Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Space Race’ Review: Why Was NASA So White?

      by

      The days of shooting for the stars, interpreted through the stories of people of color whose aspirations were repeatedly thwarted.The story of man’s foray into space is a thrilling one, encompassing war, technological innovation and the power of imagination. The story of the Black man’s foray into space — the subject of the documentary “The Space Race” — comprises a different set of milestones. For African Americans who dreamed of traveling beyond the earth’s atmosphere, the barriers weren’t just physical or scientific, but also social and political.Directed by Lisa Cortés and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, “The Space Race” offers an alternative history of American space travel through interviews with pioneering figures — including Ed Dwight, an Air Force captain who was the first Black trainee at the Aerospace Research Pilot School; and Guy Bluford, who became the first African American to go to space almost two decades later, in 1983.But the film’s most fascinating revelation is that the Soviets beat the Americans in sending a Black person to space in 1980 with Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, a Cuban pilot — an achievement that never got its due during the Cold War.This fact, mentioned only cursorily, reinforces the limitations of the movie (which also, it should be noted, features hardly any stories of Black women). A theme running through the interviews is that for the U.S. government, sending a Black astronaut to space was more a matter of propaganda than racial justice. Cortés and de Mendoza capture these contradictions through archival footage of Civil Rights leaders’ excoriating the nation for spending millions on space travel while poverty decimated communities on the ground.But for the most part, “The Space Race” doesn’t quite interrogate these tokenizing narratives, leaving the central question unaddressed: Can the glorified achievements of a few result in change for the many?The Space RaceNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. Watch on Disney+ and Hulu. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      Book Review: ‘What Have We Here?,’ by Billy Dee Williams

      by

      His charming memoir “What Have We Here?” traces the path from a Harlem childhood to “Star Wars,” while lamenting the roles that never came his way.WHAT HAVE WE HERE? Portraits of a Life, by Billy Dee WilliamsMy first awareness of Billy Dee Williams was the stuff of hushed beauty parlor conversation I was too young to appreciate. “After all these years he’s still fine,” elders whispered in my periphery as they flipped through an interview in an Ebony magazine that was treated as an heirloom. His piercing gaze leaped out across time. “That’s our Billy!” another giggled.As he tells it in “What Have We Here?,” his effortlessly charming new memoir, the actor’s only ambition was to be everyone’s Billy — a star to cross color lines. Modeling his life on visions of old Hollywood glamour, he wanted to be heralded not just by Black women fantasizing about their chance to be with him, but by teens, men, children, and people of all colors and circumstances.Playing Lando Calrissian in the “Star Wars” trilogy — the debonair, cape-wearing and bravado-filled hero of interstellar proportions — eventually granted Williams his wish, catapulting him into the public stratosphere. “He wasn’t written Black or white,” Williams points out. “He was beyond that. Bigger than that. … He was a star.”Williams was born in 1937 at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance, the artistic and cultural movement of the 1920s and ’30s when Black possibility bloomed. Nina Mae McKinney, believed to be the first Black actress with a Hollywood contract, and Hulan Jack, Manhattan’s first Black borough president, lived on his block on West 110th Street.He and his twin sister, nicknamed Lady, were welcomed into a world stitched together with love he would spend his life emulating. Their grandmother Annette Lewis Bodkin, the “Queen Dowager” of the home, laid down the rule of law. Loretta Bodkin, their mother, was a trained opera singer and friend of Lena Horne who dreamed of fame and toiled to ensure her children could do what she was unable to. Their father, William December Williams, was a laborer who worked long hours to support his family — and helped his son develop a sense of style.“He taught me how to put a hat on,” Williams writes, “using two fingers and a thumb, grasping the brim in a way that prevented my fingerprints from smearing the crown.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Oscar Nominees Luncheon 2024: Best Looks and the ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ Dog

      by

      At the annual Oscar nominees luncheon, there is always a top dog that even a ballroom full of A-listers will clamor to meet. Last year, that honor went to the “Top Gun: Maverick” producer Tom Cruise, a star so huge that the other nominees began to orbit him, biding time until they could dart in to kiss the ring.The luncheon held Monday afternoon at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., initially seemed to lack that supernova presence, even though there were plenty of famous names including Robert Downey Jr., Emma Stone and Martin Scorsese. Still, they’ve all grown too used to each other to engage in much genuflection: When you treat an awards campaign like a full-time job, the other contenders might as well be your co-workers.From left, Emma Stone, Yorgos Lanthimos and Margot Robbie at the nominees luncheon on Monday in Beverly Hills.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesSterling K. Brown (“American Fiction”), left, with the producer Nicky Bentham and the director Misan Harriman of the nominated live-action short “The After.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesMartin Scorsese, whose best director nomination for “Killers of the Flower Moon” is his 10th, the most for a living director.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesWas there anyone who could jump-start this starry but sleepy scene? I didn’t think so, until I saw supporting actress nominee America Ferrera turn to her left, look down and gasp.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Second City Expands to New York

      by

      The improv comedy institution is under new ownership after missteps, and now it has a gleaming new home in Williamsburg. From the very beginning of the improv theater Second City, its name made clear that it wasn’t a New York institution and didn’t aspire to be.But after 65 years, the Chicago-based institution that has strongly influenced modern comedy is opening an outpost on Monday in Brooklyn, in what is the First City. It’s a seemingly counterintuitive time to expand. Improv, once a thriving part of the comedy scene in New York, is at an ebb, and the company itself has been through tough times.Two weeks before the lights were set to officially go up, Ed Wells, Second City’s chief executive, showed off its new 12,000-square-foot home on North Ninth Street in Williamsburg even as he acknowledged the headwinds facing the expansion.There is a 190-seat main stage theater with a wraparound mezzanine and a 50-seat black box theater for student shows. A training center with classes for amateurs as well as a career-track conservatory program. The Bentwood restaurant, named after the chair that Second City actors use onstage, sometimes as a prop.Wells said that the company was drawn to Williamsburg partly for its demographic mix. “You have a large local population that is looking for entertainment and nightlife and culinary experiences,” he said, noting that it is also popular with tourists. “You’re telling local New York stories that appeal to New Yorkers, but also appeal to the people that are coming to hear New York stories.”The city’s improv scene shrank during the pandemic when the Upright Citizens Brigade closed its New York theater and training center in 2020; the Magnet and the Pit also scaled back. Lockdowns were one culprit, but the financial model was also called into question. In 2020, Second City faced economic problems as well as new criticism about the company’s lack of diversity and inclusion. In an open letter, company leaders wrote, “We are prepared to tear it all down and begin again.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Movies

      Movies to Watch Whether You Love or Hate Valentine’s Day

      by

      ‘Love & Basketball’ (2000) Gina Prince-Bythewood’s brilliant directorial debut cares equally about the two nouns referenced in its title, which is one of the reasons it’s so special. A sprawling movie, it charts the years-long game of emotional one-on-one between Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps), childhood neighbors who both have dreams of hoops […] More

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      How GKids Became the A24 of Animation

      by

      The small distributor has outsize influence because it handles Studio Ghibli films in the United States. Its titles have earned 13 Oscar nods.When the Irish animated film “The Secret of Kells” received a surprise Oscar nomination in 2010, GKids, the boutique distribution company that mounted a stealthy but mighty grass roots campaign on its behalf, had been around for only a little over a year.Back then, the company’s entire operation consisted of two full-time employees and one part-timer. But this year, Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” became GKids’s 13th release in their 15-year history to receive a nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for best animated feature. The hand-drawn movie has a real shot at winning and becoming the first GKids release to do so.How has a small outfit focused on animation managed to have such an outsized effect in Hollywood?Eric Beckman, a former music industry executive, founded GKids with the intent of redefining American audiences’ perception of animation as more than a children’s medium. At the time, family-friendly, computer-generated and stylistically similar studio productions had an even tighter stronghold on animation in the United States than they do today.GKids has since filled a precious gap by consistently releasing bold animated work from around the world. For more than a decade now, it has also been entrusted with the North American distribution of titles in the catalog of the revered Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli, maker of “The Boy and the Heron.”Beckman started in animation in a roundabout way. He co-founded the New York International Children’s Film Festival in 1997 with Emily Shapiro, his wife at the time. While the festival was not strictly an animation showcase, it allowed Beckman to develop meaningful relationships with numerous animation companies, including Studio Ghibli.“The Secret of Kells” landed a surprise Oscar nomination in 2010 thanks to a stealthy GKids campaign.GKidsWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Robert Downey Jr. and Christopher Nolan on ‘Oppenheimer.’

      by

      Christopher Nolan and Robert Downey Jr. have each worked on some of the most lucrative and beloved superhero films of our time, many of them with enormous star-filled casts, so how is it that the two had never worked together on a movie before now, superhero or otherwise?Their paths crossed, sort of, on “Batman Begins” (more on that later). But it took a different kind of summer blockbuster, a three-hour biopic about the triumphs and travails of a theoretical physicist working in New Mexico in the 1940s, to finally bring them together.Since its release in July, “Oppenheimer” has amassed nearly $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales, earned critical raves and been nominated for scores of awards, including 13 Oscars. Among those nominations are three for Nolan, 53, for best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay, and a best supporting actor one for Downey, 58, for his performance as Lewis Strauss, the title character’s Salieri-like nemesis. The nominations are hardly their first — counting “Oppenheimer,” Downey has received three, Nolan, eight — but neither has ever won before and now they’re both considered front-runners.The day after the Oscar nominations were announced, the two got together on the Universal studio lot to talk about how they first met, what winning an Oscar would mean to them, and why so many people didn’t notice that that balding, sweaty guy who had it in for Oppenheimer was actually Robert Downey Jr.These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Nolan working with Downey on “Oppenheimer.”Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal PicturesThis is your first time working together. How did you two meet?ROBERT DOWNEY JR. Here’s what I never got to ask you. We met in a lobby somewhere. You were casting, was it “Batman Begins” or “The Dark Knight”?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 63 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Christopher Nolan Wins DGA Award

      by

      After four losses, this is the first guild victory for the “Oppenheimer” director. Winners there have won the Academy Award 18 of the last 20 times.The Directors Guild of America on Saturday night handed its top prize for feature-film directing to Christopher Nolan for his hit biopic, “Oppenheimer,” starring Cillian Murphy as the physicist who helped design the atomic bomb. This is the latest major trophy Nolan’s film has won, after taking top honors from the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards last month.“The idea that my peers would think that I deserve this means everything to me,” the 53-year-old director said in his acceptance speech.Though this is Nolan’s first DGA win, he is a favorite of the guild and has received four other nominations that stretch back to his 2001 breakthrough, “Memento.” This year he was up against the filmmakers Greta Gerwig (“Barbie”), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”), Alexander Payne (“The Holdovers”) and Martin Scorsese, whose nod for “Killers of the Flower Moon” — his 11th from this group — made him the guild’s second-most-nominated filmmaker after Steven Spielberg.Nolan is widely considered the front-runner for the best director Oscar, a bid that was only strengthened by his victory here, since the DGA winner has gone on to take home the Oscar 18 of the last 20 times. At the Academy Awards next month, he’ll once again face off against Scorsese and Lanthimos, though Oscars voters swapped Gerwig and Payne for Justine Triet (“Anatomy of a Fall”) and Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”).Judd Apatow, who hosted the DGA Awards, alluded to Gerwig’s headline-making Oscar snub in a joke about how things could have been worse: “I’ve never even been mentioned in an article about the people who got snubbed!” he said.The DGA prize for the best first-time director went to Celine Song, whose romantic drama, “Past Lives,” was nominated for best picture at the Oscars. This award has gone to a female filmmaker three years in a row, a first for this organization, with Song following in the footsteps of Charlotte Wells (“Aftersun”) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (“The Lost Daughter”).“The best way I can honor this incredible recognition for my very first film is to promise that I’ll keep directing films as best as I can for as long as I can,” Song said. “I’m going to keep going. Thank you so much!”Here are the top winners. For the complete list, including reality shows and children’s programming, go to dga.org.FilmFeatureChristopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”Read an interview with the director.First-Time FeatureCeline Song, “Past Lives”Read our review.DocumentaryMstyslav Chernov, “20 Days in Mariupol”Read our review.TelevisionDrama Series“The Last of Us,” Peter Hoar (for the episode “Long, Long Time”)Comedy Series“The Bear,” Christopher Storer (“Fishes”)Television Movies and Limited Series“Lessons in Chemistry,” Sarah Adina Smith (“Her and Him”) More