By Leo Barraclough According To The variety Syndicado Film Sales has boarded two films selected for Berlinale: “Paul” by Denis Côté, which has its world premiere in the Panorama Dokumente section, and “Sirens Call” by Miri Ian Gossing and Lina Sieckmann, which is part of the Forum lineup. Côté’s documentary focuses on Paul, who suffers from depression and social anxiety. He seeks safety by doing housework for dominant women, becoming the submissive “Cleaning Simp Paul.” By sharing his gently eccentric routines on social media, he combats his loneliness. Filmed from a candid, nonjudgmental perspective, “Paul” is a portrait of an eccentric but endearing person who delivers a fresh take on our quest for well-being. The producers are Hany Ouichou and Karine Bélanger of Co...

By Clayton Davis According To The variety Golden Globe voters have received their ballots and are starting to consider their choices for the best work in film and television. With 15 film categories — six of them split between drama and comedy/musical — the Globes are a bellwether for the Oscars. Under the HFPA, the awards were criticized for favoring star power over quality — evidenced by all the love they showered on the 2010 Johnny Depp-Angelina Jolie turkey “The Tourist.” But with a revamped voting body, the Globes have become more discerning, making more globally minded choices. The recognition last year of Alma Pöysti for the Finnish film “Fallen Leaves” signaled this evolutionThese categories are shaping up to be particularly cutthroat. Netflix’s “Emilia Pérez” and Universal’s “W...

By Rachel Seo According To The variety SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Season 3 of “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” now streaming on Max.  Fare thee well, Leighton Murray. Following the July announcement that Reneé Rapp would leave “The Sex Lives of College Girls” in Season 3, the Max show has finally revealed how her character, über-rich legacy student Leighton Murray, departs from Essex College. In the Season 3 premiere, Leighton discovers that the high-level mathematics class she was set to take is canceled due to a lack of participants. Her math professor tells her that though she can’t take the course at Essex, she can bus to a nearby college to do so. But an unpleasant incident with a public transit plebeian l...