These days, when nearly every film or scripted series wears its political affiliation on its sleeve, it’s fascinating to come across one that seems to defy immediate categorization.

Those who’ve read Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken or who’ve read an interview with POW, Olympic runner, and Christian evangelist Louis Zamperini know what a hilarious, honest-to-a-fault character he was before his death in 2014. His description in an interview with the Amateur Athletic Foundation of the Jonah-like reaction he had when he realized God was calling him to return to Japan to evangelize some of the very men who had brutalized him perfectly captured his unique candor: “All the way over the Pacific Ocean, I was resentful, even when I arrived in Japan.

As the NFL season begins this weekend, Nike has thrown gasoline on the heated debate over athletes’ national anthem protests with an ad campaign starring Colin Kaepernick.

A movie most Americans have never heard of became the second highest-grossing film of all time in a single market last year, earning $874 million in China. Wolf Warrior 2, released July 2017, broke record after record: the highest-grossing Chinese film ever released, the biggest single-day gross for a Chinese movie, and the fastest film to gross more than $500 million in China. Only Star Wars: The Force Awakens beat the action flick by making $936.7 million in North America.

Film and television star Burt Reynolds died on Thursday at age 82. His agent Todd Eisner confirmed his death but did not give further details. The rugged and charismatic actor had a long and wandering career. He starred in the 1972 Oscar-winning film Deliverance and the 1997 Oscar-nominated film Boogie Nights, as well as commercial favorite Smokey and the Bandit and the 1990s hit TV show Evening Shade.

With all the tributes being paid to Aretha Franklin and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ed King in the wake of their deaths, it’s a good time to take a look at Muscle Shoals, an excellent 2013 documentary that explores the small town that helped both the Queen of Soul and the Southern rocker find their sound.

New Line Cinema’s Conjuring universe is a series of horror films centered on or connected to the exploits of 1970s-era, real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.