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May 9, 2025 
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Hi, film fans!
There’s so much going on in the movie world right now, it’s hard to know where to start.
How about with a stunned Hollywood trying to parse President Trump’s call for a 100 percent tariff on films produced outside the United States? That was Sunday. The next day Gov. Gavin Newsom of California proposed teaming up with the federal government on a $7.5 billion film tax credit — though how either proposal would actually work is hazy.
What is clear is that both leaders were addressing a problem that the entertainment industry in California is desperate to solve: the loss of film and television productions to other states and countries. The problem has been mounting over the years but has grown much worse since the pandemic and two Hollywood strikes. As my colleagues Shawn Hubler, Matt Stevens and Nicole Sperling explained, “Thousands of middle-class film workers — camera operators, set decorators, lighting technicians, makeup artists, caterers, electricians — have seen work evaporate.”
Then again, if you were to look at the box office, you might think everything was just fine. The Marvel team-up “Thunderbolts*” (we’re sticking with the asterisk) pulled in roughly $173 million globally over the weekend, and while other Marvel movies have had better starts, this one is expected to have legs, as they say. Meanwhile “Sinners” (now nearly $245 million worldwide) and “A Minecraft Movie ($876 million) are both still going strong.
“Sinners” is the rare modern blockbuster that has united fans and critics alike, writes my colleague Brian Josephs. He interviewed Wunmi Mosaku, who plays the hoodoo healer Annie in that Ryan Coogler film. A British Nigerian actress, she explained how preparation for the role led her to learn more about her roots: “I discovered a part of myself, a part of my ancestry through looking into Annie.”
Our critic Wesley Morris examined the film alongside other pop-culture phenomena like Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” album and Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show and concluded, “These times might call for an excessive pop art that takes on too much, that wants to be gobbled up and dug into, an art that isn’t afraid to boast I am this country, while also doing some thinking about what this country is.”
And we haven’t even gotten to this week’s new releases like the Tim Robinson-Paul Rudd cringe-com “Friendship,” which left our critic Alissa Wilkinson wondering along with the internet, “Are men OK?,” and the Italian American restaurant comedy “Nonnas” (the critic Jeannette Catsoulis is not a fan though a conversation with the stars proved delightful).
Whatever you end up watching, enjoy the movies!
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