The world's oceans are home to an exquisite variety of sharks and rays, from the largest fishes in the sea ' the majestic whale shark and manta rays ' to the luminescent but rarely seen deep-water lantern shark and guitarfishes. The oceans were once teeming with these extraordinary and ancient species, which evolved close to half a billion years ago. However, the past half-century has posed one of the greatest tests yet to their survival. Overfishing, habitat loss and international trade have cut their numbers, putting many species on a path toward extinction within our lifetimes. Sharks have had a rough ride since the 1970s, when overfishing, habitat loss and international trade in fins, oil and other body parts of these enigmatic sea dwellers began to affect their sensitive populations. The 1975 movie 'Jaws' and its portrayal of a great white shark as a mindless killing machine didn't help people's perceptions. One reason shark populations are so vulnerable to overfishing, and less capable of recovering, is the late timing of their sexual maturity and their low numbers of offspring. If sharks and rays don't survive long enough, the species can't reproduce enough new members to remain stable....

The pending US$83 billion deal is being described as an upending of the existing entertainment order, a sign that it's now dominated by the tech platforms rather than the traditional Hollywood power brokers. Maybe so. But what are those rules' And are they being rewritten, or will moviegoers and TV audiences simply find themselves back in the early 20th century, when a few powerful players directed the fate of the entertainment industry' He used Wall Street financing to acquire and merge his film distribution company, Famous Players-Lasky, the film production company Paramount and the Balaban and Katz chain of theaters under the Paramount name. Together, they created a vertically integrated studio that would emulate the assembly line production of the auto industry: Films would be produced, distributed and shown under the same corporate umbrella. Meanwhile, Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner ' the Warner brothers ' had been pioneer theater owners during the nickelodeon era, the period from roughly 1890 to 1915, when movie exhibition shifted from traveling shows to permanent, storefront theaters called nickelodeons....

Perhaps you've seen the poster for Ella McCay and marveled at its title character, a woman who's clearly trying to Have It All'by which I mean she's futzing with a high heel while wearing a sensible overcoat and dress. James L. Brooks's new film, his first in 15 years, feels like a throwback to the kind of light dramedy Hollywood doesn't make anymore, a movie where the stakes are no higher than finding a balance among work, love, and family. Brooks is the aging master behind triumphs of that genre such as Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, but those were made in the 1980s. Can Ella revive his magic in a contemporary setting' The answer is no, but on a technicality: This strange, shaggy movie is actually a period piece, tellingly set in 2008, a time of both hopeful promise and material misery for Americans. It follows Ms. McCay (played by Emma Mackey), a driven, idealistic 34-year-old lieutenant governor of an unnamed state who finds herself having one of the wackiest weeks of her life. Her boss, a beloved, aging governor (Albert Brooks), is accepting a position in President-Elect Barack Obama's Cabinet, giving Ella his job. But her husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden), the useless scion of a local pizza magnate, has inadvertently dragged her into a minor scandal. Her brother, Casey (Spike Fearn), is an agoraphobic shut-in failing to confront his mounting mental-health crises. And her philandering absentee father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson), has decided to pop his head back into her life and beg forgiveness....

Along with millions of others, I'll soon be taking 2 hours and 10 minutes out of my busy holiday schedule to sit down and watch a movie I've seen countless times before: Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life,' which tells the story of a man's existential crisis one Christmas Eve in the fictional town of Bedford Falls. In the film, protagonist George Bailey, who's played by Jimmy Stewart, is on the brink of suicide. He seems to have achieved the hallmarks of the American dream: He's taken over his father's loan business, married the love of his life and fathered four excessively adorable children. But George feels stifled and beaten down. His Uncle Billy has misplaced US$8,000 of the company's money, and the town's resident tyrant, Mr. Potter, is using the mishap to try to ruin George, who's his last remaining business competitor. An angel named Clarence is tasked with pulling George back from the brink. To stop him from attempting suicide, Clarence decides to show George what life would have been like if he'd never been born. In this alternate reality, Bedford Falls is called Pottersville, a place Mr. Potter runs as a ruthless banker and slumlord....