SBS On Demand is streaming more than 10 hours of his features. Our isolated film critic took the bait and watched them all

Many terrible things are discussed in the maelstrom of mayhem and misery I call my inbox – terrible, terrible things, such as requests involving me needing to go somewhere, or speak to someone or do something.

But last Thursday afternoon a lovely email broke through like a ray of sunshine piercing grey clouds on a stormy day. It was an email from a publicist at SBS. The subject line read: “Binge 627 minutes of ADAM DRIVER for free.”

Hollywood loves a good comeback, and post-coronavirus will be no exception, writes costume designer Kristin M Burke

Many events have killed the film industry: the 1918 influenza epidemic, the second world war, the invention of television, the invention of VCRs, the invention of the internet, 9-11, strike after strike after strike. And yet, like a phoenix, it rises, every time stronger than before. The appetite for its product is insatiable especially in times of political trouble and uncertainty about the future. People want to escape. They want to be entertained.

The way we make movies most certainly must change. In the best of circumstances, we are a crew of 75 people jammed into a room with very little ventilation, holding our breath until we hear “CUT”. We are in close contact with one another all day long. We never really thought about it before. All of that is about to change. Film sets usually function as big families, and moving forward, that family unit will take on a stronger, protective meaning. This is how we self-regulate in the post-pandemic era.

Alan Yang’s film about the lack of understanding between generations strikes a chord, and is so relevant as coronavirus racism spreads

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Inflamed by President Trump’s casual phrase “Chinese virus”, anti-Asian sentiment is erupting all over the world. As a British-Vietnamese person who has been spat on because of the colour of her skin, the film Tigertail is a glimmer of hope – a way of showing the truth, and connecting Asian communities at a time when panic and misinformation serve to break us apart. Alan Yang’s multi-generational love story Tigertail weaves in Yang’s cultural self-discovery and features memories of Taiwan, as experienced by the protagonist Pin-Jui. Weighted against the present tide of anti-Asian bigotry, this tender story about honesty and lost love is more relevant than ever.

“American culture has been negligent in portraying Asian-American people as fully realised human beings,” Yang told the Deadline podcast. Yang, who worked on Parks and Recreation before co-creating Master of None, recalled the trepidation he felt in the early days of his career, in a cultural landscape where east Asians were rarely represented, or stereotyped as hardworking automatons. Yang said he had felt restricted to using only white characters in his early pilots, fearing that all-Asian or Asian-American scripts would never be accepted. But this was before the film successes of Crazy Rich Asians, The Farewell and Parasite brought real Asian faces to mainstream culture.

In the wake of Covid-19, We Are One: A Global Film Festival is taking the experience online. But cinema is a bigger encounter

Every year, at Cannes (and other festivals) there’s a plaintive argument about what Cannes (or other festivals) are really all “about”. Some Savonarola-type person will dash the glass of rosé out of your hand, throw your canape into the Med and tell you Cannes is not about red-carpet narcissism, not about stars preening in the flashbulb glare of celeb-worship, not about L’Oréal sponsorship, not about getting drunk at a million late-night parties. It’s about the movies, about cinema itself.

Of course. And that’s what the new Covid-19-related We Are One: A Global Film Festival appears to offer: the 10-day online festival, beginning 29 May, curated by Jane Rosenthal of the Tribeca film festival, featuring arthouse films (though not the big-ticket Hollywood items) from Cannes, Venice, Berlin and many more, streaming for free in return for an optional donation to the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 fund. So there you have it. A festival with all the frills and extras and flummeries stripped away. Just you, in your bedroom, with your laptop, communing with cinema. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

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.

The Oscar-winning sword-and-sandals Russell Crowe vehicle refreshed old cliches, before ushering in a spate of copycats

“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?” the creepy pilot asks the small boy in Airplane!. To younger audiences, the joke no longer makes any sense. In Airplane!’s day, sword-and-sandals movies had become an outdated, unwittingly homoerotic joke. But then came Gladiator, and the joke was on us. Released 20 years ago this month, Ridley Scott’s Roman epic gave the old cliches a new lease of life. It was all here: Colosseum action! Rippling man-flesh! Tigers! But Gladiator had its cheesecake and ate it. It served up crowd-pleasing spectacle and airline-ad visuals but also solemn, Oscar-worthy drama (and, in retrospect, a fair degree of camp).

Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips

Mark Lawson and Dan Milmo discuss the sustainability of the streaming service. Plus: Lara Spirit on why you should register to vote before Tuesday’s deadline

Netflix has risen from obscurity to be one of the most powerful media companies in the world with more than 150 million global subscribers. It has launched critically acclaimed hits such as House of Cards, The Crown and Unbelievable, as well as showcasing the back catalogues of popular television series. But as part of its rapid growth, the company has racked up huge debts.

Joining Anushka Asthana to discuss the long-term sustainability of Netflix are the TV critic Mark Lawson and the Guardian’s deputy business editor Dan Milmo.

Ed Pilkington looks ahead to Weinstein’s court battle where he faces charges of rape and sexual assault, which he denies. And Jamie Grierson on why counter-terror police have listed Extinction Rebellion as a ‘key threat’

The film producer Harvey Weinstein will stand trial this week in New York City accused of five charges, including rape and sexual assault. Weinstein denies all allegations. The trial, expected to last about six weeks, will focus on the witness accounts of two alleged victims who claim they were assaulted by Weinstein.

The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington has been in court for the jury selection process in which 2,000 potential jurors were whittled down to 12 who will decide Weinstein’s fate. He tells Anushka Asthana that the case will cause a sensation in the US and around the world, but that it should not be seen as #MeToo on trial.

Like dozens of women in the entertainment industry, the actor, model and writer Zoë Brock has claimed she had a traumatic encounter with the film producer Harvey Weinstein. Now she is faced with a settlement offer that she believes would allow him to escape blame for the alleged assaults. Also today: Lily Kuo on the spread of the deadly coronavirus in China

The actor, model and writer Zoë Brock was on a retreat in the New Zealand bush in 2017 when an email pinged into her inbox. It was from a friend sending a link to a breaking news story of allegations against Harvey Weinstein. The claims from several women against the film producer were eerily familiar to an incident that Brock alleges happened to her.

This week, Weinstein goes on trial charged with rape and sexual assault. But for dozens of women with claims against him, their only recourse is to civil courts. Brock tells Anushka Asthana that while she is part of the class action suit against Weinstein, she is deeply unhappy with the terms of the proposed settlement, which she believes would allow him to accept no blame for the allegations.

Kirk Douglas, Hollywood legend and star of Spartacus, has died aged 103. Douglas was nominated for three Oscars and his extensive filmography includes Paths of Glory, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Lust for Life. The Hollywood legend's death was announced by his son, fellow actor Michael Douglas

• Kirk Douglas, Hollywood legend and star of Spartacus, dies aged 103

Following a strikingly white and male list of Bafta nominees, this year’s Academy Awards shortlists are barely more diverse. It’s a chronic problem in an industry running out of excuses for its slow pace of change. Lanre Bakare examines why the Oscars are still so white. Plus: Joan E Greve on a hectic week of US politics

When the lists of nominees for the major film awards in 2020 were announced, there was, once again, a glaring anomaly. Not a single person of colour was nominated in the Bafta acting categories, while the Oscars managed only Cynthia Erivo for her part in Harriet.

It is an issue that the industry is well aware of: in 2015, the ceremony saw #OscarsSoWhite trending on Twitter, while actors such as Eddie Murphy were rebuking the academy from the stage back in the 1990s. So what explains the glacial pace of change? Guardian arts and culture correspondent Lanre Bakare tells Anushka Asthana that there have been plenty of false dawns over the years in the quest for greater diversity.

Donald Trump takes a jab at the South Korean film Parasite, best picture at this year's Oscars, telling supporters in Colorado that the US has 'enough problems with South Korea', and: ‘Can we get Gone With the Wind back?’ He also dismisses Brad Pitt, who – during his Oscars speech said his 45-second slot was more than John Bolton received at the US president's Senate impeachment trial. Trump calls the actor a 'little wise guy'

• Parasite's best picture Oscar could kickstart a new era of internationalism
  

Have you ever noticed that in film and on TV, period dramas tend to have almost entirely white casts? It’s almost as if, at least in film and TV land, black people do not feature in British history at all. The Guardian’s Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out how accurate costume dramas are in terms of racial diversity, and looks into the reasons why period dramas might get whitewashed

Wagner Moura and Ana de Armas give strong performances in a mostly effective retelling of the life and tragic death of a celebrated Brazilian diplomat

There’s an old school charm to Sergio, documentarian Greg Barker’s narrative portrait of UN diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello, a dramatic retelling of a life he already brought to the screen in a 2009 documentary of the same name. Barker’s knowledge of Sérgio’s life and accomplishments is backgrounded by a clear respect for who he was and so while the film is factually detailed, as one would expect, it’s also rooted in a desire to showcase his humanity, both in and out of work, with Barker deciding to lean into full-tilt romantic tragedy, perhaps also as a way of differentiating his two Sergios.

Related: Love Wedding Repeat review – laboured Netflix romcom farce

This uncanny story of preppy drug dealers has a touch of Heathers and a bit of Bret Easton Ellis, and an intriguing take on what high school is really like

Tayarisha Poe, like her partial namesake, has a gift for the uncanny. She is the photographer and film-maker behind this feature debut, which began as an online multimedia project and was developed as a conventional movie through the Sundance screenwriters and directors labs. What has emerged is an intriguing, opaque, tonally elusive story that seems weirdly unfinished. It is set in a privileged high school – a world of ivy-covered stone buildings and shady quadrangles where rich kids are separated into malign and mutually hostile cliques. It has a touch of Donna Tartt and Bret Easton Ellis, a hint of Heathers and a bit of the elegant, disdainful satire of Dear White People.

Somehow, though, it is odder, more stylised and contrived, always holding out the possibility that it is set in the future, or in an alternative present on some other planet, or inside the head of one of its characters who is having a disturbing dream – the kind that ends just as it is about to give up its meaning. Right until the closing credits, I half-expected the face of each person on screen to flip upwards, revealing a Stepford-like set of dials.

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.

Ad-Rock and Mike D host a convivial trip down memory lane in this filmed record of a live show staged in tribute to third member Adam Yauch

The release of this documentary coincides with #MeAt20, a heart-twisting craze on social media for posting pictures of yourself at 20 years old. Middle-aged people’s timelines are speckled with funny, sweet and sometimes unbearably sad images of themselves in unlined, unformed youth, doing goofy things in milky analogue pictures from back when you had 12 or 24 exposures on your roll-film camera and getting them developed at Boots was a pricey business. That’s what I thought of while watching this engaging, oddly moving film from Spike Jonze: a record of the live stage show he devised at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, in tribute to white hip-hop stars and tongue-in-cheek party-libertarian activists the Beastie Boys. It is presented by the two surviving members, Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, in tribute to the third member, Adam Yauch, who died of cancer in 2012. Jonze is reuniting with the band after having directed a string of their music videos, including the crime-TV spoof for their single Sabotage in 1994.

Horovitz and Diamond amble on stage, apparently dressed head-to-toe in Gap, and appear for all the world to be about to unveil the iPhone 4S, although actually their jokey anecdotalism makes the show in some ways like the regional tours once presented by George Best and Rodney Marsh. With amiably rehearsed back-and-forth banter, they introduce the embarrassing photos and excruciating TV clips that are shown on a big screen. And the effect of seeing them juxtaposed with the plump-faced frizzy-haired imps of 1986 is startling and bizarre. In the present day, the advancing years seem to have boiled away the badass attitude, leaving behind the quirky humour.

A manic pre-summer caper skirts near dark territory but remains a mostly kid-friendly tale of an unusual family

A year after Sony’s wonderfully inventive Into the Spider-Verse became the first non-Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks film to win the best animated feature Oscar since 2011, the race was again populated by outliers. Frozen 2 was snubbed and instead Laika crept back into the spotlight with Missing Link (after winning the Golden Globe) and Netflix snuck in with two originals – Klaus and I Lost My Body – marking the streamer’s first time breaking into the pack. While Toy Story 4 might have ultimately won out, the lineup continued to reflect both a widening field and an embrace of more left-field choices, a much-needed jolt of energy in what used to be a two-horse race.

Related: Trolls World Tour review – eyeball-frazzling sequel offers same again

A visually distinctive, semi-effective Canadian thriller pits a First Nation community against a zombie invasion

Given how movies about the undead refuse to die, a tweak on what’s become a decaying formula is always a welcome surprise, especially if said tweak involves a little more than “what about zombies but strippers”. Back in the 60s, and at rare times since, the zombie subgenre has been used as a way of sneaking social commentary into horror, the set-up of an invading force destroying a community allowing for a range of sly metaphors.

Related: 'I'm indigenizing zombies': behind gory First Nation horror Blood Quantum

A ridiculously titled film about a couple who stumble upon a stash of money is absurd and cliched but mostly entertaining

One of the most surprising reveals of last October’s unprecedented Netflix data dump was the astounding popularity of cheap psycho-thriller Secret Obsession. While the streamer proudly touted new films from Alfonso Cuarón, Paul Greengrass and the Coens in the same period, it was a no-star, dim-plotted slab of schlock that netted more viewers, with an estimated 40m households eager to find out just how secret that obsession really was. Modelled after a Lifetime TV movie (with a Lifetime TV director at the helm), it was an important victory for Netflix because it revealed a substantial audience for tiny-budgeted thrillers with generic titles, a bracket they could easily fill at little expense.

Related: The Half of It review – charming Netflix teen comedy takes on Cyrano

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

Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders gives a compelling lead performance as a young man trying to escape his father’s shadow

It’s an unusually stacked week for new films on Netflix (one they might regret when pre-pandemic content starts to dry up) with a teen comedy, a B-thriller and a romantic documentary all launching before the weekend, a feast for viewers at home but a glut that could overshadow one of their finer offerings quietly releasing alongside. All Day and a Night, a tough-minded drama from Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole, might not be quite worthy enough for their awards slate (although it’s a damn sight more compelling than The Two Popes …) but it’s a step up from what one might expect of an unhyped May movie from the streamer. Think of it as a classier boutique release, deserving of a higher shelf placement.

Related: The Half of It review – charming Netflix teen comedy takes on Cyrano

The actor, best known for playing Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, will read the entire JRR Tolkien novel

Andy Serkis is to give a continuous, live reading of The Hobbit – lasting around 12 hours – in aid of charity. The actor, best known as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, will read the entire book from start to finish with no breaks.

Money raised from the performance will be split equally between NHS Charities Together and Best Beginnings.

The Hollywood Reporter says numerous attendees returned from the late-January festival with coronavirus symptoms

A new report suggests that January’s Sundance film festival, the annual gathering of cinephiles in Park City, Utah, may have been a key early hub for coronavirus in the US. The article, in the Hollywood Reporter, cites numerous attendees who experienced Covid-19-like symptoms either during or immediately after the festival. None were believed to have been tested for the disease.

Sundance this year attracted about 120,000 people to the small mountain resort, to watch films and party in confined spaces. The snowy conditions that make Park City perfect for skiing mean that socialising indoors is common, as are some flu-like symptoms as a result of the low temperature and high altitude.

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.”

My friend Tom convinced me that Roger Moore’s finest non-Bond moment was this 1974 corker about a maverick mining engineer. He’ll convince you, too

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The pre-eminent film in Sir Roger Moore’s non-Bond oeuvre was released in 1974, between Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun.

I was born in 1978, so I was far too young to see Gold in its first flush of youth, let alone mine. So was my friend Tom.

The director of King of New York, Bad Lieutenant and The Funeral recommends film and TV for a coronavirus age, in the hope that ‘the light becomes more evident in the darkness’

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• The best arts and entertainment during self-isolation

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

More than 55 million viewers tuned into last week’s three-day NFL Draft and you better believe Marcus Sayles was one of them. He saw the Minnesota Vikings draft three cornerbacks in ...

It’s that time of the year in the WHL. News of player signings are a daily occurrence and the Winnipeg Ice’s management team has been busy. On Monday, the club announced ...

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Jodian Self is hanging out with some of the biggest names in pro sports these days — all from the comfort of her south Winnipeg home. The 52-year-old former physical education ...

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 ...

Screenshots showing repugnant and insulting remarks — some misogynistic, some racist, others hinting at drug use and sexual conquests — from a private group chat between several hockey players, including ...

The fallout came swiftly Thursday after vulgar and insulting messages traded on a private Instagram chat surfaced on social media a day earlier. The University of Manitoba Bisons released Jeremey Leipsic ...

Complacency is not a word in Kelsey Wog’s vocabulary. Every season, the fourth-year Bisons swimmer finds a way to take her game to the next level and break records along the ...

They come from some of the most prominent hockey families in Manitoba, a group of young men blessed with athletic gifts that allow them to be better than most at ...

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 ...

Go ahead and applaud taking down a group of boorish hockey “bros” for their despicable behaviour. But you might want to hold off on a full-fledged victory lap. Brendan Leipsic said ...

For the first time since taking over as commissioner of the Canadian Football League in July of 2017, Randy Ambrosie was finally forced to publicly reveal the financial truth about ...

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.

"I just couldn't be more proud of you and the prospect of your presidency," Newsom told Biden Friday during a campaign event.

Water utility workers in El Paso, Texas were forced to unclog pumps over 20 times in 24 hours after residents refused to heed their call to refrain from flushing personal protective equipment and other coronavirus-related items down the toilet.

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

The service, which protects political leaders including the president, said in March there was only one case, but new documents show that the disease is more widespread than believed.

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.

Restaurants and drive-in movie theatres are allowed to reopen in Las Vegas today, with casinos hoping to reopen by Memorial Day.

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.

"Fortnite" Party Royale had another big show on May 8. Here's everything you need to know about the Dillion Francis, Steve Aoki and deadmau5 concert that just took place.

The president appeared outside the Kremlin walls to praise the Soviet effort in what is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.

Jameela Jamil also came to Teigen and Kondo's defense, calling Roman "distasteful" and "cliche" for criticizing women of color for being successful in business.