In addition to relaunching 'Narnia' on big screens and serving as writer-director Greta Gerwig's first film since 'Barbie,' 'The Magician's Nephew' also looks like the next step in Netflix's relationship with movie theaters ' and it's becoming an even bigger step with the delay. The company had previously said 'The Magician's Nephew' would play exclusively on Imax screens for at least two weeks before a streaming release for Christmas. That would be an ambitious theatrical release by Netflix's standards, but relatively limited compared to many other Hollywood blockbusters. Now, Netflix says 'The Magician's Nephew' will begin exclusive Imax previews on February 10, 2027, followed by a wide global release in theaters on February 12. (In Netflix's words, it will be a 'global eventized release.') The movie won't start streaming until April 2. The company's announcement doesn't get more specific about which theaters will be showing 'The Magician's Nephew,' but Imax released a statement noting that the delay will allow the film to have 'a full theatrical window,' so the major theater chains are unlikely to complain...

A familiar dilemma: You open Netflix, determined to watch something new. Twenty minutes of scrolling later, after having rejected dozens of perfectly fine options, you land on a movie you've seen many times before. We do this constantly'rewatch TV shows, replay albums, reread favorite books until entire scenes or lyrics are committed to memory. Part of the reason is comfort. Familiar things require less from us; they deliver the emotional payoff we expect. But repetition is also a way of revisiting earlier versions of ourselves. Old songs, movies, and shows become emotional time capsules, preserving not just the stories but the person we were when we first loved them. 'We like repeating pop-culture experiences because they help us remember the past, and the act of remembering the past feels good,' Derek Thompson wrote in 2014. In a pop-culture era of infinite choices, there is something deeply reassuring about a story that ends just the way you expect it to. Trivial as it might be, that kind of familiarity can make us feel understood....

If the new Apple TV show Imperfect Women had premiered in the 2010s, it would probably have commanded the zeitgeist. The thriller, about a group of old friends whose cushy suburban lives unravel after one of them is murdered, has all the makings of an addictive watch. The whodunit comes riddled with beguiling red herrings and sordid twists. The cast is stacked with Emmy winners and hey-it's-that-guy! actors. It's the kind of glossy, elevated soap opera that would have fit neatly alongside Scandal and the rest of ABC's melodrama-heavy programming a decade ago'and not just because Kerry Washington is one of the show's stars. Middle-aged women caught up in wildly dramatic and morally gray predicaments once spelled easy success in ratings and critical acclaim. Just look at Desperate Housewives. Or How to Get Away With Murder. Or Big Little Lies. As it stands, Imperfect Women isn't likely to join their ranks in popularity. Although the series has risen to second place on Apple TV's viewership charts, it hasn't cracked the top-10 most-watched streaming titles overall in the United States. The overcrowded television landscape makes it harder than ever for any program to stand out, but other shows that mash up the character of the typically wealthy, often bored housewife with the intrigue of a crime thriller haven't been clicking with viewers either: NBC canceled Grosse Pointe Garden Society, a drama about gardening-club members trying to cover up a murder, after a single season last summer. Prime Video's The Better Sister, which follows estranged siblings who reconcile after one of them finds her husband dead, also came and went with little fanfare. Recent multi-season series about middle-aged women getting their hands dirty amid their seemingly mundane lives'Yellowjackets, Palm Royale'have ended or will end this year, further thinning out the genre....

Last year, psychologist Lee Chambers set off across the United Kingdom to listen to boys. In his work training companies in equality, he had met hundreds of parents who said they were concerned that boys were struggling after the COVID-19 pandemic and being manipulated online. So he decided to go and find out what the lives of 12'16-year-olds are really like. The results of this research, which included the views of more than 1,000 adolescents, revealed boys' frustrations with the modern world1. More than 80% said there aren't enough real-world spaces ' such as parks or youth clubs ' to be a boy. More than half found the online world more rewarding than the physical one. And nearly 80% said they were not clear what masculinity is. 'It's toxic, that's all I ever hear,' said one participant. The idea that boys and young men are struggling is not a new concern ' but the hand-wringing has intensified over the past few years. Globally, more boys than girls are out of school and young men are less likely than young women to attend higher education. Boys and young men tend to have fewer close connections and less emotional support than do girls and young women, surveys suggest, and many feel under pressure to conform to stereotypical ideas of masculinity and body image. Last year's hit Netflix show Adolescence triggered widespread concern that teenage boys were being drawn into the 'manosphere', a network of male-focused, often misogynistic online spaces. Some 'people would say that boys are in crisis', says Matt Englar-Carlson, a specialist in counselling and director of the Center for Boys and Men at California State University, Fullerton....