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      Stream These 10 Movies Before They Leave Netflix in November

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      We rounded up the best titles leaving the streaming service for U.S. subscribers next month. That includes Oscar winners, family favorites and bawdy comedies.Family favorites, Oscar-winning (and nominated) acting, bawdy comedies and insightful documentaries are among the highlights of the titles leaving Netflix in the United States in November. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘Jerry Seinfeld: Comedian’ (Nov. 6)Stream it here.When Jerry Seinfeld stepped away from his sitcom and retired his venerable stand-up act in 1998, he took a dramatic step back to square one. In this documentary from 2002, the director Christian Charles tracks that journey, following Seinfeld back into the world of stand-up clubs (and their often unforgiving audiences) as he develops an hour of new material from scratch. Seinfeld’s reboot is intercut with the story of Orny Adams, a young stand-up trying to follow the Seinfeld playbook. The counterpoint structure isn’t entirely successful — Adams isn’t nearly as compelling or charismatic as Seinfeld, so his scenes drag a bit — and some of the material hasn’t aged well (particularly Seinfeld’s initially moving climactic encounter with … Bill Cosby). But it’s a fascinating chronicle of the comedy industry, and Seinfeld’s shop talk with fellow comedians (including Robert Klein, Jay Leno, Colin Quinn, Chris Rock and Garry Shandling) is nearly as compelling as his material.‘Loving’ (Nov. 15)Stream it here.The writer and director Jeff Nichols rose through the ranks of indie cinema with deeply felt, richly textured portraits of contemporary life in the heartland, including “Shotgun Stories,” “Mud” and “Take Shelter.” For this, in 2016, his first period piece and first true story, he dramatizes the struggles of Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in the 1967 Supreme Court case that, in effect, legalized interracial marriage. It was a monumentally important historical precedent, but Nichols doesn’t paint with the broad strokes of staid historical drama; he keeps his storytelling intimate, focusing on the offhand intimacy and unwavering love of the couple in question, played with grace and sensitivity by Joel Edgerton and an Oscar-nominated Ruth Negga.‘Disappearance at Clifton Hill’ (Nov. 29)Stream it here.A Canadian thriller with touches of buried trauma, conspiracy theory and true-crime podcasting, this 2020 moody effort from the director and co-writer Albert Shin concerns a young woman (Tuppence Middleton) haunted by a long-ago, half-understood encounter during a fishing trip that comes rushing back to her when she’s entrusted with handling a familial real estate transaction. Middleton is a sympathetic protagonist, and Hannah Gross is excellent as her sister, but the real M.V.P. here is the director David Cronenberg, who pops up in a small but memorable supporting turn as a podcaster with his own thoughts on what she saw, and what it meant.‘About Last Night’ (Nov. 30)Stream it here.The chain of ownership here gets a tad convoluted, so stick with me: This romantic comedy from 2014 loosely remakes the yuppie-rom-com from 1986 starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, which was itself a loose adaptation of the 1974 play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” by David Mamet. Tropes about the battle of the sexes are so established, it seems, that a decades-old play can still yield both laughs and moments of truth. But as with the 1986 film, the most entertaining material is provided less by the central couple (here played by the perfectly acceptable Joy Bryant and Michael Ealy) than by their broadly comic B.F.F.s, memorably brought to life by Regina Hall and Kevin Hart.‘Arrival’ (Nov. 30)Stream it here.Before he took on the massive challenge of bringing “Dune” to the big screen, the director Denis Villeneuve took his first crack at science fiction with this thoughtful 2016 exploration of the possibilities of extraterrestrial contact. While most filmmakers seize on the threat of life from beyond, focusing on alien invasions and property damage, Villeneuve’s film (adapted from Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life”) probes deeper, as a linguist (Amy Adams) works tirelessly to establish communication with the alien life-forms before narrow-minded military types jump to the wrong conclusions. Her struggle is a vivid and dramatic one, and the concluding passages are both narratively ingenious and deeply moving.‘Fences’ (Nov. 30)Stream it here.Denzel Washington crafts one of his finest performances in this 2016 adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by August Wilson — and matches the force of his acting with his graceful and nuanced work as the picture’s director. He stars as Troy Maxson, once a rising star in the Negro leagues, now a husband and father who spends his days in a stew of regret, dissatisfaction and deception. His complicated relationships with his best friend (Stephen McKinley Henderson), his wife (Viola Davis) and his son (Jovan Adepo) form the story’s dramatic spine, as the tales Troy has long told others, and himself, about who he is come to a head. It’s a penetrating and powerful drama, and Davis’s subtle work landed her an Oscar for best supporting actress.‘Hook’ (Nov. 30)Stream it here.The setup was so juicy — Steven Spielberg directing Robin Williams as Peter Pan, with Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook and Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell — that it had to be either a masterpiece or a grave disappointment. It felt like the latter when “Hook” landed in theaters in 1991; critics dismissed it as a mess, and the box office, while respectable, was disappointing. But children of that era (who were, let’s face it, the target audience) fell for it hard, wearing out their VHS tapes and forming lifelong attachments to Spielberg and Williams. Bring it up to Millennials sometime, and watch them start chanting for Rufio.‘Stuart Little’ (Nov. 30)Stream it here.If you’d like a more straightforward family film, it’s hard to top this charming 1999 adaptation of E.B. White’s children’s book (co-written, improbably enough, by the suspense master M. Night Shyamalan). The ostensible stars are Jonathan Lipnicki (“Jerry Maguire”) and, as his parents, Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie — but the comic juice is supplied by the talented voice cast: David Alan Grier, Nathan Lane, Chazz Palminteri and Steve Zahn as streetwise cats; Bruno Kirby and Jennifer Tilly as paternal mice; and Michael J. Fox as the unfailingly upbeat titular mouse.‘Superbad’ (Nov. 30)Stream it here.Seth Rogen expanded his comedy profile from valuable onscreen player to behind-the-scenes mover-and-shaker in 2007 when he parlayed his memorable appearances in the Judd Apatow comedies “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up” into this uproarious production of a screenplay he penned with his longtime pal Evan Goldberg. The pair had written it years earlier while teenagers themselves (it’s no coincidence that the protagonists are named “Seth” and “Evan”), and the writing feels smuggled out from the front lines of teenage life, as their onscreen avatars (played with warmth and wit by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera) grapple with hormonal awkwardness, unrequited love and the logistics of access to alcohol while trying to dutifully impress their respective crushes (played with charm and verve by Martha MacIsaac and, in her feature film debut, Emma Stone).‘Up in the Air’ (Nov. 30)Stream it here.Few things are as compelling onscreen as watching a movie star subvert his or her image, and that’s what George Clooney does, quite adroitly, in his Oscar-nominated performance in this crisp comedy-drama from the co-writer and director Jason Reitman. Clooney stars as Ryan Bingham, whose job is to fire people; he flies into town like an assassin-for-hire, dropping in to struggling companies to help their employees with their “career transitions.” Free of genuine attachments and a moral compass, Ryan finds his slick existence threatened by a new colleague (Anna Kendrick, terrific) who thinks their job can be done more efficiently online. Much of the picture’s subject matter is watermarked to its 2009 release date — it’s a product of the 2008 economic crisis — but its themes of professional dissatisfaction and emotional aimlessness have proven timeless. More

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      Studios Said to See Progress in Talks With Striking Actors

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      The entertainment companies are growing optimistic that the work stoppage may end soon, though some issues remain unresolved, people briefed on the matter said.Following several productive days at the negotiating table, Hollywood studios are growing optimistic that they are getting closer to a deal to end the 108-day actors’ strike, according to three people briefed on the matter.These people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the labor situation, cautioned on Sunday that some issues remain unresolved with the actors, including protections around the use of artificial intelligence technology to create digital replicas of their likenesses without payment or approval. But other knots had started to become untangled, the people said.SAG-AFTRA, as the actors’ union is known, had been asking for an 11 percent raise for minimum pay in the first year of a contract, for instance. Studios had insisted that they could offer no more than 5 percent, the same as had recently been given (and agreed to) by unions for writers and directors. Early last week, however, studios lifted their offer to 7 percent. By Friday, SAG-AFTRA had eased its demand to 9 percent.SAG-AFTRA did not respond to requests for comment. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the major entertainment companies, declined to comment.In an email to SAG-AFTRA members on Friday night, the union’s negotiating committee said, “We completed a full and productive day.” On Saturday, the union sent a routine reminder about pickets planned the coming week, including one scheduled for Wednesday at Walt Disney Studios. The sides continued to negotiate on Sunday.Last week, studio executives made it known — in conversations with filmmakers, agents, reporters and actors themselves — that a deal must be done (or nearly so) by the end of this week, or else sets were likely to remain dark for another two months.Put another way, unless talks speed up, January could be the soonest that casts (and crews) see paychecks.Brinkmanship? Of course. It’s a standard part of any strike. The companies, however, said they were simply pointing to the calendar. It will take time to reassemble creative teams, a process complicated by the coming holidays. Preproduction (before anyone gathers on a set) for new shows can take up to 12 weeks, with movies taking roughly 16 weeks. Bake in the time for contract ratification by the SAG-AFTRA members.More than 4,000 mostly workaday actors responded on Thursday with an open letter to their union, saying, “We have not come all this way to cave now.” They added, “We cannot and will not accept a contract that fails to address the vital and existential problems that we all need fixed.”At the same time, some stars have pressured union leaders to approach negotiations with greater urgency. Out-of-work crew members have also grown increasingly frustrated with the Hollywood shutdown. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents 170,000 crew members in North America, has estimated that its West Coast members alone have lost more than $1.4 billion in wages.For their part, companies are under pressure to salvage their spring television schedules and movie lineups. On Friday, Disney delayed a live-action version of “Snow White,” which had been scheduled for March 26, because it would be impossible to finish in time. Earlier in the week, Paramount pushed back Tom Cruise’s next “Mission: Impossible” movie, along with “A Quiet Place: Day One,” starring Lupita Nyong’o.The entertainment business has been at a standstill for months because of strikes by writers, who walked out in May, and actors, who joined them in July. The writers’ strike was resolved last month, prompting hopes of a speedy resolution between studios and the actors’ union. Instead, the process has been slow.Talks between the sides restarted on Tuesday after breaking down earlier in the month over a union proposal for a per-subscriber fee from streaming services, which Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos publicly dismissed as a “levy” and “a bridge too far.” SAG-AFTRA accused studio executives of “bully tactics.”It is unclear how the streaming issue might be resolved. But there is real hope in Hollywood that people may soon be back to work.“At this time, we have no concrete information from any studio,” Michael Akins, an International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees official in Georgia, wrote to members on Friday. “But the writing is clearly on the wall that the industry shutdown is in its final days.”John Koblin More

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      A Critic With Monsters on His Mind

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      The scariest part of Erik Piepenburg’s job as a reporter who covers horror movies? Films that fail to frighten him.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Some 10-year-olds might shield their eyes while watching a horror movie. But at that age, Erik Piepenburg was glued to the screen.Growing up in Cleveland, Mr. Piepenburg developed a love of all things horror. Every Friday night at around 11:30, he and his grandmother would turn on the television, flip to channel 43 and hope to find one of their favorite black-and-white films playing — horror classics like “Dracula,” “The Wolf Man” or “Frankenstein.”A former Theater editor for The New York Times, Mr. Piepenburg now uses his monstrous knowledge of the horror genre to write about it in a column for the Movies section. Every week, he recommends five recent horror movies — of the supernatural, psychological or otherwise terrifying kind — that are worth streaming.He’s not partial to any one subgenre, but he does have one hang-up: “If I see one more movie about people going to a cabin in the woods or moving to a haunted house, I’m going to throw my hands up,” he said in a recent conversation.Here, Mr. Piepenburg shares his thoughts on some of the year’s greatest scares, the current golden age of horror and the unforeseen twists and turns of writing about monsters. This interview has been edited and condensed.Where did you get the idea for your column?My editor, Mekado Murphy, had wanted to start a horror column during the coronavirus pandemic, when so many people were forced to stay home and stream films. I offer readers films I think are worth watching in a sea of horror movies — some of which are awful and others that are terrific. I try to watch — or, at least, get through — two to five horror movies a week to make my deadline. I’m not complaining; I think it’s great that we are having this golden age of horror movies, but I would love for someone to tell me what comedy movies I should watch.What contributed to this golden age?There have been several golden ages of horror. There were the psychological thrillers and exploitation films of the ’60s and the slasher movies of the ’80s. I think what’s happening right now is that we are living in such uncertain times in terms of politics, environmental issues, civil rights issues. Anytime there’s global uncertainty, horror movies respond. They hold up a mirror to society and say, “Look at the monsters we’ve become.”So it should come as no surprise that at a time when the world seems topsy-turvy, horror filmmakers would decide the time is right for them to explore why.On the 50th anniversary of “The Exorcist,” you and other Times critics wrote essays that re-explored the film. What story did you want to tell?Mekado told me that he wanted to do this interactive package for the movie. We had a conversation about ways to cover the film and I jokingly said that I always saw “The Exorcist” as a queer movie, and it stuck. I was glad to have the chance to explore the possession in the film through a queer lens. It’s fun to think about the ways in which “The Exorcist” — and most horror movies — aren’t just about the monsters, but the people who create them and what the monsters represent.In an article from this year, you also described “M3gan” as a gay movie. Do you think gay audiences have a special affinity for horror?Well, I think all horror movies are about one of two things: trauma or gayness. That’s just my queer-theory lens that people can accept or reject. But in horror movies, there’s often this notion of otherness — of the monster existing outside of societal norms. I think queer audiences can align themselves with villains who feel like outsiders, like no one understands their feelings.I also think queer audiences appreciate the outrageous, camp quality of horror. “M3gan” is a perfect example. The villain is a demon that you kind of want to be friends with. I know people in my life who can be monsters, but I love them anyway.What trends are you seeing in the horror genre right now?There’s certainly a lot of Covid-inspired films — movies about being locked up inside and fears about contagions. I would say another trend is the slow-burn horror movie, one that takes time to unfold instead of hitting you over the head with monsters, explosions, ghosts and conventional horror scares. The slow burn delivers tiny moments of unease so that by the film’s end, your entire body has become so tense that it’s hard to shake. Those are some of my favorites.What’s a recent horror movie you wish everyone would watch?There’s a film called “The Hole in the Fence,” which I wrote about in my column. It’s about a group of young boys at a religious camp who undergo a sort of “Lord of the Flies” experience. It’s terrifying and has almost no gore, but it really got under my skin. There was another movie that I saw in January called “LandLocked.” Again, there’s no gore. There’s no monsters. But it is a quietly effective horror film. It made me cry. It’s a treat when I can watch a horror movie that moves me so much that even as my heart is racing, I tear up.Is there a horror-related topic you want to explore next in an article?There have been a couple of experimental horror films that toy with form, structure, sound and visuals, like “The Outwaters” and “Skinamarink.” Sometimes the screen will go black or the audio will be distorted. Experimental horror challenges viewers not only to understand horror through monsters, but through the physical experience of watching the film. I think we’re going to start seeing more of those in the future. More

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      Meg Ryan on Her New Rom-Com, ‘What Happens Later’

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      Meg Ryan was hurting.Not metaphorically. The actress and one-time rom-com queen was actively sore, having spent the morning, one of many, unpacking and moving herself into a home she’d long been renovating in Montecito, Calif. Persevering through the painful twinge, making order out of the past — really, finding comfort in the present — are the sneaky subcurrents of Ryan’s new movie, “What Happens Later,” a wily rom-com that she co-wrote, stars in and directed. A two-hander opposite David Duchovny, it distills moviedom conventions and plays with a different emotional palette; Ryan grappling with her own cinematic brand. It is only her second foray behind the camera and the first time she has appeared onscreen in seven years.She hasn’t missed the spotlight. “I feel like I had the ride, the Hollywood ride,” she said over a restorative soup lunch on a foggy day. “I kind of went to the moon already. So I don’t have giant ambitions to be back in that.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More

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      Vincent Asaro, Mobster Acquitted in Lufthansa Heist, Dies at 86

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      In a stunning verdict, he was found not guilty of participating in the storied 1978 theft, retold in the film “Goodfellas.” Then he went to prison over a road rage incident.Vincent Asaro, a career mobster who was found not guilty of murder and of helping to organize the staggering $6 million Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy Airport — one of the biggest cash heists in American history — only to be sentenced to prison when he was 82 over road-rage revenge, died on Sunday in Queens. He was 86.His death was confirmed by Gerald McMahon, a lawyer who successfully represented him in the Lufthansa case. No cause was given.The brazen theft in 1978 of $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewels from a vault at a Lufthansa hangar at Kennedy Airport figured prominently in the book “Wiseguy” (1985) by Nicholas Pileggi and the Martin Scorsese film “Goodfellas” (1990).The authorities had suspected the Mafia’s involvement, but the case remained unsolved and the investigation closed until Mr. Asaro was arrested in 2014, linking him and the Bonanno crime family to the robbery.He was also accused of using a dog chain in 1969 to strangle Paul Katz, the owner of a warehouse where Mr. Asaro and James (Jimmy the Gent) Burke, who was suspected of masterminding the Lufthansa theft (and who was portrayed by Robert DeNiro in “Goodfellas”), stored their stolen loot. Mr. Asaro and Mr. Burke had believed that Mr. Katz was an informer after the warehouse was raided by the police.The stolen van that authorities believed was used in the Lufthansa robbery at John F. Kennedy Airport in December 1978.Ken Murray/Associated PressThe indictment implicated Mr. Asaro in a sweeping conspiracy in which he was also accused of robbing FedEx (then Federal Express) of $1.25 million of gold salts, which can be used in medicinal treatments; bullying his way into the pornography business; and seeking, unsuccessfully, to bump off a cousin who had testified about an insurance scam.Mr. Asaro’s 2015 trial was a sensation.Though the robbery had taken place more than three decades earlier, it had been immortalized in the book and film, and even for younger New Yorkers it felt like a coda to the “Godfather” era.Moreover, the key witness against Mr. Asaro was another cousin, Gaspare Valenti, who had been a government informant since 2008 and had secretly recorded Mr. Asaro from 2010 to 2013.Mr. Valenti’s testimony on the stand was a jaw-dropping breach of the Mafia’s code of silence.It also revealed the devolution of a ruthless mobster who in his day job could suggest to customers which fences to buy from his store in Ozone Park, Queens, while in his other life he could impatiently advise a younger mob associate who had asked him how best to collect a debt: “Stab him today.”Mr. Asaro’s acquittal in 2015 was so stunning — not only to the prosecution, but to Mr. Asaro himself — that as he left the courthouse and got into a car, he giddily joked, “Don’t let them see the body in the trunk.”A jubilant Mr. Asaro leaving court in Brooklyn in 2015 after he was acquitted. As he got into a car, he giddily joked: “Don’t let them see the body in the trunk.”Robert Stolarik for The New York TimesIronically, the automobile reference returned to haunt him two years later. He was accused of recruiting a mob associate, who in turn recruited John J. Gotti, the grandson of the former Gambino family boss, to torch the car of a motorist who had cut off Mr. Asaro at a traffic light.The driver was pursued at high speed by Mr. Asaro to no avail. The associate used law enforcement sources to track the license plate, after which Mr. Gotti and two other men located the car in Broad Channel, Queens, doused it with gasoline and set it ablaze. An off-duty police officer parked nearby witnessed the auto-da-fe and pursued the arsonists, but they sped away in a Jaguar.Surprisingly, after a lifetime of denying culpability in crime, Mr. Asaro not only pleaded guilty but also apologized for what he acknowledged was “a stupid thing I did.”He could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. The prosecution asked for 15, pointing out that although he had “participated in racketeering, murder, robbery, extortion, loan-sharking, gambling and other illegal conduct, he has served less than eight years in jail.”In December 2017, U.S. District Judge Allyne Ross ordered him to serve eight years — which, at 80, Mr. Asaro described as “a death sentence” — and to pay $21,276 in restitution to the owner of the car.“If he had not aged out of a life of crime at the age of 77,” Judge Ross said, referring to his age during the opening phases of the Lufthansa trial, over which she presided, “I have little hope that he will do so.”Two years after the Lufthansa trial, Mr. Asaro was sentenced to eight years in prison over a road rage incident, in which he ordered an associate to torch the car of a motorist who had cut him off at a traffic light.Justin Lane/European Pressphoto AgencyVincent A. Asaro was born on July 10, 1937, in Queens to Joseph and Victoria Asaro, who separated when he was a teenager. His uncle, Michael Zaffarano, owned buildings housing adult theaters, distributed pornography and worked as a bodyguard for Joseph Bonanno, who ran his eponymous crime family for nearly four decades.In 1957, Mr. Asaro married Theresa Myler; they divorced in 2005.Mr. Asaro’s survivors include his son, Jerome. He was arrested with his father in 2014, pleaded guilty to racketeering and was sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment.Mr. Asaro racked up numerous charges and convictions over the course of his life. Among them, he was convicted in federal court in 1970 and 1972 for the theft of an interstate shipment and burglary of a post office. In 1998, he was sentenced in state court in New York to four to 12 years in prison for enterprise corruption and criminal possession of stolen property.Three decades after the notorious Lufthansa heist, the beggarly but still choleric gangster had, according to prosecutors, squandered his $500,000 share of the loot on gambling and depleted whatever he had collected from his unforgiving manner of pursuing delinquent borrowers. He had hocked his jewelry and was seen shopping at a Waldbaum’s supermarket for orzo and lentils.According to a conversation recorded by Mr. Valenti that was played in court in 2015, he was even unwelcome at the local social club where he had celebrated the heist. “People hate me in there,” Mr. Asaro said. “I don’t pay my dues.”Even his estranged son, whom he had initiated into the Mafia and had by then outranked him, rebuffed him when he desperately sought to borrow money, according to another recording.Mr. Asaro had a stroke during his imprisonment for ordering the arson, which left him partly paralyzed. In 2020, he was granted a compassionate release from the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., because of his age and vulnerability to Covid-19.“He obviously had nine lives,” Mr. McMahon said after Mr. Asaro’s death. “But this must have been the tenth.”Joseph Goldstein More

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      How Truths Are Told at a Liquor Store in ‘The Holdovers’

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      The director Alexander Payne narrates a sequence from his film, featuring Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa.Alexander Payne narrates a sequence from his film featuring Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa.Seacia Pavao/Focus FeaturesIn “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.It’s time to come clean in this sequence from “The Holdovers,” a comedy set in 1970 during the holiday break at an all-boys boarding school. One student, Angus Tully (played by the newcomer Dominic Sessa) must stay on campus during the break, and a teacher, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is tasked with watching him during this time.At one point, the two leave campus for a trip to Boston where Paul runs into, and lies to, an old college acquaintance. Angus confronts his teacher about the lie in this scene in a liquor store that plays out primarily in one take.“In general, if I have the right actors, I like the idea of doing pages of dialogue in single takes,” the film’s director, Alexander Payne, said in an interview. “I think it’s elegant. It’s a lovely way to work. And even going back to film school, I had a Polish directing teacher who was always trying to instill in us the beauty of the of the fluid master, the long take in which you choreograph your actors to the camera.”Rows of liquor bottles separate the characters during one exchange, helping to punctuate the narrative as Paul confesses an incident with his roommate at Harvard that led to dire consequences.For the scene, which was shot at a liquor store in Cambridge, Mass., Payne did a bit of hyperlocal casting. One comic line is delivered by a cashier played by Joe Howell, who actually worked at the store.Read the “Holdovers” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      Martin and Francesca Scorsese, TikTok’s Dynamic Duo

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      The acclaimed director’s daughter, a filmmaker herself, has been peppering her feed with videos of her father, showing a rarely seen side of him.Step aside, Leonardo DiCaprio. Martin Scorsese seems to have found a new muse: Oscar, his daughter Francesca Scorsese’s aptly named miniature schnauzer.In a playful video posted to her TikTok last week, the director — just days before the release of his latest epic, “Killers of the Flower Moon” — conducted a very important, very serious audition with Oscar.After mentioning that he had been making films for nearly 50 years with brilliant actors — including with DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Ellen Burstyn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Margot Robbie — he said he was ready for a change.“I need to find something that I could take further and to another level,” he tells the pup who is sitting motionless across from him on a tufted ottoman. “What that is I’m not quite sure, but I’ve heard some extraordinary things about you.”“Oscar, show me fear,” he says. “Oscar, show me sadness, love, show me love, show me transcendence.” When the pup goes from sitting to lying, Scorsese yells out, “Brilliant! You’ve got the role.”Martin Scorsese with his latest film subject — Oscar, the miniature schnauzer.Francesca ScorseseThe tightly composed scene — which toggles between Scorsese and Oscar in a dimly lit study and tells the story from Oscar’s point of view — was imagined and directed by Francesca, an actress and filmmaker whose short dramatic film “Fish Out of Water” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, was shown at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival and will screen at New York Film Week, which began Wednesday.The camerawork on the TikTok post was done from a low angle, “because Oscar’s kind of small, we thought it was so funny,” Francesca, 23, who is a graduate of New York University Tisch School of the Arts (which her father also attended), told The New York Times on Thursday. “Then when the reveal happens, it makes it a little bit more successful because we were actually experiencing it from Oscar’s position.” (She convinced him to lie down at the end with a piece of chicken, his favorite.)It’s a heartwarming insight into perhaps the most famous living director when he is not behind the camera. (Martin Scorsese was amazed, she said, at the speed in which the scene was edited and available to watch.) It also might introduce Scorsese, 80, to a younger generation who may not technically be old enough to watch his most famous works like “Taxi Driver” (1976), “Cape Fear” (1991) or “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013).It wasn’t his first appearance on Francesca’s TikTok. Amid posts that would be at home on any 23-year-old’s page — a cute video of her scrunching her nose to “You Wish” by Flyana Boss; another of her and a friend getting small tattoos and ear piercings — are several cameos of the elder Scorsese.A few weeks ago, in a post that has been viewed more than two million times, she tested his knowledge of slang terms. He was pretty spot on explaining the meaning of “tea” (“tell all you know”) and “ick” (“thoroughly repulsed”), but thought a “sneaky link” was a “personal peccadillo.” She corrected him: “It’s like a booty call.”They have worked together before, including on a Bleu de Chanel commercial this year with Timothée Chalamet. And Francesca says her father is eager to participate in these social media projects with her and sees value in the medium. “The people that he surrounds himself with keep him pretty young,” she said. “DiCaprio texts him and calls him the GOAT, calls him bro, you know they’re buddies.”When she originally explained the concept for the slang video to him, she used the expression GOAT as an example. “People keep saying that to me. People keep calling me the GOAT, but I don’t know what that means,” she recalled him telling her. It stands for “greatest of all time,” she replied, to which he said, “No way! I had no idea.”The TikTok video of Martin Scorsese guessing slang has been viewed over two million times.Francesca ScorseseIn July, she posted a compilation in appreciation of her father with the caption “He’s a certified silly goose.” The 22-second video, which has been viewed more than two million times, includes snippets of the director snuggling a tiny puppy and laughing hysterically in a tuxedo alongside De Niro and Harvey Keitel.“Fine, I’ll watch one of his movies,” a commenter wrote. “Omg love seeing this side of him,” wrote another.His lighthearted tone in these videos stands in contrast not only to his films, known for their haunting and violent themes, but also to some reflections he has made in his recent interviews. When GQ asked him about his own mortality in September, Scorsese said that he thought about it all the time. “I was a great collector, a great obsessive glutton for cinema and books, and now they all have to go away,” he said. “Once you know that you got to let go and you’re going to die, everything changes.”Providing a full picture of Martin Scorsese to the public is a significant part of why his daughter incorporates him on social media and why, years ago, she encouraged him to start an Instagram account, so the public could not only see him at work but also glimpse family photos and see him with his dogs. There’s also a lesser-seen part of his life, which is his role in caring for his wife and Francesca’s mother, Helen Morris, who has Parkinson’s. “He’s a lot more private about that stuff,” Francesca said. “People would think it’s this luxurious, glitz and glamour lifestyle. But then on the other hand, he’s in and out of hospital visits with her.”Some of that life experience was channeled into “Fish Out of Water,” her thesis film at N.Y.U., which was about a young mother who has an opportunity to reconnect with her estranged family after she is approached by her father with news of her mother’s failing health.While Martin Scorsese first dipped a toe into social media on Instagram, it was the introduction of TikTok that has allowed Francesca to give the world another perspective on her father, she said.“It’s really awesome to see that one of the most incredible filmmakers, he’s not just this big star that people see — I mean, he is — but he’s also a totally normal person that walks around in his pajamas, plays with his dogs and just helps his daughter with her math homework if he can,” she said. “People love seeing that side of him.” More