Shirley Li

In the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder, Tom Cruise stole scenes by mocking Hollywood’s entitlement. As the cocksure, foulmouthed studio exec Les Grossman, Cruise put on a fat suit, wore heavy prosthetics, and peppered his lines with profanity. When a gang holding his cast hostage demands ransom, he doesn’t bother to listen to the specifics. Instead, he threatens the kidnappers by promising to “rain down an ungodly fucking firestorm.”Cruise’s outburst on the U.K.

In 2020, TV became essential. With the closures of sports stadiums, concert halls, and movie theaters, the only stage fit for the pandemic turned out to be the small screen. And for those of us who could afford to spare time for such storytelling, TV took us to places where we could find some reprieve, whether in the form of a pulse-pounding mystery, a gut-wrenching romance, an endearing fish-out-of-water comedy, or a mind-boggling docuseries.

The Philip Guston retrospective was supposed to be one of 2020’s blockbuster art shows. The exhibition would have been the first in 15 years to examine the celebrated artist’s catalog, bringing hundreds of provocative paintings to four prestigious stops: the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Tate Modern in London; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. It felt topical and exciting.

Early in its fourth season, The Crown finds Britain at a low. It’s 1982, and the so-called , but the 2006 drama covers the aftermath of Diana’s death, sympathizing with Elizabeth as she learns to change her perspective on public opinion. In this season, he’s less generous with the Queen, showing how her rigid adherence to duty contributed as much to Charles and Diana’s crumbling marriage as the young couple’s affairs and incompatibility did.

Given the ongoing nature of the pandemic, it may seem senseless to make a two-hour film that looks back on how the coronavirus ran rampant in the U.S. And yet, Totally Under Control—from the Oscar-winning writer-director Alex Gibney and his co-directors, Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger—not only documents the chaos of 2020 with clear-eyed precision, but also successfully argues for its own existence.

Late in Netflix’s Emily in Paris, the new comedy series from Sex and the City’s creator, Darren Star, Emily (Lily Collins), the titular American expat, tries to give herself a reality check about her new home. “It’s just Paris,” she says. “It’s not some alternate universe where rules don’t apply.”Oh, but Emily does live in an alternate universe, one built by Star for his first Millennial protagonist.

Almost as soon as Serena Lyn stepped back inside the Magic Kingdom, she burst into tears. It’d been four months since the theme park and crown jewel of Walt Disney World’s Florida stronghold had shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic. Before the parks closed, Lyn had been visiting them twice a week; it was part of her job as a Disney blogger and an Instagrammer with more than 71,000 followers.

Last night’s BET Awards made it immediately clear, with its first performance, that it wouldn’t be a regular awards show—and not just because it had to be put together remotely. Rather than opening with a nominated star debuting a new song or having its host, the comedian Amanda Seales, kick things off with a monologue, the three-hour ceremony began with the 12-year-old gospel singer Keedron Bryant belting out his viral ballad, “I Just Wanna Live.

In a world of social distancing, touching can be a turnoff—even on-screen. With productions being allowed to resume in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and abroad, industry guilds and labor unions have drafted proposals for new on-set safety protocols during the coronavirus pandemic. A common recommendation? Limit the amount of time actors have to closely interact.That’s an issue for intimacy coordinators, people whose jobs are dependent on, well, intimacy.

I arrive at the Paramount Drive-In Theater two and a half hours before its first screening, but it appears I’m already late: Ahead of me, a line of cars has formed, ranging from sedans like mine to pickup trucks loaded with blankets and pillows in the back, all inching toward the entrance.