LOS ANGELES — Some of this year’s Oscar-nominated documentary shorts hit so hard, viewers may be grateful to come across one that simply follows donkeys visiting an observatory in the desert — even if it bumps up against the very boundaries of the genre.

‘All the Empty Rooms’

Director Joshua Seftel hadn’t spoken with his former colleague, longtime CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman, in 25 years. Then Hartman, famed for stories of human kindness and compassion, reached out: He and photojournalist Lou Bopp had been documenting bedrooms left behind by children killed in American school shootings.

“I said to him, ‘This could be a great film,’” says Seftel, though Hartman asked not to be in it. “I said, ‘You are the “Good News Guy” and people trust you. If the Good News Guy is telling you he’s got some bad news, people are going to listen.’ ”

The rooms provide silent testament to those who once lived there. One is festooned in SpongeBob memorabilia; another contains the rack on which a girl would arrange her outfits for the week.

“You meet these families and hear the stories and there’s a heaviness” in the rooms, says Seftel. He says he could see them weigh on Bopp and Hartman. A filmmaker friend, on seeing the film, told Seftel, “Steve Hartman is a haunted man.”

‘Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud’

Brent Renaud and his brother, Craig, made documentaries in Haiti, Egypt, Iraq and other hot spots, and won awards for their portrait of a troubled Chicago school. Then, while covering the war in Ukraine, Brent was killed by Russian soldiers.

“For Brent, it was always a focus on people caught in the middle of conflicts,” says Craig Renaud. “Going back to the front lines over and over again, we often had to be on the ground for months at a time in these war zones.”

Included in the clips of Brent Renaud’s work: a weeping Iraqi woman clutching the bloody jeans of her slain son; Renaud interviewing a Honduran boy embarking on the hazardous trek to the U.S. on his own; and a Somali man telling Renaud, “The way you hold the camera, you’re doing it from your heart.”

It also includes casual mention of his diagnosis as neurodivergent.

“He’s calm as a monk in a firefight,” Craig Renaud says, “but a cocktail party in Brooklyn is absolutely terrifying.”

‘Children No More: Were and Are Gone’

In Tel Aviv, a group of Israeli protesters stands silently, holding posters emblazoned with the faces of Palestinian children who have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.

“They didn’t choose to be part of this war,” says Israeli filmmaker Hilla Medalia. “They were killed not because they brought it on themselves, but because someone decided they needed to die.”

Medalia’s film follows activists whose silent vigils draw both support and condemnation. So far, despite sometimes having to abandon their protests when situations become potentially threatening, they remain undaunted.

“Their focus is to stop the war and this war crime and other things that are happening in our name, and to force the general public to confront those images and to look at the kids and to feel for them,” Medalia says. “It’s amazing to me how humanity and compassion become an act of resistance.”

‘The Devil Is Busy’

At a women’s health clinic in Atlanta, a typical day includes religious protesters on megaphones (“All men,” points out co-director Geeta Gandbhir) and women seeking help only to discover their pregnancies are just past the six-week mark, making terminating them illegal in Georgia.

“We decided to focus on the providers,” says Gandbhir. “They’re putting themselves at risk to provide care. What you see are the hurdles they face.”

Co-director Christalyn Hampton says the burdens on these independent clinics have drastically increased as about 50 Planned Parenthood sites closed last year. She points out the spectrum of healthcare provided and the complexity of situations for both patients, many of whom must travel considerable distances, and providers.

“When the technician is giving the young lady a sonogram, the [patient] goes through several emotions: She’s happy, she’s crying, she’s nervous. That speaks to the vulnerability these women feel when they have to make certain decisions. That emotional moment [reminds us] of that human aspect.”

‘Perfectly a Strangeness’

A trio of donkeys traverses a desert to an observatory. Captured with creative camera angles and accompanied by an imaginative score, Alison McAlpine’s film pushes the boundaries of what documentaries are.

While shooting her previous feature in Chile, McAlpine noticed donkeys hanging out around an observatory. “We hired three gentle donkeys [for the film]. It was a combination of trying to direct the donkeys up from the valley to the observatory, and sometimes we just followed the donkeys.”

McAlpine acknowledges that her film has been difficult to categorize. “Sometimes it’s at IDFA, which is an international documentary festival. Sometimes it’s just competing with fiction, where it’s been lucky to win awards sometimes. But what is a documentary? As soon as you put on a lens and a frame, it’s a personal document, not something objective.

“I’ve been moved because people have been touched; they seem to be transported elsewhere, which is what one wants as a filmmaker.”

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

LOS ANGELES — To get to the “Sinners” exhibit on the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, you have to navigate past the backlot’s iconic water tower, cross through the New York Street and then skirt city hall and the fountain from the opening credits of “Friends.” Eventually, you wind up at Stage 48, home of the Central Perk Cafe, a gift shop selling all manner of “Friends” bric-a-brac and offering a smattering of knockoff furniture from Monica’s palatial apartment to enjoy.

Comparatively, the newly installed “Sinners” showcase, featuring costumes and a couple of props, is, to use a real estate agent’s euphemism, “cozy,” certainly smaller than Rachel’s closet. On the night of its opening, “Sinners” production designer Hannah Beachler and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw are inside sitting on a sofa — not the sofa, but close enough. A few hours ago, they were celebrating with their fellow Oscar nominees at the academy’s annual luncheon.

“She’s a regular,” Arkapaw says, her arm around Beachler, who won an Oscar in 2019 for her work on “Black Panther.”

The two women and the rest of the “Sinners” team have been hobnobbing with Oscar and guild voters for months now and talking about their work on the film, which was released in April, for even longer. At the time of this “Sinners” event on the Warner Bros. lot, which included yet another screening of the movie for guild members, the Oscars were still more than a month away.

“I can believe it,” Beachler says. Adds Arkapaw: “Me too. I’m stressing about the stuff they’re having us doing. But I think Teyana Taylor said it best: ‘Don’t be complaining about answered prayers.’”

“Sinners” had a lot of prayers answered when Oscar nominations were announced last month — 16, to be precise.

Now the question is whether that record-breaking haul might be enough to catapult Ryan Coogler’s genre-defying American horror story to a best picture Oscar victory.

When it opened in September, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” immediately took the pole position in the best picture race, and it remains the front-runner. But all those “Sinners” Oscar nominations do complicate things. Put it this way: When you submit your movie in 16 different categories and hit in each and every one of them, you have a film boasting broad support across a dozen voting branches. That’s significant.

And if you’re a voter and you weren’t necessarily a fan of the film — or had put off watching it because the horror genre gives you pause — the nominations total does something else. It prompts you to take stock. What is everyone else seeing? Maybe you watch “Sinners” again. Maybe you finally clear the deck and press play for the first time. Perhaps you see that it’s just as much a movie of the moment as “One Battle,” what with the unapologetic, overt racism coming from the White House.

So if you’re on the fence and you do reconsider “Sinners,” maybe it’s not a complete reversal. But it might be enough for you to put the movie higher on your ranked ballot when you vote for best picture.

As you may know, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses a preferential ballot for the best picture category and only the best picture category. When the academy’s 10,136 voting members mark their ballots this year, they cast a single vote in 23 of the 24 Oscar categories. The nominee with the most votes wins.

For best picture, though, members are instructed to rank the 10 nominated movies. The system, in place since the academy expanded the best picture field from five to 10 nominees in 2009, is designed to reflect the wishes of the greatest number of voters. This means that the winner is sometimes not the movie that is most passionately loved but the picture that is most generally liked — or, if you’re a glass-half-empty kind of person, the picture that is least disliked.

The process works like this: Once voting ends, PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants sort the best picture ballots and place them in stacks based on members’ No. 1 votes. They then eliminate the movie with the fewest first-place votes, giving those votes to each ballot’s second-ranked film. The process continues — smallest stacks eliminated, votes redistributed to the next choice down — until one movie has more than 50% of the vote.

The math to “Sinners” winning best picture necessitates it being the No. 1, 2 or 3 choice on more ballots than “One Battle After Another.” And that plays into what a couple of awards consultants told me about the psychological effect the movie’s record-breaking 16 nominations might have on voters when they rank the nominated movies.

“Maybe it’s not your favorite, but you still rank it high because of that overwhelming level of respect,” says one rival campaigner. “Who knows if the math adds up. But at this point in the season, you’re looking for any advantage you can find.”

A test of that math will come Saturday at the Producers Guild Awards, a ceremony that uses the same preferential ballot system to determine its best picture. The PGA winner more often than not repeats at the Oscars, though in the last decade there have been two notable exceptions — “Moonlight” besting PGA winner “La La Land” in 2017 and, three years later, “Parasite” taking the Oscar over “1917.”

Should “Sinners” prevail at the PGA and then the next night go on to win the cast prize at the Actor Awards (formerly known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards), then the race will be dramatically recast. Both ceremonies take place in the middle of the window of final voting for the Oscars, which runs Feb. 26 through March 5.

“It’s a miracle that we were all nominated,” Beachler says. “That’s rare for everyone to get that recognition.”

For a film with a hero named Preacher Boy, one last miracle certainly isn’t out of the question. And if the last few months have taught us anything, it’s that you underestimate “Sinners” at your peril.

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

MIAMI (AP) — For nearly 10 years running, Lesley VanNess never missed the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, a beachfront bacchanal of celebrities, booze and bites that tens of thousands of attendees pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to join.

It was about access, the chance to nosh and gab with the likes of Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay, people she otherwise could experience only via the hands-in-pans purview of the Food Network.

“I’d get the Food Network Magazine and there would be advertisements for it. I’m like, ‘0h my god! You could go to that? Go to these great events and meet these celebrity chefs?’,” said VanNess, a 44-year-old former restaurant owner from Iowa. “I’m in!”

That was during the food festival heyday, a decade-long stretch starting around 2010 when copycat events popped up everywhere, creating a circuit-like scene for A-list chefs (and ample wannabes).

Then came social media, a force that melted barriers between fans and food celebs. People like VanNess realized that instead of crowding into football field-size tents to chance a chat with Flay, they could just DM him.

Or better yet, they could tune in to online #instafood chatter to perhaps discover the next Ray or Flay, a whole new level of social cred unlocked.

VanNess hasn’t been back to South Beach since at least 2020. “I’d rather see them on social media or go to their restaurant,” she said.

What chefs and foodies want

Last weekend, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival turned 25, cementing it as one of the elders of the festival scene, along with its sister event, the New York City Wine & Food Festival, and the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado. By all accounts, all three are going strong. But many smaller festivals have disappeared, victims of the pandemic, slumping ticket sales, soaring food and labor costs, and chef disinterest.

So, are food festivals still relevant?

“South Beach and New York, they fill a niche and I can see them going on forever. But food events and food festivals are going in a whole other direction,” said Mike Thelin, one of the founders of the now shuttered Oregon festival Feast Portland.

Festivals’ success long hinged on the need of chefs, wineries, mixologists, food producers, and what only now are known as food influencers to reach a wider audience. In 2026, that’s an antiquated notion.

“In 2010, they wanted to get on the map,” Thelin said. “They don’t need that anymore.”

Seeking that local connection

That doesn’t mean festivals are dead. There’s a recalibration happening, he explained. What many call “white tent affairs,” a not-so-subtle nod to South Beach’s events that stretch along the sands of the Atlantic, are fading.

“If I’m going to a certain region, I want to know what makes that region special,” Thelin said. “I don’t want to go into a giant white tent that’s devoid of geography and drink a bunch of wines from California if I’m in Washington or Tennessee.”

Taking their place? A host of small, hyper-focused events grounded in people and place. Events like AAPI Food & Wine, a 3-year-old Oregon and New York City-based festival that highlights the work of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

“The foodie scene has changed so much,” said Lois Cho, one of the founders of that event, which draws about 1,000 attendees a year. “People didn’t realize wine and black bean noodles and izakaya and all these different Thai dishes — they had no idea they paired. Creating a different narrative and community where you can connect with people, those are the types of events we’ll see now.”

Social media, she said, unlocked so many overlooked voices.

“And a lot of people haven’t caught on because it’s been a lot of cookie-cutter events for the last 20 years,” she said.

It’s been a similar story for the Southbound Food Festival, which celebrates the culinary scene of Birmingham, Alabama. Started in 2022 and stretching over a week every fall, the event pulls support not just from chefs, but also the region’s art and music scenes.

“There’s less appeal today with these TV chefs. Great chefs are everywhere,” said Nancy Hopkins, one of the event’s founders. “People come to celebrate and uplift Birmingham.”

The OG festivals still draw crowds

Still, as Thelin said, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and it’s New York sibling aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, white tents, Food Network faces and all. Tickets to nearly all of South Beach’s 110 events, which featured 500-plus chefs and food personalities, sold out this year. In its quarter century, the festival has raised more than $45 million for the Florida International University Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.

Lee Schrager, the force behind the two festivals, said the South Beach blueprint remains relevant today.

“There’s something very different about DM’ing Bobby Flay than going to an intimate dinner at a table of 10 that he’s doing that’s sold out in three days,” Schrager said. “Social media has made everyone available, but can you touch and feel it?”

The first South Beach event, attended by only 10 chefs, was little more than a wine tasting. This year, more than 30,000 people attended. Martha Stewart hosted a luncheon at Joe’s Stone Crab, Italian celebrity butcher Dario Cecchini tossed slabs of beef into an eager dinner crowd, and Ray reprised her Burger Bash, where everything from Kool-Aid pickles to foie gras adorned smashed wagyu patties on potato buns.

Schrager acknowledged that most smaller festivals can’t operate the way his do, including hosting events he knows will sell tickets even if they ultimately lose money. He said he sold $7 million in tickets this year and brought in $6 million in sponsorships — and netted just a little over $1 million.

“It’s a good number in the festival world, but it’s not a great return if you’re running a profit business,” he said.

Ray, who has participated in nearly every South Beach and New York festival, continues to show up. It’s about loyalty to Schrager, who took her seriously when much of the food world didn’t. But it’s also about in-person access to fans.

“I love talking to people, being with people, having people climb all over you, hang on you, give you a compliment,” she said. “I love being in the real-life experience.”

J.M. Hirsch is a food and travel journalist, and the former food editor for The Associated Press.

In a Sara Levine novel — and so far, she’s only written two in 25 years — the heroine would likely take that as a sign, like some kind of cosmic irony that an emergency was definitely occurring.

Levine suggested we meet at a dog beach because “The Hitch,” her new novel — her first since “Treasure Island!!!,” Levine’s beloved 2012 cult classic — centers on a dog attack in Evanston that leaves a corgi dead and a 6-year-old boy certain he’s possessed by the dead dog’s soul. But like “Treasure Island!!!,” it’s also funny and unhinged and so relatable you wonder if Levine, who chairs the writing department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has been slowly making a case for the lost art of the literary comedy novel.

Indeed, Levine’s characters are so queasily recognizable, this wasn’t even the first time in recent months that I felt as if I had stepped unwittingly into a Sara Levine story. By some twist of completely off-the-wall fate, the same week I was reading an early copy of “The Hitch,” I was bitten several times by a dog. Seriously. It was bonkers. I was walking through a restaurant patio on the North Shore and a dog launched itself onto my calf like I was sirloin. My first thought: Why me? I felt like that guy in a movie who hasn’t yet become a werewolf but all of the neighborhood dogs know he’s a werewolf and start barking. And yet, it wasn’t even the dog attack that reminded me of Levine — it was the way diners glared at me, as if I interrupted their burgers. I felt a weird shame.

When I told Levine this — and that I was not that excited to hang out at a dog beach anyway, considering — she told me about the attack in Evanston that led to “The Hitch.”

“So I was walking my dog by (Evanston Township High School) and he’s a little goldendoodle and this dog — no leash, but with a pink collar — suddenly appears in the alley. It’s a pit bull. I’m not anti-pit bull and I don’t mean to stereotype. She’s a little pit, but pits do have strong jaws and she attacks my dog. This was 2020. I have these horrible voice memos with my dog wailing. Anyway, now I’m in a crisis, and what am I doing to do? I’m terrible in a crisis. I also don’t want to hurt the other dog. If I let my dog off the leash he might get hit by car, so I’m frozen there, and I’m also trying to separate them, but I’m also thinking I can’t kick this dog — even with what’s happening in front of me, I couldn’t do it. The house on the corner has a Newfoundland standing in the yard, and the woman at the house sees me. She tells me to run for her car, but it’s actually a truck with a flatbed. She grabs a shovel and starts swinging at the dog, and my legs at this point are jelly but we make it into the flatbed and the pitbull is just launching itself at us, just like Cujo. My first thought was, Did I make this happen? I had started writing about a dog, so: Did I bring this on? That’s nutty, but it’s how you feel at times when things happen.”

Levine’s novels feel right for early 2026, for this gray period when we’re all expected to reassess our lives, make changes and emerge in the spring with clearer heads. The way certain works of fiction can do, her books could double as perverse self-help, starring heroines who go out of their ways to show how not to conduct your life. Her writing voice, sardonic, breezy, chimes with Joy Williams and Donald Barthelme, but it’s hard not to hear “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and even “The Office” — that nexus where unraveling people lacking self-awareness stumble across empathy.

The heroine of “Treasure Island!!!” — a 25-year old clerk of a “pet library” — reads Robert Louis Stevenson’s legendary adventure and quickly reassess her narrow timid life, deciding there and then to live by a credo culled from Stevenson: Boldness, Resolution, Independence, Horn-blowing. But by the end, she kills a parrot and is so obsessed with “Treasure Island,” family and friends stage an intervention between her and the novel. The heroine of “The Hitch” could be related, if only tangentially: Her name is Rose Cutler and she is an Evanston yogurt company CEO (as well as “antiracist, secular Jewish feminist eco-warrior”). Rose is also perilously up her own keister. She does not want children (“not for one atom-spitting second”) but she is never so shy with opinions about the way her brother and sister-in-law raise their own kid. When they go on vacation, Rose jumps at the chance to play aunt for a week — which is when the dog attack occurs, her nephew decides (cheerfully) the dog’s soul leapt bodies, and worse.

Rose is a micromanager, and lousy in a crisis. It spoils nothing to say the closest she gets to enlightenment is a brief ah-ha: “Sometimes my mind gets active as a prairie dog and I build elaborate tunnels underground, room after room of judgement and justification.”

The writer Roxane Gay — who once included Levine’s work in an essay on unlikeable women characters (“Not Here to Make Friends”) — said that just after she landed her own imprint (Roxane Gay Books) at Grove Atlantic, she sought out Levine and asked what she was working on: “It had been some time since ‘Treasure Island!!!’ and Sara did not disappoint. The writing voice I fell in love with was still there, but she had grown, and though this Rose character was older, you’re reminded that sometimes we don’t really outgrow our lesser selves — that sometimes we just learn to live with them, you know?”

Levine told Gay that not every reader is a fan of unlikeable woman characters. She told Gay about the (smallish) subset of Goodreads reviewers who describe her women as “utterly unlikeable” and “irredeemable.” Gay told me, “I don’t know why writers are so willing to expose themselves to Goodreads. Some people have a parasocial relationship with book characters, and it meets a puritanical streak where people decide they don’t like a character who is a ‘bad person,’ forgetting flawed people exist. Rose is convinced she knows the right way to do things and her ethics are in the right place — bless her heart.”

Levine’s sweet spot is what literary scholars have long called “unreliable narration” — she even taught a class at Brown University (where she got her Ph.D. in English) on the topic. Levine said: “My father’s a psychiatrist and he tells me we’re all unreliable narrators. But in a novel, it means there’s a deficit of comprehension from the character telling the story and that deficit is part of the story. But when I hear from people who hated ‘Treasure Island!!!,’ often they think I’m the narrator. My feelings get hurt. But maybe they don’t understand that gap. It took me a long time to realize it.

“Or maybe ‘unreliable’ is the wrong term for this. Should I just refer to my characters as ‘difficult women’? No, maybe not — I was at a party recently and told someone I write about ‘difficult women’ and this person said, ‘OK, wait, what do you mean by difficult …?’”

Horror novelist Paul Tremblay — whom Levine consulted to get a sense of how to handle the possession part of “The Hitch” — is a big fan of Levine, and included “Treasure Island!!!” on his ballot for the New York Times poll of the best books of the 21st century. Part of that appreciation, he said, is “how she is reviving an old tradition of first-person a-hole narrators. Think of ‘Confederacy of Dunces,’ or the novels of Sam Lipsyte, except publishers don’t like books by women who go there. Readers are getting more literal, I think. It can feel like a risk to just include any moral uncertainty in a novel now. I hear this especially from younger readers, who want to know what the moral is, and the thing is we are not writing to bestow morals but explain what it means to be human, which can be dark and uncomfortable — all words I would use to describe Sara’s books.”

You could also argue the long afterlife of “Treasure Island!!” — a perpetual word-of-mouth bookseller favorite, handed down to friends who can relate to spiraling exhaustion — is a mirror of contemporary America. Or at least indie culture: Rose Byrne is likely to grab an Oscar nomination soon for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” as a stressed mother who makes a series of bad decisions; she’d slide neatly into Levine’s books. Levine is one of your favorite literary writers’ best-kept secrets: Blurbs for “The Hitch” came from Elizabeth Gilbert, Rumaan Alam, Adam Levin and Chicagoan Michael Zapata, who told me: “Blurbs can be blurby, but the one I wrote was truly sincere.” “Treasure Island!!!,” which has yet to be adapted to TV or film (but probably will be one day), has already been developed (and dropped) by Natalie Portman and James Franco.

Levine sounds almost naive about the depth of this love.

She told me another established screenwriter got pretty far with “Treasure Island!!!” but then appeared to bail and never signed their contract; Levine never heard from the woman again. One day, during a class at SAIC, she projected an email exchange between her and the writer as an illustration of professional etiquette. “I had to explain how she opted out of the project, and as students do, one took out his phone and googled the woman’s name and a minute later replied, ‘Oh, Sara, no — that woman had died. That’s probably why she never got back to you.’”

Sounds like a Sara Levine story, I said.

“It does?” she asked.

To be frank, the biggest disappointment about Sara Levine is that she’s not nuts. I anticipated erratic and flighty and I got calm and rational. James McManus, author of the poker memoir “Positively Fifth Street,” who taught alongside Levine for 25 years, said: “She is as sane and responsible an adult as they come. In fact, (SAIC) wanted her to move into even more active leadership roles, but that can be a time suck, creatively.”

She has long gray hair and large cartoon eyes and comes across as naturally funny. She said people do expect her to be a wacko. “Someone introduced me at a party recently as ‘one of the most sane people’ at the Art Institute, or maybe it was ‘the least insane.’”

Levine, who is 55, grew up outside Cleveland and wrote a couple of plays that were produced when she was still a teenager (one professionally, for a Cleveland theater group). She went to Northwestern for theater only to find her way to creative writing. She then bounced from Brown to the University of Iowa to SAIC, which she joined in 2000. She describes herself as “ornery” that entire time. She threatened to drop out of Brown, refused to start a novel, moved to Iowa to teach non-fiction, only to decide, “‘I don’t want to live here, I don’t want to teach this my whole life’ — it was like looking into my coffin.”

She found she was more interested in “‘hysterical’ voices, the more obstreperous personalities of fiction.” “Treasure Island!!!,” which she began to see if she could write a novel after years of short stories and nonfiction academia, took a decade, but she found that she was more ambitious than she knew. She also learned she had a knack for describing everyday suburbia with cutting precision: “The Hitch” is filled with Evanston parents who over-schedule kids so much you wonder if they “can’t sit still in a room” with children. Doctor’s offices offer “six televisions playing six different channels.” Vast expanses of Illinois contain “a strip of road that featured an abandoned movie theatre, a discount shoe store, and a cemetery bordered by a six-foot high metal fence capped with snow,” as well as a hospital “founded in affiliation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church and rooted in the belief that all persons were created in the image of God, a hospital that had not in the past five years received higher than a two-star Yelp review.”

After “Treasure Island!!!,” she wrote a big sprawling novel titled “Leave It,” a more lyrical and somber kaleidoscope of Evanston characters; she didn’t want to follow one “difficult woman” with a second. She gave it to her agent, but then soon after, she pulled it back and shelved it.

“I was worried I was reinforcing the ‘hysterical’ woman thing, so I wrote something else, but that something else? Other people do that book well. So I have this narrow track. Twyla Tharp talks about knowing your own creative DNA, and that helped me. I’ve always had teachers who said you need to keep growing, you’ve got to keep pushing, that there is a natural aesthetic restlessness where you should never repeat yourself. I really bought into that. But what if it’s helpful to focus on one form and go very deep into only that? Look at Monet, who spent a lifetime painting haystacks …”

“‘Compares self to Monet,’” I interrupted, joking, pretending to jot that in my notebook.

“Oh, and also Nabokov!” she said, laughing. “And of course Jane Austen! Write that down.”

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com

AI slop seems to be everywhere. Low-quality digital content made with artificial intelligence has flooded our feeds, screens and speakers. Is there anything we can do about it?

If you want fewer cartoonish videos of dead celebrities, creepy or absurd images or fake bands playing synthetic tunes, a few platforms have rolled out settings and features to help minimize AI-generated content.

Here is a guide on how to use them. But first, a caveat from Henry Ajder, who advises businesses and governments on AI and has been studying deepfakes since 2018. He warned that it’s “incredibly difficult” to entirely remove AI slop content entirely from all your feeds.

He compared AI slop to the smog generated from the industrial revolution, when there weren’t any pollution controls in place.

“It’s going to be very, very hard for people to avoid inhaling, in this analogy.”

Pinterest

Pinterest’s move to lean into the AI boom made it something of a poster child for the AI slop problem, as user complained that the online moodboard for pinning inspirational material by themes has become overrun with AI content.

So Pinterest recently rolled out a “tuner” that lets users adjust the amount of AI content they see in their feeds.

It rolled out first on Android and desktop operating systems, before starting on a more gradual roll out on iOS.

“Now, users can dial down the AI and add more of a human touch,” Pinterest said, adding that it would initially cover some categories that are “highly prone to AI modification or generation” such as beauty, art, fashion and home decor.

More categories have since been added, including architecture, art, beauty, entertainment, men’s, women’s and children’s fashion, health, home décor, and sport, food and drink.

To use the tuner, go to Settings and then to “refine your recommendations.” and then tap on GenAI interests, where you can use toggles to indicate the categories you’d like to see less AI-content.

TikTok

It’s no surprise that AI-generated videos proliferate on TikTok, the short-video sharing app. The company says there are at least 1.3 billion video clips on its platform it has labeled as AI-generated.

TikTok said in November it was testing an update to give users more control of the AI-generated content in their For You feeds. It’s not clear when it will be widely available. TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.

To see if you have it on the TikTok mobile app, go to Settings, then Content Preferences, then to Manage Topics where you’ll see a set of sliders to control various types of content, such as dance, humor, lifestyle and nature.

You can also access the controls from the For You feed, by tapping the Share button on the side of a post, then tap Why this Video, then Adjust your For You, and then Manage topics.

There should be a new slider that allows you to dial down — or turn up — the amount of AI-generated content that you receive. If you don’t see it yet, it might be because you haven’t received the update yet. TikTok said late last year that it would start testing the feature in coming weeks.

These controls are not available on the desktop browser interface.

You won’t be able to get red of AI content altogether — TikTok says the controls are used to tailor the content rather than removing or replacing it entirely from feeds.

“This means that people who love AI-generated history content can see more of this content, while those who’d rather see less can choose to dial things down,” it said.

Deezer

Song generation tools like Suno and Udio let users create music merely by typing some ideas into a chatbot window. Anyone can use them to spit out polished pop songs, but it also means streaming services have been flooded with AI tunes, often by accounts masquerading as real artists.

Among the music streaming platforms, only Deezer, a smaller European-based player, gives listeners a way to tell them apart by labeling songs as AI.

“Deezer has been really, really pushing the anti-AI generation music narrative,” said Henry Ajder.

Deezer says 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks, or more than 39% of the daily total, are uploaded to its platform every day and last year it detected and labeled more than 13.4 million AI tracks. The company says the people doing it are trying to make money by fraudulent streams.

Change your platform

If you can tear yourself away from Big Tech platforms, there are a new generation of apps targeting users who want to avoid AI.

Cara is a portfolio-sharing platform for artists that bans AI-generated work. Pixelfed is an ad-free Instagram rival where users can join different servers, or communities, including one for art that does not allow AI-generated content. Spread is a new social media platform with content for people who want to “access human ideas” and “escape the flood of AI slop.”

Watch out for the upcoming launch of diVine, a reboot of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s defunct short form video app Vine. The app has only been available as a limited prerelease for Apple iOS. It promises “No AI Slop” and uses multiple approaches to detect AI. An Android beta app is expected soon. The company plans to launch it in app stores soon but needs more time to get ready for unexpectedly high demand.

Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip.

He was a relative youngster then, 74 years old, but at a very important point in his life. He was generally regarded as a comedic giant, and why not? He had spent his life making people laugh, first as a Catskills comic and then as part of a glittering writing team (along with Woody Allen and Neil Simon) for Sid Caesar’s pioneering TV programs “Your Show of Shows” and “Caesar’s Hour”; as the co-creator of “Get Smart”; as the 2000 Year Old Man on a series of best-selling comedy albums with pal Carl Reiner; as movie writer, director, producer and actor in such films as “The Producers,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Blazing Saddles.”

But he had not had a critical or box-office hit since his 1977 Hitchcock spoof “High Anxiety.” And there he sat on a cold December day in 2000 in New York, taking a big risk, for many believed that the success or failure of the musical version of “The Producers” he was overseeing would provide the final sentence to his career.

Well, we all know what happened. “The Producers” would open in Chicago, move to Broadway and win a record 12 Tony Awards. The career carried on, and now here is Brooks, as charming, smart and, of course, funny as ever, as the centerpiece of a thoughtfully thrilling documentary now airing on HBO Max. “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!,” exclamation point more than justified.

It may be a bit long at almost four hours (in two episodes, now streaming), but it is impossible not to enjoy. Its length is forgivable since one can sense the excitement and affection of filmmaker Judd Apatow, who interviews Brooks at length. Apatow, along with co-director Michael Bonfiglio, has previously also captured in documentary form George Carlin and Garry Shandling.

Drawing on ample archival footage and candid interviews, he and Bonfiglio take us back to the beginning with Brooks (born Melvin Kaminsky), the youngest of four boys of a widowed mother in Brooklyn, all of them off to World War II, all safely returned, with Brooks telling Apatow, “War changed me. If you don’t get killed in the Army, you can learn a lot.”

His career moves to the raucous Sid Caesar writers’ room and we do also hear, rather wistfully, from Brooks’ three children and his first wife, former Broadway dancer Florence Baum, before he was off to moviemaking in California in the early 1960s. His granddaughter Samantha is charming.

You will hear Brooks tell a terrific Cary Grant story (one he has told many times over the years on the various late-night talk shows where he has been a frequent guest) but, more tenderly, tales of his courtship and marriage to actress Anne Bancroft. Gene Wilder shares feelings that go far deeper than director and star. And we get details of Brooks’ long friendship with writer-director Reiner, from the early 1960s to their sharing dinners together as widowers every night watching “Jeopardy” on TV.

Bancroft died in 2005; their son, novelist Max, is tender in interviews. Reiner’s wife Estelle died in 2008 and Reiner in 2020. Hearing Reiner’s son, filmmaker Rob, talk about his father and Brooks gives one a chill, knowing this was one of the final conversations before he and his wife Michele Singer Reiner’s December murders.

The number of people with whom Brooks has shared his creative life will impress and perhaps surprise you. There’s Richard Pryor, who did a bit of writing for “Blazing Saddles,” who says, “He’s a loving man. It’s about love with him.”

The late director David Lynch credits Brooks with saving his career by hiring him to direct “The Elephant Man” after seeing Lynch’s “Eraserhead.” In addition to his own movies, Brooks produced such films, through his Brooksfilms, as “The Fly,” “My Favorite Year,” “Frances” and others, taking a rare low profile lest his name lead moviegoers to think they would be seeing comedies.

Naturally, we hear from a large crowd of showbiz folks and all of them — Ben Stiller, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, Sarah Silverman, Conan O’Brien, Josh Gad, Robert Townsend, Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane and others — are complimentary. There must be someone in that backbiting swamp that is Hollywood who isn’t a Brooks fan, but such a person is not to be found here.

Whatever your relationship with Brooks beforehand, this film will enrich it. Will you understand what makes him tick? I don’t know, and you won’t care. Just spending time with him is satisfying enough.

His famously quick wit has not lost a step. When Apatow asks, “You lost your father at an early age?” Brooks quickly replies, “No, no. My father died.”

His ability to recall names and places and laughs is, frankly, astonishing. He is not only able to remember but to enjoy, to savor. We should all be so lucky.

In the film, he says, “Sometimes my comedy is just to celebrate the joy of being alive.” And as he has said many times in his many years, he has always used humor as “a defense against the universe.” Few, if any, have done it better.

rkogan@chicagotribune.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Some people see the glass as half full and some as half empty. Marc Shaiman is something else entirely.

“I’m not even happy with the glass,” he says with a laugh.

The award-winning Hollywood and Broadway composer and lyricist cheerfully likes to call himself an “Eeyore” and “a card-carrying pessimist” despite many of his biggest dreams coming true.

“Just as soon as something good happens, something bad’s going to happen,” he tells The Associated Press. “I am always waiting for that other shoe to drop, and it inevitably drops.”

His career and personal ups and downs are on full display this winter with Tuesday’s publication of his memoir, “Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner,” which is filled with funny stories from a man who has helped fuel popular movies and musicals for decades.

“I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot and I’ve been lucky enough to have an outrageous longevity. I thought, ‘Let me write it down, finally,’” he says.

Tales of Bette Midler, Stephen Sondheim and the ‘South Park’ guys

The memoir charts the New Jersey-born musical prodigy’s rise from Bette Midler’s musical director in his teens to scoring such films as “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Mary Poppins Returns” and Broadway shows like “Hairspray” and “Catch Me If You Can.”

He’s worked with Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Luther Vandross, Raquel Welch and Rob Reiner, sparred with producer Scott Rudin and had a spat with Nora Ephron (“I’m certain she’s in heaven, telling all the angels she doesn’t like harps,” he writes). He also played at the White House and was a force in the early days of “Saturday Night Live.”

There was the time in 1999 that he got legendary composer Stephen Sondheim so high on pot at a party in his apartment that the iconic composer collapsed three times. “I’ve killed Stephen Sondheim,” he thought to himself. (Sondheim asked him to tell the story only after he died.)

He tells the story of hearing Meryl Streep repeatedly working on a song for “Mary Poppins Returns.” Moved, he and his writing partner, Scott Williams, knocked on her door to say how impressed they were by her dedication to rehearse. “Well, guys, fear can be a powerful motivator,” she told them.

“I’m mostly just trying to show how human everyone is — even these bold-faced names,” Shaiman, a two-time Grammy winner and two-time Emmy winner, says in the interview.

Shaiman isn’t above mocking himself, as he does for becoming an inveterate pothead and cocaine user. “I should go into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the only person who put on weight while being a cocaine addict,” he writes.

There are stories about how a misunderstanding over an unpaid bill with Barbra Streisand left him shaken for days and the time he insulted Harry Connick Jr. (Both would later reconcile.)

Then there was the time he found himself dressed in an ostentatious powder-blue suit and feather boa alongside Matt Stone and Trey Parker on a red carpet for “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” — they were dressed as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez.

One lesson from Shaiman: ‘Show up’

One lesson Shaiman hopes to teach aspiring artists is to go for it: “What you can do is show up. Show up to everything. Say yes to everything because I’m a good example of that.”

He tells the story of Midler organizing a world tour and offering his services but being told she was only hiring local Los Angeles people. So he withdrew all his money from the bank, hopped on a flight from New York and called her from a phone booth: “I’m in L.A. Where’s rehearsal?”

“Even if you don’t get the job, keep your spirit up because someone in that room is going to remember you for another thing. That’s the thing I think to really learn from the book,” he says.

As a sign of Shaiman’s pull on Broadway, the audiobook will feature performances by Crystal, Short, Matthew Broderick, Megan Hilty, Nathan Lane, Katharine McPhee and Ben Whishaw, among others.

“I had included a lot of lyrics in the book and then I suddenly realized, ‘What, am I going to sing them all or speak them all?’ So I started calling friends, some who had sung those songs and some who had sung the demos,” he says.

Crystal met Shaiman at “Saturday Night Live” and quickly hit it off. In a separate interview, Crystal called his friend funny and quick to improvise, with an almost photographic memory of music.

“Look at his range: From ‘Misery’ to the beautiful score from ‘The American President.’ And I brought him in on ‘61(asterisk)’ and then the ‘Mr. Saturday Night’ score,” Crystal says. “He’s just so uniquely talented as an artist.”

Despite being a Tony Award winner in 2003 with “Hairspray” and earning two other nominations for “Catch Me If You Can” in 2011 and “Some Like It Hot” in 2023, Shaiman is flustered by Broadway.

His last two shows — “Smash” and “Some Like It Hot” — earned great reviews but closed early, a victim of high costs and fickle audiences.

“I wish the shows kind of stunk and I could go, ‘Oh, man, that really stunk. People are really not liking this,’” he says. “But when they’re enjoying it?”

Shaiman really has nothing else to prove and yet he laughs that his skin has gotten thinner — not thicker — over the years. He’d like to take it easy, but that’s not what Eeyores do.

“I don’t know how well I’ll actually do with retirement, but I’d like to give it a try.”

Super Bowl week will unfold across several days in the Bay Area, with the game itself serving as the final act in a tightly coordinated mix of sports, music, media and celebrity appearances.

From league-run press events to invitation-only gatherings in San Francisco, the jam-packed week draws athletes, entertainers and executives together in the days leading up the league’s championship game. Early programming sets the stage for nights headlined by figures such as Shaquille O’Neal and Dave Chappelle along with a variety of performances spread out through San Francisco by Kehlani, Post Malone and Calvin Harris.

High-profile stops like the Sports Illustrated celebration — tied to Tight End University collaborators Travis Kelce and George Kittle — help define the celebrity-driven stretch of the week before fan-focused experiences take over on game day.

For first-timers and returning visitors alike, Super Bowl week moves quickly.

Here is a day-by-day look at how each day takes shape starting Feb. 4:

Wednesday, Feb. 4: Power brunch and early arrivals

Super Bowl week begins with events centered on leadership, media and behind-the-scenes influence.

The day’s marquee event is the Sports Power Brunch: Celebrating the Most Powerful Women in Sports with attendees including Becky Hammon, Maria Taylor and Elle Duncan at the Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco. The invitation-only gathering brings together executives, broadcasters and athletes for panels and honors spotlighting women shaping the sports industry.

Thursday, Feb. 5: Bad Bunny, NFL Honors and big concert night

Thursday combines league-run programming with the first major wave of concerts.

The day begins with the Super Bowl halftime and pregame performers media event, hosted at the NFL’s media hub. Reporters and the public will hear directly from the game’s performers including Bad Bunny, Charlie Puth, Brandi Carlile and Coco Jones.

After that, attention shifts to the NFL Honors, hosted by Jon Hamm at the Palace of Fine Arts. There’s a red carpet followed by the awards show, blending sports with entertainment.

But the fun doesn’t stop, launching more into the concert calendar. Fall Out Boy performs an intimate show at The Regency Ballroom as part of the Wells Fargo Autograph Card Exclusives series, a ticketed event limited to cardholders. At Pier 80 Warehouse, Illenium hosts an album release show tied to his upcoming project “Odyssey,” opening one of the weekend’s largest warehouse.

Friday, Feb. 6: Shaq, Post Malone, Kehlani & Madden Bowl

In one of the busiest nights, you can’t really go wrong. Across San Francisco, multiple large-scale concerts and fan-facing experiences run at the same time.

Make your choices early.

At the Cow Palace, Shaq’s Fun House returns as a carnival-style nightlife event hosted by Shaquille O’Neal, who performs as DJ Diesel alongside a rotating lineup of DJs. The event is a ticketed experience with immersive activations ranging from an all-inclusive general admission for $249.99 to a shared VIP table ticket, which starts at $1,550.

Bud Light hosts a free, 21-and-over concert experience with Post Malone at Fort Mason Center, with access granted through a sweepstakes model.

Music continues across the Bay Area. Kehlani headlines a ticketed pre-Super Bowl block party at San Jose City Hall, one of the closest major concerts to Levi’s Stadium. At the Chase Center, EA Sports’ Madden Bowl combines football and music with performances from Luke Combs and LaRussell, athlete appearances and a livestreamed blue carpet, hosted by New York Giants quarterback Jameis Winston and sports commentator Kay Adams. The social media channels will offer behind-the-scenes content with Twitch streamer Sketch who will host a livestream featuring athletes playing each other on “Madden NFL 26.”

The Palace of Fine Arts hosts Sting as the opening night of On Location’s Super Bowl Studio 60.

Pier 80 Warehouse doubles down on EDM with a joint performance from Calvin Harris and Diplo, anchoring one of the largest ticketed shows of the night.

Green Day, who will open the 60th Super Bowl with an anniversary ceremony celebrating generations of MVPs, will hit the stage along with Counting Crows at the FanDuel and Spotify party at Pier 29.

Saturday, Feb. 7: Dave Chappelle & Wale anchor Super Bowl eve

Saturday serves as the peak of celebrity-driven Super Bowl weekend activity.

Dave Chappelle headlines an already sold-out comedy show at Chase Center, one of the most in-demand tickets of the weekend. At the Cow Palace, Sports Illustrated hosts SI The Party, a ticketed and VIP event with performances by Loud Luxury and Frank Walker. The costs range from $450 to $1,750 VIP shared table tickets.

Rapper Wale will hit the stage at Pier 27, T-Pain and Sean Paul will have a show called R&B and Ribs at Pier 80 Warehouse while Chris Stapleton and Sierra Ferrell will perform at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

Additional Super Bowl Eve performances include Dom Dolla at San Jose City Hall and The Killers at the Palace of Fine Arts as Night Two of Super Bowl Studio 60. Larry June, Hugel, Loud Luxury and Plastik Funk will perform at the Maxim Big Game Party 2026: Bay Lights & Football Nights.

Sunday, Feb. 8: Game Day and Fan Experiences

Game day opens with large-scale fan events leading into kickoff.

Guy Fieri’s Flavortown Tailgate runs for four hours starting at 11:30 a.m. PT, offering free general admission with registration alongside paid upgrades. The event blends live music, food and sponsor activations ahead of the game.

The Chainsmokers will perform at On Location’s Club 67, Champions Club and Touchdown Club pregame parties just outside Levi’s Stadium.

Also near the Stadium, The Players Tailgate delivers a premium pregame experience featuring chefs, NFL players and live entertainment. It’s a ticketed event just steps from the stadium.

That’s why we’re giving you a few “greatest of all time” lists here to choose from, so you can judge for yourself. (The snarky comments in parentheses are ours; we couldn’t resist.)

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West

“Museum curators, historians, firearms experts and film buffs” selected by The Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyo., were given a list of 100 films from which to choose favorites. From those, the center compiled the 20 Greatest Westerns Ever Made. (Personally, I love that voters chose “Blazing Saddles” as No. 7.) See more at centerofthewest.org. (Note: Few of these are available to watch for free; most are rentals on the services listed, which may change without notice; check listings. May be shown on other sites. Current as of Dec. 15, 2025.)

The countdown:

No. 20: “Lonesome Dove” (1989), a miniseries (the center readily admits to breaking the rules to include this one), starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones. Where to watch: free with subscription to Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, Peacock and other streaming services.

No. 19: “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948), starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston. Not rated. Running time: 126 minutes. Where to watch: Rent on Prime Video, Apple TV.

No. 18: “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968), starring Henry Fonda and Claudia Cardinale. Not rated. Running time: 175 minutes. Where to watch: Pluto TV, or rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube and others.

No. 17: “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” (1949), starring John Wayne and directed by John Ford. Not rated. Running time: 104 minutes. Where to watch: Rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube and others.

No. 16: “Winchester ’73 (1950), starring Jimmy Stewart. Not rated. Running time: 92 minutes. Where to watch: Rent on Prime Video, Apple TV and others.

No. 15: “Stagecoach” (1939), starring John Wayne and directed by John Ford. Not rated. Running time: 96 minutes. Where to watch: Free on Tubi, Prime Video and HBO Max and other services (with subscription), and for rent on Apple TV.

No. 14: “Dances With Wolves” (1990), starring and directed by Kevin Costner. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 181 minutes. Where to watch: Hulu, HBO Max, Prime Video and Apple TV (with subscription).

No. 13: “Quigley Down Under” (1990), starring Tom Selleck and Alan Rickman. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 120 minutes. Where to watch: Free on Tubi and Prime Video (with subscription), for rent on Apple TV and other services.

No. 12: “The Magnificent Seven” (1960), starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. Not rated. Running time: 128 minutes. Where to watch: AMC+ and Prime Video, or rent at MGM+, Apple TV and other services.

No. 11: “McLintock!” (1963), starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. Not rated. Running time: 127 minutes. Where to watch: Free on Tubi, Pluto TV and Prime Video (with subscription), or rent at Apple TV.

No. 10: “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (1962), starring John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart and directed by John Ford. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 123 minutes. Where to watch: Prime Video, YouTube, Apple TV and others, with subscription.

No. 9: “High Noon” (1952), starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. Rated: PG. Running time: 85 minutes. Where to watch: Free on Pluto TV, with subscription on Prime Video and AMC+, and for rent at Apple TV.

No. 8: “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Rated: PG. Running time: 110 minutes. Where to watch:  Prime Video,  YouTube, Netflix and AMC+ (subscriptions) and for rent at Apple TV.

No. 7. “Blazing Saddles” (1974), starring Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little. Rated: R. Running time: 95 minutes. Where to watch: HBO Max, or for rent at Apple TV and Prime Video.

No. 6: “The Searchers” (1956), starring John Wayne and directed by (you guessed it) John Ford. Not rated. Running time: 119 minutes. Where to watch: For rent at Prime Video, YouTube and Apple TV.

No. 5: “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), starring Clint Eastwood. Rated: R. Running time: 178 minutes. Where to watch: Prime Video, YouTube or AMC+ (subscription), or rent at Apple TV.

No. 4: “Unforgiven” (1992), starring Clint Eastwood, who took home Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for it. Rated: R. Running time: 130 minutes. Where to watch: Rent on Prime Video, YouTube or Apple TV.

No. 3: “True Grit” (1969), starring John Wayne and Kim Darby. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 110 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix, Prime Video or AMC+ (with subscription), or rent at Apple TV.

No. 2: “Shane” (1953), starring Alan Ladd and Brandon De Wilde. Rated: G. Running time: 118 minutes. Where to watch: Rent with Prime Video, YouTube and Apple TV.

No. 1: “Tombstone” (1993), starring Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton (and narrated by Robert Mitchum!). Rated: R. Running time: 130 minutes. Where to watch: Hulu (subscription, or rent at Prime Video, Apple TV and YouTube. “If I’m going to tell a person to watch a single Western, because it is all they can stomach, care about, muster, last day on Earth, there is a good chance it would be Tombstone. It’s your huckleberry,” said Danny M. of the Cody Firearms Museum in his vote. What he said.

Streaming services

When reading these, consider the source — meaning these all showed on these streaming services when the lists were published. (Cause I certainly don’t remember “The Last Son” from 2022 or “Bandidas” from 2006, and I’m betting you won’t, either.)

Hulu (Posted April 2025)

“Tombstone” (1993), about the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz., in 1881. Starring: Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday and Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp. Rated: R. Running time: 130 minutes. Where to watch: Hulu (subscription, or rent on Prime Video, Apple TV and YouTube.

“3:10 to Yuma” (2007), starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Rated: R. Running time: 122 minutes. Where to watch: Hulu, Prime Video and Peacock (with subscription), or rent on Apple TV.

“Dances With Wolves” (1990), starring (and directed by) Kevin Costner, and winner of seven Academy Awards. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 181 minutes. Where to watch: Hulu, HBO Max, Prime Video and Apple TV (with subscription).

“The Last Victim” (2021), starring Ron Perlman. Rated: R. Running time: 103 minutes. Where to watch: For rent on Prime Video and Apple TV; check listings for Hulu availability.

“Stagecoach” (1939), starring John Wayne. Not rated. Running time: 96 minutes. Where to watch: Hulu, Tubi, Prime Video and HBO Max (with subscription), and for rent on Apple TV.

“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (1966), starring Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach. Rated: R. Running time: 178 minutes. Where to watch: Prime Video, YouTube or AMC+ (subscription), or rent at Apple TV. Also on Hulu with Live TV add-on.

“The Last Son” (2021), starring Sam Worthington and Machine Gun Kelly. Rated: R. Running time: 96 minutes. Where to watch: For rent on Prime Video and Apple TV.

“The Old Way (2023), starring Nicholas Cage. Rated: R. Running time: 95 minutes. Where to watch: For rent on Prime Video and Apple TV.

“How the West Was Won” (1962), starring Gregory Peck, John Wayne and James Stewart. Rated: G. Running time: 164 minutes. Where to watch: Rent on Apple TV or Amazon Prime.

“Hostile Territory” (2022), starring Brea Bee and Matt McCoy. Rated: R. Running time: 94 minutes. Where to watch: Free on the Roku Channel and Tubi, on Prime Video (subscription) and for rent on Apple TV.

“Jane Got A Gun” (2015), starring Natalie Portman. Rated: R. Running time: 98 minutes. Where to watch: Free on the Roku Channel, Hulu, Prime Video and Pluto TV, for rent on Apple TV.

“Bandidas” (2006), starring Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 93 minutes. Where to watch: Hulu, and for rent at YouTube, Apple TV and Prime Video.

“True Grit” (2010 version), starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Hailee Steinfeld. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 110 minutes. Where to watch: Free on Pluto TV, and with subscription to Netflix, Paramount+, Prime Video and AMC+, or rent on Apple TV.

“Cry Macho” (2021), starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 104 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix and Max (subscription) and for rent on Prime VIdeo, Apple TV.

“Blazing Saddles” (1974), starring Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little. Rated: R. Running time: 95 minutes. Where to watch: HBO Max, or for rent at Apple TV and Prime Video.

“Open Range” (2003), starring Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner (who also directed) and Annette Bening. Rated: R. Running time: 139 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix, or rent on Prime Video and Apple TV.

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Rated: PG. Running time: 110 minutes. Where to watch:  Prime Video,  YouTube and AMC+ (subscriptions) and for rent at Apple TV.

“Butcher’s Crossing” (2022), starring Nicolas Cage. Rated: R. Running time: 107 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix, Hulu and Disney+, and to rent on Prime Video and Apple TV.

Netflix (Posted Dec. 4, 2025)

“The Battle of Buster Scruggs” (2018), starring Liam Neesen, James Franco and Tyne Daly. (It’s a Coen brothers film, so buckle up.) Rated: R. Running time: 134 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix

“El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” (2019), starring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. (It’s a Vince Gilligan movie, so beware.) Rated: TV-MA. Running time: 122 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix.

“The Harder They Fall” (2021), starring Jonathan Majors and Regina King. Rated: R. Running time: 139 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix.

“The Highwaymen” (2019), starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson. Rated: R. Running time: 132 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix.

“Mudbound” (2017), starring Mary J. Blige. Rated: R. Running time: 135 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix.

“The Power of the Dog” (2021), starring Jesse Plemons, Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst. (Jane Campion won a Best Director Oscar for it). Rated: R. Running time: 128  minutes. Where to watch: Netflix.

“Concrete Cowboy” (2021), starring Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin. Rated: R. Running time: 111 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix.

“Train Dreams” (2025), starring Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 103 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix.

Viewer reviews

From Rotten Tomatoes’ Top 100 best-reviewed Western movies of all time. (Although the site says it only chose “classical period films,” the animated “Spirit” from 2002 is No. 100, so do with that what you will.) For the other 90 on this list, go to rottentomatoes.com.

No. 1: “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” (1966), starring Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach. Rated: R. Running time: 178 minutes. Where to watch: Prime Video, YouTube or AMC+ (subscription), or rent at Apple TV. Also on Hulu with Live TV add-on.

No. 2: “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948), starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston. Not rated. Running time: 126 minutes. Where to watch: Rent on Prime Video, Apple TV.

No. 3: “High Noon” (1952), starring Gary Cooper. Rated: PG. Running time: 85 minutes. Where to watch: Free on Pluto TV, with subscription on Prime Video and AMC+, and for rent at Apple TV.

No. 4: “Stagecoach” (1939), starring John Wayne and Claire Trevor. Not rated. Running time: 96 minutes. Where to watch: Hulu, Tubi, Prime Video and HBO Max (with subscription), and for rent on Apple TV.

No. 5: “Rio Bravo” (1959), starring John Wayne and Dean Martin, directed by Howard Hawks. Not rated. Running time: 141 minutes. Where to watch: Rent on YouTube, Apple TV, Netflix and Prime Video.

No. 6: “Hell or High Water” (2016), starring Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine. Rated: R. Running time: 102 minutes. Where to watch: Hulu, Prime Video, Paramount+, or rent at Apple TV.

No. 7: “True Grit” (2010), starring Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 110 minutes. Where to watch: Free on Pluto TV, and with a subscription to Netflix, Paramount+, Prime Video and AMC+, or rent on Apple TV.

No. 8: “Unforgiven” (1992), starring Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman. Rated: R. Running time: 130 minutes. Where to watch: Rent on Prime Video, YouTube or Apple TV.

No. 9: “My Darling Clemetine” (1946), starring Henry Fonda and Linda Darnell. Not rated. Running time: 97 minutes. Where to watch: Rent on Prime Video or YouTube.

No. 10: “The Searchers” (1956), starring John Wayne and Natalie Wood. Not rated. Running time: 119 minutes. Where to watch: Netflix, or rent at Apple TV or Prime Video.

The organizing committee announced Thursday that Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie will take part in the torch relay. The Opening Ceremony is scheduled for Feb. 6.

The series based off “Game Changers” books has captivated viewers with the fictional story of a Canadian and a Russian hockey player sustaining a decade-long secret relationship.

The first season became the the No. 1 series on HBO Max. Originally developed for the Canadian streaming service Crave, the show scored a distribution deal with HBO and has already been renewed for a second season, and it will broadcast in Italy beginning next month.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics