RALEIGH, N.C. -- A customer at a Raleigh credit union says she was offended by "a black doll with a noose around its neck and hands tied behind its back" on an employee's desk. It turns out the doll is a figurine depicting a character from the zombie-themed television show "The Walking Dead."

Stacey Smith posted on Facebook on Tuesday afternoon...Read more

CHICAGO -- There's too much "Star Wars." A new "Star Wars" movie five months after the previous "Star Wars" movie -- whether it's "Solo: A Star Wars Story" or "Kenobi: A Star Wars Story" or "Star Wars: The New Jedi After the Last Jedi" -- is too much "Star Wars." I say that as a lifelong, 40-plus-years true believer. Anticipation is as much a ...Read more

You have questions. I have some answers.

Q: I've always wondered whether, when you DVR a show, it is actually counted as being watched live in the networks rating system. Or aren't they able to detect that?

A: They are. As the ways we watch television expand and change, the people making television have sought new ways to figure out who is ...Read more

"A life without despair is a life without hope," says the man at the center of Paul Schrader's "First Reformed." That paradox embraces the world as it is, and suggests a better world for the making. The movie it belongs to is an act of spiritual inquiry, a coolly assured example of cinematic scholarship in subtly deployed motion and one of the ...Read more

"On Chesil Beach" would be an uncomfortable sit even if director Dominic Cooke's film version of the Ian McEwan novella had figured out an effective tone and style for these clammy little scenes from a repressed, thwarted marriage. What worked on the page, more or less, struggles on screen, however, even though (and maybe because) McEwan adapted...Read more

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. 2.5 stars. A heaping 156-minute plate of plot spaghetti, as superheroes and supervillains chase six objects across time and space in a bid to control ultimate power in the universe. Just enough moments of humor to keep things watchable, but the movie is overcrowded with Avengers (Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chadwick ...Read more

Much of the discussion headed into this year's Cannes Film Festival revolved around the festival's controversial move to ban Netflix films (or any films not slated to open theatrically in France) from competition and the distinct lack of star-driven titles, particularly from the U.S. Now that this year's edition is complete, Times critics Justin...Read more

CHICAGO -- Award-winning poet, spoken word artist and author Tara Betts didn't think Chicago would ever call out singer R. Kelly about claims of abuse and sexual coercion of young women and girls after years of consistent hits had made him largely untouchable in his hometown.

"I never thought Chicago would get here," Betts said about the local ...Read more

I knew the exact moment when "Solo: A Star Wars Story" hooked me -- and no, it didn't take long.

His first-ever interaction with perpetual sidekick Chewbacca is a classic "Star Wars" moment that had me all up in those feelings that gripped me in 1977, as a 12-year-old seeing it for the first time.

The scene captured the nostalgia -- which is ...Read more

Of all the young fans I talked to over the weekend at Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas -- about Avicii, about the massacre at last year's Route 91 country music festival, and about the music they were here to see regardless -- almost all of them had a similar feeling about the world right now.

It's all falling apart.

I haven't been a teenager...Read more

When ABC revived "American Idol," just two years after the curtain fell on its 15-season run on Fox, many wondered whether the show would be able to capture its old magic.

The show was years removed from its heyday, when 30 million viewers tuned in weekly to root (and vote) for aspiring singers like Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Adam ...Read more

The top 10 DVD rentals at Redbox kiosks for the week of May 14:

1. Black Panther -- Disney

2. Fifty Shades Freed -- Universal

3. 12 Strong -- Warner

4. Peter Rabbit -- Sony

5. Den of Thieves -- Universal

6. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle -- Sony

7. Maze Runner: The Death Cure -- Fox

8. The Greatest Showman -- Fox

9. The Commuter -- ...Read more

Before he became a smug smuggler with a worn, light-speed spaceship and a furry Bigfoot companion, Han Solo wasn't even named Han Solo. And he certainly didn't have a princess as a girlfriend.

Where he began his hoodlum ways, how he crossed the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs and the ways that he adapted to a Galactic Empire full of blaster ...Read more