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      Waiting Hours for 3 Minutes in the Criterion Closet (Well, Van)

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      A mobile version of movie fans’ favorite stockroom drew hundreds of New York Film Festival visitors eager to experience what celebrities do in popular videos.The hottest event at this year’s New York Film Festival isn’t a film at all. It’s a van.Parked next to Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the mobile version of the Criterion Closet — a tiny space stocked with the prestigious DVDs and Blu-rays of films in the Criterion Collection — attracted a line that wrapped around the block.It was a chance for festivalgoers to enact their own version of the Closet Picks videos, in which celebrities like Bill Hader, Ayo Edebiri and Willem Dafoe visit a product-filled closet in the company’s Manhattan office. They pick out their favorite titles and evangelize about their choices while not so coincidentally on tour promoting their latest projects. (Dafoe’s haul included Luchino Visconti’s “The Leopard” and the actor’s own “The Last Temptation of Christ”; Edebiri left with Wes Anderson’s “Bottle Rocket,” among other titles, and Hader’s selections included the western “My Darling Clementine.”)Criterion said some 900 people visited the van.Graham Dickie/The New York TimesFor the company’s 40th anniversary, it adapted the experience to the inside of a delivery van and opened it up to the public, starting with the first two weekends of the New York Film Festival (which concludes Oct. 13). The next stop, scheduled for Oct. 26 and 27, will be in Brooklyn Bridge Park in collaboration with St. Ann’s Warehouse.Visitors to the van are invited to film their own Closet Picks videos and pull titles from the shelf to gush about for the camera. Unlike the celebrities, they do have to pay for their picks, but with a 40 percent discount.“It was something no one ever thought we could do,” said Rainna Stapelfeldt, 26, a Bed-Stuy resident who took home “Sid and Nancy,” “Midnight Cowboy” and “Memories of Murder” after a 10-hour wait in line.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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      Oppenheimer’s Communist Past Draws New Attention

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      J. Robert Oppenheimer teemed with contradictions. He was shy and bold, naïve and brilliant, a loyal husband who cheated, a gentle man whose bomb could kill millions.That he loved quantum physics may be no accident. The field holds that some basic phenomena of the material world have opposing features that cannot be observed simultaneously, such as wave and particle behavior. Oppenheimer had a deep affection for these irreconcilable pairs. He called them “the nature of the surprise, of the miracle, of something that you could not figure out.”In a universe of contradictions, the physicist himself grew famous as an American hero and infamous as a red sympathizer. The question of his true loyalties rang alarms 80 years ago as the Federal Bureau of Investigation probed Oppenheimer’s Communist past — and is now — surprisingly — gaining new attention.This fall, months after Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” won seven Oscars, the Journal of Cold War Studies, a quarterly publication of Harvard University, is revisiting the Oppenheimer case.Four historians argue that the physicist was not just a Communist ally but a full-blown member of a secret Berkeley unit who ultimately perjured himself in a federal hearing that had dug into his past. As evidence, they cite a substantial body of letters, memoirs and espionage files, some postdating the movie’s source material.“Historians have to go where the evidence takes them,” said Gregg Herken, who leads the reassessment and is emeritus professor of history at the University of California.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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      ‘The Menendez Brothers’ Review: Reframing a Case

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      To the extent this documentary about Lyle and Erik Menendez has appeal, it is of the tabloid variety.“The Menendez Brothers” doesn’t so much relitigate the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez as reframe it. In 1996, the brothers were convicted of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in Beverly Hills in 1989. That was their second trial. The first had ended in 1994 with two deadlocked juries, each assigned to deliberate over one sibling.This documentary, directed by Alejandro Hartmann and released on Netflix less than a month after the streamer put out Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s dramatization of these events, opens with the hook of “exclusive interviews” with the brothers, who “have not told their story together in nearly 30 years.” But its main contentions break down along two lines.One is that, following the #MeToo movement, the public might be more receptive to the brothers’ claim of “imperfect self-defense”: They had argued that their father had a history of sexual and psychological abuse that led them to an honest but mistaken belief that their parents would kill them.The other is that the context of the trials mattered. The first trial was televised in what the film portrays as a warm-up for the news media circus that would surround the O.J. Simpson case. The second trial began after Simpson had been acquitted of murder; the movie suggests that public criticism of that verdict interfered with the Menendezes’ getting a fair shake.No Netflix documentary could offer sufficient information to assess those claims, and this one, which glosses over even mild complexities like the separate juries in the first trial, feels incomplete. (Last week George Gascón, the Los Angeles County district attorney, announced that he was reviewing the case.) To the extent the film has appeal, it is of the tabloid variety. Betty Oldfield, an alternate juror in the first trial, recalls corresponding with the imprisoned Erik Menendez and receiving an oil painting that he had done. Pamela Bozanich, a deputy district attorney who prosecuted the first trial, says she “couldn’t find anyone to say anything nice about Jose Menendez except for his secretary.”The Menendez BrothersNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘The Menendez Brothers’: 4 Takeaways From the Netflix Documentary

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      The documentary, based on extensive new interviews with Lyle and Erik Menendez, adds fresh nuance and details about their parents’ murders and the aftermath.The true crime drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” has been one of the most viewed series on Netflix since its Sept. 19 debut, driving enormous interest once again in the Menendez brothers, who in 1989 murdered their parents with shotguns inside the family’s Beverly Hills mansion.On Monday, the same streaming platform released “The Menendez Brothers,” a feature-length documentary by Alejandro Hartmann, which draws from 20 hours of new phone interviews with the brothers from prison. It also includes on-camera interviews with surviving family members, journalists, the first prosecuting attorney and several jurors from the two criminal trials of the 1990s.After a sensational trial that ended in hung juries in 1994 (the brothers had separate juries), Lyle and Erik were retried and convicted in 1996, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. For the second trial, the judge barred the defense from using most of the testimony supporting its argument that the brothers had killed their parents out of fear following years of sexual, emotional and physical abuse.The case has become something of a cause célèbre in recent years, with celebrities and young social media users advocating the brothers’ release, particularly as new evidence appears to support the abuse claims.At the same time, a flurry of books, documentaries and scripted series have taken a more sympathetic view toward the brothers than they originally received; this latest documentary comes days after George Gascón, the Los Angeles district attorney, announced that his office was revisiting the case, saying, “We have a moral and ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us.”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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      ‘Pavements,’ ‘My Undesirable Friends’ and Other Documentaries at New York Film Festival

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      In epic takes like “My Undesirable Friends” and playful biopics like “Pavements,” the vital art of the documentary is on full display.Documentaries face a great paradox in 2024: They proliferate, but most nonfiction filmmakers will tell you they’re also harder to get made. Streaming services groan under the weight of true crime and biographical films, but most feel fast, formulaic and shoddy, designed specifically to throw on while watchers scroll on their phones. Meanwhile, directors who aspire to challenge audiences and craft art from reality say that they struggle to find money and distribution — and that it’s gotten markedly tougher in just the past few years.That’s why the festival circuit is so important to independent and international documentarians. It can be their best shot at reaching audiences and, perhaps, finding a distributor. But I notice that at many major film festivals, nonfiction can feel like a second-class citizen, unless a celebrity is involved. The films are often programmed in documentary-specific categories, as if they need to be kept away from the “real” movies. Some festivals, like Cannes, barely program any nonfiction at all.Thankfully, the New York Film Festival is not one of those. This year’s edition includes 18 feature-length (and longer) documentaries and 10 nonfiction shorts, and they’re placed alongside fiction in various sections rather than siloed. And while the festival, which rarely features world premieres, has only two this year, both are nonfiction.Technically there are two celebrity-focused documentaries on the slate (unless you count the delightful botanist Mark Brown, of the equally delightful “7 Walks With Mark Brown,” as a celebrity). The more conventional is “Elton John: Never Too Late,” directed by R.J. Cutler and David Furnish, the singer’s husband. The other is Alex Ross Perry’s gonzo “Pavements,” about the indie-rock band Pavement, which involves a little reflection and history from the band but mostly a bunch of elements that mess with the audience: footage from a Pavement jukebox musical that was briefly mounted downtown in 2022 (I saw it) specifically for this movie; a dramatic movie about the band, starring Joe Keery (“Stranger Things”) as the lead singer Stephen Malkmus, that may or may not actually exist; a museum exhibition of Pavement memorabilia. It’s terrifically strange and entertaining even if you (like me) have never really been a fan — and you’ll get a lightly satirical skewering of the whole musician biopic genre, to boot.“Youth (Hard Times) is one of two films from Wang Bing showing at the festival.via NYFFBut where “Pavements” is goofy and doesn’t take itself too seriously, several other documentaries tackle serious subjects with aplomb, and run times to match. “Exergue — on Documenta 14,” directed by Dimitris Athiridis, is a whopping 14 hours, presented in chapters. It’s a riveting and often dryly funny film about Adam Szymczyk — the artistic director of the 2017 edition of Documenta, the highly influential every-five-years exhibition of contemporary art — as he works with his team of curators to put together that show. While there’s a specific event at its center, “Exergue” is also a formidable survey of the challenges facing the contemporary art world as it wrestles with racism, colonialism, politics and power.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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      ‘Joker’ Sequel Falls Far Short of Original at the Box Office

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      The bleak musical drama is on track to open to around $40 million, significantly less than what the 2019 version made on its first weekend.The original “Joker,” in 2019, earned 11 Oscar nominations, $1 billion in global box office receipts and created a cultural phenomenon. So it was inevitable that Warner Bros. would make a sequel, with the same director, Todd Phillips, and star, Joaquin Phoenix.More of a surprise is that the new film was dismissed by its audience this weekend. Titled “Joker: Folie à Deux,” and featuring Lady Gaga as Mr. Phoenix’s love interest/partner-in-crime, the bleak R-rated musical drama is on track to open to around $40 million, significantly less than what the 2019 version made on its first weekend. The studio will now struggle to earn back its production budget of around $200 million, plus its hefty marketing costs.Reviews have been dismal. The New York Times called it “a dour, unpleasant slog,” and audiences awarded it a D score in exit polls, according to tracker CinemaScore. The musical element — an idea that apparently came to Mr. Phoenix in a dream — offered audiences a fresh idea and, to many critics, it served as the proper way to further explore a deranged main character with a warped imagination. But in this case, it alienated the typical fanboy audience who would be expected to have been frothing for a follow-up to the nihilistic film that won Mr. Phoenix his Best Actor Oscar.The opening draw is a far cry from the $96 million “Joker” generated in its first weekend five years ago, almost to the day. That film cost $55 million to make. This one is contained primarily to two locations: Arkham Asylum, which houses Arthur Fleck, a.k.a. The Joker, after his murderous spree killed six people, and the courthouse, where he’s being tried for his crimes. So it shouldn’t have cost as much. But everyone was paid handsomely for their efforts, under the new production heads at Warner Bros., Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. (Trade reports indicate that Mr. Phoenix received $20 million to reprise his role of Arthur Fleck/Joker while Lady Gaga earned $12 million to return to the bleak world of Mr. Phillips’s creation.)“Lady Gaga in a musical was an unconventional choice,” David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers, said in an email. “‘Joker’ was a well-made character study about a dark, sad figure. That story had limited potential to grow, and ‘Folie à Deux’ is not overcoming it.”With overall box office receipts down 12 percent compared with last year at this time, Hollywood was looking for a big hit to kick off October and help the studios stoke momentum through the rest of the year. Now it looks as if it will have to rely on “Venom: The Last Dance” and the Thanksgiving movies: “Wicked,” “Gladiator 2” and “Moana 2” to recover. More

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      Al Pacino Is Still Going Big

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      Al Pacino has been one of the world’s greatest, most influential actors for more than 50 years. He’s audacious. He’s outrageous. He’s Al Pacino, and I’m pretty sure you know what that entails.Listen to the Conversation With Al PacinoA conversation with the legendary actor about, well, everything.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppSo I’d like to talk about some aspects of him that merit fresh discussion. Did you know, for example, that he is cinema’s greatest-ever swearer? (This is fact, not opinion.) He delights in those words. He lustily chomps on them. This zest for delivering colorful language, I suspect, is a source of the criticism that he has become a scenery-chewer. Which isn’t nearly the whole picture. Fans of his layered, subtle work in “The Godfather” or “Dog Day Afternoon” need to immediately see more recent films like “The Humbling” or “The Insider” or “Manglehorn” to understand his enduring range. But also, the parts of Pacino movies where Pacino goes big are always the best parts of Pacino movies! Did anyone want him to underplay Satan in “The Devil’s Advocate”?Though he can go small and internal, Pacino’s ability to really emote is one of his singular gifts. That’s why, secretly, the best Pacino is crowd-pleasing Hollywood movie star ’90s Pacino. Given the revolutionary work he did in the ’70s, this is akin to claiming that the key work of a critically acclaimed, groundbreaking band occurred after it went pop. But ’90s Pacino is when his gargantuan skill, volcanic charisma and joyful desire to entertain all coalesced magically.“Hoo-ah!”The first time I ever consciously noticed a Pacino performance was also the first time I ever consciously saw an actor in a movie and thought, That’s good acting. It was 1990, I was only 8 years old and I’d just seen Pacino play the grotesque gangster Big Boy Caprice in “Dick Tracy.” (Don’t scoff. Pacino earned an Oscar nomination for the part.) Hidden under garish makeup and a hunchback, Pacino was kinetic and uninhibited and, most of all, believable in a way that registered to even a child. That lusty emotionality and passionate exuberance — his sense of being truly alive to each moment in his character’s life — is what Pacino brought with such distinction to his movies in that period, which was also the period when I grew from a child to a young man.Pacino’s engagement with his art was a model for how passionately — and variously — you could engage with the world. He has always been brilliant at playing cops and criminals like Big Boy. But he has also played biblical kings, cockney sociopaths, sharkish salesmen, a short-order cook and a Gucci. He’s done Mamet and Brecht and Shakespeare. (His majestic, tragic Shylock was the best theatrical performance I’ve ever seen.) He has played Phil Spector, Jimmy Hoffa, Jack Kevorkian, Joe Paterno, Roy Cohn and, on two occasions, versions of himself. He did it in the artfully self-reflexive documentary “Looking For Richard,” then in the somewhat-less-artful Adam Sandler vehicle “Jack and Jill.” Has he always been perfect? No. He strives for something riskier and more alive than perfection. Is he always perceptive, free, unmissable? God, yes. More

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      Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” Is a Different Kind of Flop

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      Plenty of movies bomb, but Francis Ford Coppola’s latest is part of a different class of box office failures.Just before previews began at a Lower Manhattan theater on a recent Saturday night, Tazer Army reflected on the Francis Ford Coppola movie “Megalopolis” before even seeing it.“There’s just so much lore,” Army said.She wasn’t wrong. The lore dates back more than 40 years, to when Coppola, the director of the “Godfather” films and “Apocalypse Now,” conceived the project. Now 85, he finally made this long-gestating project a reality by selling part of his wine business to finance the film, which cost roughly $140 million to make and market. There were allegations of on-set misconduct, and a suit by Coppola over the accusations. There was even a trailer with made-up quotations from famous movie critics. And the biggest piece of lore: the fact that “Megalopolis,” as its title does not bother to deny, is a grandiosely personal vision that seemed fated to lose a lot of money at the box office — something its dismal opening weekend haul of $4 million confirmed.The upshot is that “Megalopolis” is a film both about a tortured-genius artist (the architect Cesar Catalina, played by Adam Driver) overcoming obstacles to realize his solitary vision and the product of one. It appears destined to be remembered as the latest instance of a Hollywood archetype that is every bit as key to the industry’s mythology as its biggest hits: the auteurist flop.“It seems you either have the epic, beautiful win of a film that is beloved, or the one that is wrapped up in ego and is scandalous,” said Maya Montañez Smukler, the head of U.C.L.A.’s Film and Television Archive Research and Study Center. “It’s the perverse pleasure in seeing somebody fail on such an enormous magnitude.”Even at the peak of Hollywood’s studio era, there were flops — ambitious, big-budget spectacles that got out of hand during production and crashed upon contact with the viewing public. Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1963 epic, “Cleopatra,” starring Elizabeth Taylor, brought 20th Century Fox near bankruptcy and failed to recoup its $44 million budget, then a record.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