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      ‘One Life’ Review: One Man’s Rescue of Children in Wartime

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      A British stockbroker quietly saved hundreds of lives by arranging for children in Prague to escape the Nazis by leaving for foster homes in England.When Nicholas Winton died in 2015 at 106, his obituary in The New York Times noted that, for decades, he had been startlingly reserved about what he achieved at the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Between the Munich Agreement in 1938 and Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939, Winton organized a rapidly moving operation that saved 669 children, most of them Jewish, by transporting them from Prague to Britain, where they were placed with foster families.The rescue didn’t receive wide public attention for 50 years, partly because, as the biographical feature “One Life” depicts, Winton (played by Johnny Flynn as a young man and Anthony Hopkins in scenes set later) was reluctant to acknowledge his heroism. In trying to capture this almost stoic modesty, the film, directed by James Hawes, falls into a dramaturgical trap.“One Life” is really two movies. It looks back on the wartime actions from 1987, when Winton considers what to do about a scrapbook of photos and documents he has kept. Flashbacks to the 1930s open a window on his plan to locate Jewish children in Prague, secure visas for each of them and find them temporary families in Britain. Time, financing and bureaucracy loomed as stubborn obstacles.The procedural complexities, and Winton’s efforts to gain the trust of the children’s parents, are compelling enough. They throw down a moral gauntlet to viewers, who must put themselves in his shoes. The motives of Winton, a British stockbroker and socialist with German-Jewish roots, are portrayed as pure altruism.By contrast, the 1980s thread — which builds to Winton’s appearances on the BBC program “That’s Life!” in 1988 — might have played discretely as a portrait of mental compartmentalization. But intercut with the weightier wartime scenes, this strand comes across as slight and, unlike Winton, self-congratulatory.One LifeRated PG. Running time 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Animal Kingdom’ Review: A Beastly Disease

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      This French sci-fi tale plunges us into a world where a mysterious sickness turns humans into strange, sometimes terrifying part-animal creatures.By the time “The Animal Kingdom” opens, the enigmatic disease troubling the world has been circulating for years. It’s unclear where and how it started, much less why or just how far it has spread. Is a virus or bacteria to blame, or is it something in the air, the water, our genes? If we’ve learned anything from our recent pandemic it is that sometimes the most urgent questions aren’t immediately answerable. The big freaky unknown here is why people have begun mutating into beguiling, sometimes terrifying part-human, part-animal creatures.The furred and the hoofed, the feathered and the chaotically tentacled roam, slither and sometimes howl in “The Animal Kingdom,” an amusing what-if French fantasy with a touch of comedy and some glints of horror. It’s all pretty confusing for the 16-year-old Émile (a poignant, delicate, open-faced Paul Kircher), who’s struggling to deal with his mother, Lana (Florence Deretz). Adolescence is tough on its own without a mother who now seems post-verbal and whose face is covered in fur. Her breathing is strangely labored, too, although she also sounds as if she’s warming up a growl. Living alongside other species has its joys; its perils, too.An off-kilter mystery that teasingly flirts with a larger metaphoric resonance, the movie follows Émile as he and his father, François (a jittery, sympathetic Romain Duris), navigate their wild new normal. Lana has been institutionalized in a government-run facility since she attacked Émile — the deep scratches on the walls of her room resemble the scars on his face — and is receiving some kind of care. She’s about to be transferred to another facility in the south, where Émile and François are going to move. “We’ve made real progress in deciphering this disease,” a doctor reassures them. Controlling it is another matter.The director Thomas Cailley takes a direct, unfussy approach to the story, smoothly plunging you into it without ceremony or much background. (He shares script credit with Pauline Munier.) Within minutes, various meticulously rendered creatures have entered and exited, and Émile and François’s loving, testy relationship has been established. What’s also evident is the matter-of-fact attitude that the characters express. Everyone has adjusted to this disordered reality and has taken for-or-against positions, which is eerily familiar. At the same time, because the characters know far more than you do, at least at first, this creates a sense of unease that nicely fuels the movie’s smoldering dread.A sense of low-key unquiet continues even as the story shifts into a coming-of-age groove. Émile enters a new school where he hangs with other kids, develops a crush and changes, as all living things must. (Adèle Exarchopoulos shows up in a subplot, presumably because she’s a recognizable name.) It’s banal yet unordinary, as evidenced by the teens’ opposing views of the creatures; the intolerant call them “critters” while others argue for their rights. Then, while in the woods, Émile meets the birdman, a quasi-raptor, Fix (an impressively avian Tom Mercier), with majestic wings and a bandage where a beak should be. After chatting and cawing — Fix is losing his ability to speak — they become friendly.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

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      Ed Begley Jr. and Daughter Hayden Took the LA Metro to the Oscars

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      Ed Begley Jr. has made a tradition of taking public transportation to the Academy Awards. And, like many commuters, he wears sensible shoes.Ed Begley Jr. could be described as Hollywood royalty: The actor is a son of another actor, Ed Begley, who won a best supporting actor Oscar in 1963.But the younger Mr. Begley, a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Oscars, commuted to this year’s ceremony like a plebeian by taking the Los Angeles Metro. His trip was filmed by his daughter Hayden Begley, who later shared the video on TikTok, where it has since received more than six million views.The video opens with Ms. Begley, 24, asking her mother, Rachelle Carson, Mr. Begley’s wife and Oscars guest, how she is getting to the ceremony. “I’m driving,” Ms. Carson says, before asking, “And you’re what?” Off camera Ms. Begley replies, “Taking the subway.” Ms. Carson, who is wearing a black lacy gown, mutters, “Oh God, whatever,” as she waves her arms in exasperation.Ms. Begley, who in a voice-over explains that she isn’t attending the ceremony with her father, then films his journey to the event on a 240 bus and the B line subway.

      @haydenbegley #oscarsathome #oscars #oscars2024 ##publictransport##bus##train@@LA Metro##metro ♬ Chopin Nocturne No. 2 Piano Mono – moshimo sound design As Mr. Begley, 74, who has spent much of his career promoting environmentalism, talks to the camera about his fondness for public transit while riding the bus, he shows off two pins on the lapel of his dark suit jacket. One pin was shaped like an Oscar statuette and came from the Academy, where he served on the board of governors for 15 years. He said that the other pin, which had a capital M, was his “Metro pin for being a rider since 1962.”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

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      With Humor, Kobi Libii Gives His Characters a Different Superpower

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      The writer and director of “The American Society of Magical Negroes” has made a satire that may feel primed to be provocative. He responds to some of the discourse.In “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” the writer-director Kobi Libii’s debut feature film opening March 15, a mysterious group of Black people possess superpowers. But unlike Black Panther or Miles Morales’s Spider-Man, this group doesn’t fight criminals or take on villains.Instead, the members of this society wield their powers only for a very specific purpose: soothing the anxieties of white people.Endowed with the ability to perceive white people’s frustrations — represented by a floating dial that measures “white tears” — the members spend their days making lost purses reappear, transforming bland outfits into hip ones and doing whatever else white people require to be happy.This conceit satirizes the cultural trope of the Magical Negro, in which Black characters in a plot exist solely to aid the white protagonists. By incarnating this trope in the form of a secret society set in present-day America, the film critiques the ways in which Black people continue to be forced into deference toward white people.“I was sat down quite explicitly by older Black people in my life and told how to act around the police, that I needed to be polite there and that’s what I needed to do to stay alive,” Libii said in an interview.“And I personally believe I overlearned that lesson,” he added.Justice Smith, left, and David Alan Grier in “The American Society of Magical Negroes.”Focus FeaturesWe 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

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      The Designer Who Makes Movie Posters Worthy of Museums

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      You’ve seen Dawn Baillie’s posters for thrillers, comedies and dramas outside cineplexes. Now her work is being exhibited at Poster House in Manhattan.The killer’s knife, a woman cowering before it.This was typical horror movie box cover stuff before 1991, when Dawn Baillie was asked to design a poster for a cerebral new thriller called “Silence of the Lambs.” She learned it was about a young F.B.I. agent-in-training, Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), who enlists the help of an imprisoned serial killer, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), to solve a case.“It came to me that I could illustrate ‘Silence’ if Clarice was the ‘lamb’ and the moth — or the bad guys — is what has left her without the right words,” Baillie explained in an email. “I think the poster works in showing vulnerability, strangeness and eeriness.”In other words, the poster said: This isn’t your typical scary movie.Starting March 14, Baillie gets marquee billing in a new exhibition, “The Anatomy of a Movie Poster: The Work of Dawn Baillie,” at Poster House in Manhattan. The show, through Sept. 8, takes us from her first poster, “Dirty Dancing” (1987) to “The Tragedy of Macbeth” (2021), for which she was the creative director. Along the way are posters for films as varied as “Zoolander,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and “The Truman Show.”Baillie’s career as a movie poster designer and creative director spans over four decades. Born in 1964, Baillie entered advertising in the 1980s when the industry was dominated by men and posters were mostly made by hand, not computer. After working at the agencies Seiniger Advertising and Dazu, in 1992 she co-founded BLT, the agency behind memorable posters for recent films (“Barbie”), TV shows (“The Last of Us”) and Broadway (“The Music Man”).Angelina Lippert, the chief curator and director of content at Poster House, called Baillie a “design genius” with a style defined by “effortless simplicity.” Take the poster for “The Silence of the Lambs.”“It’s visual anxiety that you get when you look at this, which is what makes it indelible,” Lippert said.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

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      How ‘I’m Just Ken’ Won the Oscars Without Winning an Actual Oscar

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      Working off ideas from Ryan Gosling and Greta Gerwig, the choreographer Mandy Moore created the crowd-pleasing number in days.Sixty-two dancers. One week of cast rehearsals. Ncuti Gatwa, didn’t arrive until Friday. Slash showed up on Saturday.“I’m Just Ken” was the showstopping number of Sunday’s Oscar telecast, and it probably wouldn’t have come together in as seamless a fashion if not for choreographer Mandy Moore, who has designed dance sequences for a Taylor Swift world tour and a film musical.“Um, it was definitely up there with ‘La La Land’ and the Eras Tour,” she said when asked about how “I’m Just Ken” ranked in terms of career challenges.Expectations were high before the ceremony. There were reports that the backup Kens would be shirtless, and in an interview on the red carpet, Mark Ronson, who was up for an Oscar for the song along with Andrew Wyatt, promised an “absolutely bananas spectacle.”While the dancers were fully clothed (and a different “Barbie” song would win the Academy Award), Moore’s troupe did deliver on Ronson’s promise. It helped that her partner in crime through the whole endeavor was Ryan Gosling, Oscar-nominated for his role as Ken in “Barbie,” who not only eagerly donned the pink sequin suit but also sang live and had clear ideas about how the number should go.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

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      ‘Barbenheimer,’ and an Early Start, Boost Oscar Ratings to 4-Year High

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      ABC’s telecast of the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday drew 19.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen.The comeback of live event TV continues.ABC’s telecast of the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday drew 19.5 million viewers, hitting a four-year viewership high, according to Nielsen. The live TV audience was up from last year’s 18.8 million, the third consecutive year that Oscar viewership has grown.The ratings report will prompt cheers at ABC and the academy, which bumped the start of the venerable awards ceremony to 7 p.m. Eastern, an hour earlier than usual, in the hopes that more viewers would stick around through the final categories.That approach appeared to pay dividends, as did the numerous nominations for the big box office hits “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — a change from recent years when more obscure films dominated the ceremony. Jimmy Kimmel also received warm reviews in his fourth outing as host, leaving him one away from matching another late-night star who moonlighted at the Oscars, Johnny Carson.Nielsen said that Sunday’s Oscars were the most-watched network awards show since February 2020, extending a recent trend where viewer interest has perked up for the kind of mass cultural events that struggled during the pandemic.In February, 16.9 million people watched the Grammy Awards, a 34 percent increase from last year. Viewership of the Golden Globes in January rose 50 percent compared with a year ago. The Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers beat ratings records with an audience of 123.7 million. Even ratings for the 2023 Tony Awards, traditionally the least-viewed of the “EGOT” quartet, rose modestly.At Sunday’s Oscars, Billie Eilish sang her pop ballad “What Am I Made For?” and Ryan Gosling delivered a cheeky yet dedicated performance of “I’m Just Ken.” The choreography, which drew on Busby Berkeley films and the Marilyn Monroe musical “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” was complemented by a cameo by the thrash-rock guitarist Slash and a bevy of supporting Kens from “Barbie,” including Simu Liu.ABC, which has the broadcast rights to the Oscars through 2028, said that it had sold out its advertising inventory for Sunday’s event. The network did not share prices, but advertising executives said ABC had charged $1.7 million to $2.2 million for a 30-second spot, up slightly from last year. Some of the ads turned up in the broadcast itself, like a plug for Don Julio tequila, in which Guillermo Rodriguez, a Kimmel sidekick, offered the beverage to celebrities in the audience.In 2021, for a stripped-down pandemic Oscars held in a Los Angeles train station, only 10.4 million people tuned in. Viewership rose in 2022 to 16.6 million people, in part because of the bizarre spectacle of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.Still, there is no question that TV viewing habits have changed. Before 2018, the Oscars telecast had never dropped below 32 million viewers. More

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      Al Pacino Explains Awkward Oscars Moment Presenting Best Picture

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      The star, whose abrupt announcement that “Oppenheimer” had won best picture took some viewers by surprise, said the show’s producers had asked him not to name the other nominees.The actor Al Pacino sought to explain his awkward and abrupt announcement of “Oppenheimer” as the best picture winner at the Academy Awards, saying in a statement on Monday that the producers had decided he would not read the full list of nominees.“I just want to be clear it was not my intention to omit them, rather a choice by the producers not to have them said again since they were highlighted individually throughout the ceremony,” Pacino said in the statement. “I was honored to be a part of the evening and chose to follow the way they wished for this award to be presented.”Instead of the typical lead-up to the most important announcement of the night, Pacino omitted the customary “And the Oscar goes to” followed by a dramatic pause, instead opening the envelope and proclaiming: “And my eyes see ‘Oppenheimer.’ ” That prompted what appeared be a moment of uncertainty that soon ebbed as the cast and crew of the film, including its director, Christopher Nolan, realized that they had won and began to make their way to the stage.The anticlimactic end to the show became fodder for online chatter and memes on social media as viewers tried to figure out if something had gone awry. (Comparisons to the “Moonlight”/“La La Land” best picture mix-up of 2017 were perhaps inevitable, but the temporary confusion at Sunday’s ceremony was not close to reaching those levels.)In an interview with Variety, one of the show’s producers, Molly McNearney, said Pacino’s presentation was “always supposed to be fast” because the show had included video packages for each of the 10 nominees through the night, and that there had been fears that the telecast would go over its allotted time.McNearney acknowledged in the interview that the unconventional delivery had “made it a little confusing” but said that “that’s the excitement of live television.”After the ceremony on Sunday night, Bill Kramer, the chief executive of the academy, said in an interview that he had been pleased with Pacino’s performance. “Everything went beautifully,” Kramer said. “He was just having fun up there.”Pacino, who won a best actor Oscar for his role in the 1992 movie “Scent of a Woman” and has been nominated eight other times, said that he had felt it necessary to make a statement on the reaction to his delivery because he “profoundly relates” to filmmakers, actors and producers who might feel slighted.“I realize being nominated is a huge milestone in one’s life and to not be fully recognized is offensive and hurtful,” he said in the statement.Nicole Sperling More