Microsoft and Sony in an attempt to flesh out all that their respective systems have to offer. […]

As the infrastructure for developing games becomes more advanced, studios have turned to buying best-in-class technology from others instead of building everything from scratch (often with inferior quality). This shift underpinned Unity’s rise as the most popular game engine. The current focus on games as ever-evolving social hubs that can remain popular for a decade […]

A federal judge on Friday declined to dismiss the charges against "Full House" actress Lori Loughlin and other wealthy parents awaiting trial in the U.S. college admissions scandal after they accused investigators of fabricating evidence.

The notoriously independent-minded federal judge who once said he was disgusted by the conduct of Michael Flynn could block the administration's bid to drop criminal charges against the former adviser to President Donald Trump, legal experts said.

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday abruptly asked a judge to drop criminal charges against Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn following mounting pressure from the Republican president and his political allies on the right.

The U.S. government reported more catastrophic economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis on Friday as the pandemic pierced the very walls of the White House and California gave the green light for its factories to restart after a seven-week lockdown.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn is in self-quarantine for a couple of weeks after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, an FDA spokesman told Reuters late on Friday.

Noida Police Commissioner has written to national carrier Air India, requesting the airline to ensure that pilots and crew involved in repatriation flights should stay back in Delhi.

The stranded people hail from Tamil Nadu and they were working in the United Arab Emirates.

Chennai, May 09: About 359 people arrived in Tamil Nadu early on Saturday from Dubai in two Air India flights as part of the government's Vande Bharat Mission to bring home Indian nationals stranded in various countries. Among the passengers

AAP national executive member & spokesperson, Preeti Sharma Menon, filed a complaint with Mumbai and Kolkata police

The case against them has been registered for forgery, cheating, criminal breach of trust and corruption.

Locals staged a protest at the chemical plant in R R Venkatapuram in Vizag demanding relocation of the factory.

Trapped in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, over a thousand migrant workers staying in Hyderabad's Tolichowki took to the streets on Sunday demanding to be taken home.

The basic coaching course will be attended by 32 senior men and 23 senior women core probables on May 11 and 15 respectively.

Government should tell the people clearly about the exact state of the pandemic to enable them to prepare accordingly, said Congress senior spokesperson Ajay Maken.

Chennai, May 09: Tamil Nadu government has announced some relaxations in the Coronavirus lockdown in non-containment zones from May 11. The extension includes working hours of standalone and neighbourhood shops and allowing private establishments to function with a reduced number of employees

New Delhi, May 09 (ANI): An Air India flight carrying 129 passengers from Dhaka, Bangladesh has landed at Delhi airport. The stranded Indian nationals are being brought back to the country through government’s initiative, ‘Vande Bharat Mission’.

The economic and healthcare policies pursued by the US in recent years have failed to prioritise public health and made it vulnerable to a pandemic. Could things be different?

The peak of the UK coronavirus epidemic now looks likely to arrive within the next month, according to analysis by the government’s science advisers

In an exclusive interview, climate activist Greta Thunberg has told New Scientist that the coronavirus pandemic shows we can act quickly in an emergency

A blood test developed and checked using blood samples from 4000 people can accurately detect more than 50 cancer types