Barker, the film’s writer and director, explains how lingering shots heighten the tension and awkwardness in a party scene.

I’m in ‘You Can See Everything.’ Here’s my side of the story.

Manhood, a new documentary about “girth enhancement,” explores how wellness professionals are encouraging men to undergo increasingly extreme procedures to be sexually desirable.

The motley mix of roles that won the British actor acclaim includes a Shakespearean hero, a “Star Trek” captain and an “X-Men” mutant.

© Aaron Rapoport/Corbis, via Getty Images

The actor’s long and varied career included Shakespearean roles, “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” comedy and a stint in the Marvel Universe.

© NBC, Sara Krulwich/The New York Times, Fox, Kerry Hayes/20th Century Fox, CBS via Getty Images, Sesame Street Workshop

The British actor was 86. He achieved pop-culture stardom as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

© Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

The author Nick Medina recommends novels that capture the vibes of beloved scary movies like “The Thing,” “Scream” and more.

© The New York Times

The filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun envisioned a sci-fi TV series about a sinister video store. “Public Access Afterworld” is the ambitious 600-page result.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s nightmarish 1997 space film starring Sam Neill became a pulpy horror classic after shocking viewers expecting a simple space adventure.

Months after Elon Musk declared that the xAI model would outclass Christopher Nolan’s mythological epic, the bot itself admitted defeat.

As the baby-faced Russian navigator of the U.S.S. Enterprise, he was a mainstay of the original television series and seven films. He was 90.

© CBS, via Getty Images

“Clayface” was No. 1 at the box office, but “You Can See Everything,” a documentary about the disgraced Theranos founder, surged in its second weekend.

In today’s Backstory, the new Holmes film takes issue with our profile, Nikole Hannah-Jones unpacks her viral essay and a professor shares why he thinks we apply “conservative” and “liberal” labels inconsistently.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

The Trumpy tech billionaire Larry Ellison has wrapped his tentacles around the US branch of TikTok, an entire Hawaiian island — and now, officially, a very large share of the world’s news and entertainment production. 

On Tuesday, the media behemoth Paramount — which is headed by Ellison’s son — completed its $110 billion mega-merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, in a controversial and hard-fought deal backed by the elder Ellison. 

The merger combines a sprawling collection of brands, including HBO, CBS, and Paramount Pictures under one rebranded umbrella. It also concentrates much of the US film and television business in the hands of just five companies. Unions, theater owners, media watchdogs, and several state attorneys general were accordingly concerned: Combining two major competitors in any industry inherently concentrates power over what gets made, what consumers pay, and what workers earn. 

Critics of this deal argued that, in the media industry, the fallout could be particularly intense. In addition to layoffs, opponents warned the new company could produce fewer, more boring movies, raise subscription prices for its combined streaming services, and inject political bias into news programs on CBS and CNN. (We’ll review the evidence for some of these claims in a minute.) 

The new company agreed to address some of these concerns in a September 21 settlement agreement with 12 state attorneys general, which let the merger proceed. A group of consumers also launched a last-minute bid to block the deal, but the Supreme Court declined their emergency request on Monday.

Go a little deeper

One of the conditions of that September AG settlement was a minimum film guarantee: The merged company agreed to release at least 30 films a year for the first two years after the merger, then 32 films a year for three years after that. The requirement was designed to address one of the major fears around the deal: namely, that mergers can result in fewer films. 

Recent history, and the basic economics of acquisitions, help explain the concern. Debt-financed acquisitions, like this one, can leave companies under pressure to cut costs. There are a few ways to do that, such as producing fewer new films or cancelling unreleased films that they don’t want to promote. According to Cinema United, a theater industry group, Disney and 21st Century Fox put out about half as many theatrical releases after their 2019 merger as they did before it, excluding 2020 and 2021.

But that doesn’t mean the new Paramount/Warner Brothers (formally rebranded Skydance) would do the same thing. Disney, for instance, makes a lot of its money from properties and products that aren’t movies. When the European Commission took up the question of whether this new merger would reduce output earlier this year, it concluded that Paramount and Warner were comparatively more dependent on film revenue. In other words, cutting back the number of movies they make post-merger “would not make economic sense” the way it did for Disney after its acquisition. 

Still, consolidation could certainly change which movies get produced. Critics argue that fewer studios mean fewer opportunities for Hollywood creatives and less pressure on the remaining players to take creative risks.

In a report released over the summer, academics with the Media and Consolidation Research Organization at UC San Diego warned this particular deal would likely result in less diverse and more formulaic films. I, for one, won’t be holding my breath for a Larry Ellison biopic.

One link for later

➨ Resist the temptation of the Prime Day “deal.” Today marks the start of Amazon’s twice-yearly discount days, which have spilled over to many other retailers. But before you load up your cart, double-check that the sale is actually a good one…and that you truly want or need the item in question. The psychological rush of scoring a deal is so strong that it can lead you to buy things you never planned to purchase.

Before you go…

• Did you know…that Hollywood (and communism) brought the Reagans together? The pair met when Ronald was the president of the Screen Actors Guild and Nancy was a young actress trying to prove she wasn’t a communist sympathizer. 
• Today’s trivia: What is the 24th and final letter of the Greek alphabet? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked you for the name of the Indian Ocean island where the UK displaced inhabitants roughly 55 years ago. That would be Diego Garcia, which was forcibly cleared to make way for a joint US-UK naval base. 

At the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, the documentary NAZA received a 25-minute standing ovation. In Israel, it’s all anyone’s talking about, even though few have actually seen it. 

Made by two Israeli filmmakers, Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham, the movie takes place on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, where 24 anonymous Israeli intelligence agents and soldiers discuss things that they did in Gaza and how they did them.

As Bilge Ebiri writes in his Vulture review of NAZA, “One officer recalls blowing up a building with 500 people in it to go after one target. They admit to knowingly wiping out entire neighborhoods, fully aware of the catastrophic human toll.”Another interviewee agrees that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. 

Since its reception in Venice, the film has faced harsh criticism from the Israeli government — with at least one politician issuing a call to revoke the filmmakers’ citizenship. 

Shany Littman is a journalist for Haaretz in Israel and has been reporting on the film’s reception. She spoke with Today, Explained co-host Noel King about the conversation around the movie in Israel. 

Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Have you seen the documentary NAZA?

I haven’t. I asked the PR person of the movie to send me a link and it’s not possible. I mean, considering the huge storm that came out, they’re probably rethinking how to handle the distribution of the film.

What I hear you saying is it’s safe to assume most people in Israel have not actually been able to see the movie. Is that right?

Yes, that’s correct.

But they are aware of what is in it. Let’s talk about the conversation around this movie in Israel. What’s the reaction been like?

You can find many different types of criticism from all sides of a political range. It’s not only right-wing people or people who are supporting the war. The claims are first that maybe the film itself is not verified. They have witnesses that are anonymous that they didn’t verify well enough. But I think most people — they just feel that this is an opportunity for all the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli, and [antisemitic] people in the world to attack Israel. Israelis from all sides are afraid of the way the world is seeing us at the moment. 

Is anybody in Israel saying, “Hey, we’re glad that they did it. We’re glad that they made this movie”?

Yes. There are people who are supporting Yuval and Rachel, the filmmakers, supporting their right to criticize, to investigate. As a liberal country, we should be able to investigate ourselves, to criticize ourselves. They are doing their work as journalists. 

There has also been a reaction from the Israeli government at a more official level. What has the Israeli government said about this film?

“There’s a really long history of films that were criticized, especially by different culture ministers. But I haven’t seen anything like this, like what is happening now. This is really frightening.”

The first person to react was the minister of culture. He said that the nationality of Yuval and the filmmakers should be revoked. That they should not be Israeli citizens anymore. There’s a really long history of films that were criticized, especially by different culture ministers. But I haven’t seen anything like this, like what is happening now. This is really frightening. I’m completely horrified by this. 

I already saw some clips on social media by people who were filming themselves where…you could see a house [in the background] and someone was saying, “You can all come here. This is the house of Rachel Szor’s parents. They live here and you can come and do whatever you want. I invite you all to come here and take revenge.” And there were several clips with the same message. 

I’m guessing they’re not coming back to Israel at the moment. I think it has become really dangerous for them to be here, and it’s a new level. I published an article about this. I didn’t do the movie. I just published an article supporting them in Haaretz and my mother is afraid that someone will attack me. The echoes of this event, they’re going very far now.

Are you frightened for the filmmakers if they choose to return? Do you fear for their safety?

Yes, absolutely. Especially because the elections are coming in a month. Many Israelis see this day as like the red line or the moment where we will be able to know if we can still live in Israel as a democracy, as a liberal democracy, or that the country has changed in a way that many [civil] rights and liberties that we think we have are gone. And that this country is not a democracy anymore. And so I think this is also why the blood is boiling.

This is a very, very tense and fragile moment. And for them I assume it is even more crucial and I hope they will not do anything that will put them in danger.