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Early on in “Snapshots,” an elderly matriarch announces to her visiting daughter and granddaughter that two topics of conversation are forbidden for the weekend: “what-ifs and politics.” It’s as sure a sign as any that those themes — identity politics in particular, with the red-blue kind more implied — will proceed to dominate Melanie Mayron’s earnest, gentle-hearted film, an across-the-generations ode to following your heart and living your truth. If that sounds corny, this reflection on an illicit affair between two young married women, and the familial reverberations it has decades later, isn’t shy of stating its case in bluntly homespun terms: One rather wishes Jan Miller Corran and Katherine Cortez’s evidently heartfelt script placed a little more trust in its actors (and audience) to connect the emotional dots.

As it is, “Snapshots” wallows a little too readily in cliché to be quite as stirring as its story...

Stars: Jeremiah Watkins, Brian Breiter, Jan Broberg, Shannon Collis, Josh Cowdery, Nic D’Avirro, Luis Fernandez-Gil, Christopher Mena, Koral Michaels, Maja Miletich, Elaine Partnow, Thomas Payton, Sarah Power | Written and Directed by Franck Khalfoun

A YouTube reviewer investigates a self-help app called I-Lived which purports to make the users’ dreams come true by issuing a few simple goals. Online idiot Josh (Jeremiah Watkins) falls prey to its allure, the app getting him a dream girlfriend and job within but a short amount of time. Logging off, he loses everything. But when he signs back in, the terms and conditions have changed, and Josh finds himself set to lose more than a few Bitcoins.

In this age of Tinder, Grindr and whathaveyou, i-Lived is a timely technological horror story, questioning to what extent we let technology into our lives – particularly where self help and dating apps are concerned. It’s well made too,...

Glee actress Jenna Ushkowitz and moviemaker Ryan Kavanaugh are among the stars who have given blood for a bizarre piece of art by controversial photographer Tyler Shields.

The snapper has rounded up 20 celebrities, also including TV star Shannon Collis and producer Brent Bolthouse, for the piece, which he will unveil at his Life Is Not a Fairytale exhibit in Los Angeles next month.

He tells the New York Daily News, "We drew vials and vials of blood from people. I have a refrigerator full of blood right now in my bedroom, which is hilarious.

"It's all mixed together. You won't know whose (blood) is where."

But Shields' request for blood wasn't accepted by everybody he asked - Star Trek actor Zachary Quinto turned down the project.

Shields adds, "Zachary said, 'I might be weird about needles'. (He was too) squeamish."

The photographer hit headlines last year after smearing Lindsay Lohan with fake blood for a photoshoot.