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      ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Review: The Return of Hiccup and Toothless

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      This live action remake of the 2010 animated film is religiously faithful to the original. The result is exhilarating at times, if somewhat mechanical.About halfway through “How to Train Your Dragon,” Hiccup, the unlikely hero hiding under a mop of teenage hair, hops onto the back of his newfound dragon friend, Toothless, and cautiously goes for their first ride. Soon, they’re soaring; they’re bumped around and perilously tumbling; they’re finding each other midair; and finally they’re shooting off at light speed, twisting impossibly through the craggy rock formations sprouting over the sea.It’s a moment of pure exhilaration, the first instance when you nod and momentarily understand the point of this remake — a live-action mirror of a big sequence from the 2010 animated film that adds visceral weight and big-screen grandeur to the original. By the film’s end, it’s one of the few scenes that genuinely justifies the entire conceit of this reimagining from Dean DeBlois, the franchise’s returning director.To be sure, this new iteration is entertaining, bears a sense of heart and brings a tight script of fantasy and friendship to life. It is, in short, all of the original, only too much so: Most of the good of this “Dragon” come directly from its source material, as DeBlois has almost religiously mimed his original creation without much daring or new dimension beyond mechanically translating it to an IMAX screen. For the faithful to a strong franchise, that is perhaps the best way to do it.This remake of the 2010 film comes just six years after the third and final installment of the animated trilogy, barely a blink of an eye when it comes to developing the nostalgia kick that tends to fuel live-action retreads. And yet, the movie is bringing to life a franchise that, far more than most animated films, has the pure DNA of a real-deal blockbuster: an immersive fantasy epic full of dragon fights and warmongering Vikings.Like its original, the new film begins by introducing us, mid-battle, to Berk, a remote island village that is in a perpetual war with dragons. When Hiccup (Mason Thames), the feckless son of the village chief, Stoic (Gerard Butler, reprising his role in the animated films), wounds a Night Fury, the deadliest of dragons, he develops a bond with the creature. He names him Toothless and comes to find him, and all dragons, to be more skittish dog than aggressive predator, a realization Hiccup struggles to translate to his people as their war turns ever more deadly.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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      After a Wild Day in Court, Weinstein Jurors Will Resume Deliberations

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      On Wednesday, the jury convicted Harvey Weinstein of one felony sex crime. The judge sent jurors home to cool off after their discussions devolved into threats and yelling.After a wild day in court in which jurors in Manhattan convicted Harvey Weinstein of a felony sex crime but were then sent home to cool off, they will return to court on Thursday to continue their deliberations.On Wednesday, the panel of seven women and five men announced a partial verdict, convicting Mr. Weinstein on a single count of criminal sexual act and acquitting him of another count of the same charge. They have so far been unable to reach a consensus on a charge of third-degree rape.With the verdict, Mr. Weinstein, once a powerful Hollywood mogul, was convicted a second time on sex crime charges in New York.The jurors were ordered by the judge overseeing the trial, Curtis Farber of New York City Criminal Court, to continue deliberating on the final charge, which centers on accusations that Mr. Weinstein attacked Jessica Mann, an aspiring actress, in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013.They were sent home early on Wednesday after their deliberations had devolved into threats and yelling, according to the jury foreman, who complained to the judge that the other jurors were unduly pressuring him.The dramatic developments this week are another chapter in the yearslong saga of Mr. Weinstein’s criminal trials and civil lawsuits after investigations by The New York Times and The New Yorker found that Mr. Weinstein had mistreated women and that his company had covered it up.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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      A24 Promotes ‘Materialists’ by Rating New York’s Single Men on Stock Exchange

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      To promote its new film “Materialists,” A24 worked with the New York Stock Exchange to sort participants by attributes like income, height and homeownership.Last week, for roughly 30 minutes, something unusual flicked across the tickers at the New York Stock Exchange. It wasn’t the rally of a newly public company or a market in turmoil. It was the rising and falling value of single men in the city.Or at least it was the purported value of single men, as determined by the movie studio A24. To promote its buzzy film “Materialists,” which is being released this weekend, the studio created a website that invited single men to input their physical and personal attributes, like height, income, age, whether they owned or rented, whether they had hair on their heads, their turn-ons and their icks.All that data was fed into an algorithm to create each user’s “romantic value” and then streamed in real time onto the ticker, rating the men in the middle of the mecca of finance. Over the course of this week, the ticker will also be displayed on a mobile billboard that is being parked around the city, making stops at the Wall Street bull, in Central Park, close to the Washington Square Park arch and near Rockefeller Center.How genuine the entries are — or how inflated the income and height — is unclear, with one user listed as “Donald G.” having a reported income of $50 million. And unfortunately for anyone interested in the listed men, there isn’t a way to get in touch; their names — or pseudonyms — flash onto the screen in green or red for a second before disappearing.In perhaps the greatest reflection of the current economy, very few of the men on the ticker report owning their living quarters. A24 did not share how many men had signed up to be listed, but the ticker seemed to display hundreds.In “Materalists,” Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a relationship expert who is struggling to decide if her boyfriend, Harry, played by Pedro Pascal, is the right fit for her.A24We 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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      In “Life of Chuck,” Tom

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      A creeping sense of dread washed over Tom Hiddleston as he read the script for “The Life of Chuck.” He knew that its director, Mike Flanagan, wanted him to play Chuck Krantz, or, as the actor put it, “a harbinger of the apocalypse.”But as he read on, there came excitement, a thrill. Chuck has a secret: He loves to dance.Hiddleston, 44, loves to dance, too, a discovery he made when he was a teenager. “It was instinctive,” he said in a recent interview via video. “But it was only for me. I didn’t train, I wasn’t in dance classes.”He went out dancing with friends. The 1990s were his time. “My love for Daft Punk,” he said of the electronic music duo, “is enduring and real.”While he is foremost an actor, Hiddleston has become something of a dance ambassador. Lean and elegant, he has the air of Fred Astaire. His limbs are long, but they don’t slow him down; his feet are fast and accurate. Known for his spontaneous eruptions of dance joy — on talk shows and the red carpet — Hiddleston is a natural with rhythmic acuity and, at times, riveting attack. His dancing, whether smooth or sharp, is instinctive and shaped by coordinated fluency.Tom Hiddleston discovered he loved to dance as a teenager: “But it was only for me. I didn’t train, I wasn’t in dance classes.”Ariel Fisher for The New York TimesWhat’s apparent is the pleasure he gets from it: Certainly, there is Hiddleston the man, but also discernible is the boy within. There is innocence and fearlessness in his love of motion. An avid runner, Hiddleston said, “I’ve always thought of running as dancing forward.”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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      As Mister Romantic, John C. Reilly Just Wants to Spread Love

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      John C. Reilly has been a staple of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, starred in serious and satirical biopics, made a legend of a man-child stepbrother, and was nominated for an Oscar in 2003 for his haunting turn as Amos — “Mister Cellophane” — in “Chicago.” But the character closest to him just might be a know-nothing who emerges, openhearted and singing, from a box.For the past three years, Reilly, 60, has performed as Mister Romantic, a retro crooner who just wants to find everlasting love. A vaudeville-esque act of his own creation with mostly American songbook numbers — “What’ll I Do,” “Dream” — and a backing band, it’s a quasi-improvised set that has him interacting with the audience in a way that’s sometimes wryly funny, sometimes tender and sad, but always sincere. Connection, of any kind, is the point.After a series of sold-out shows in Los Angeles, Reilly is taking his persona on the road, to Cafe Carlyle starting Wednesday. And he is releasing a concept album, “What’s Not to Love?,” his renditions of classics and more, on Friday.His alter ego’s origins are deep-seated. “I’ve been a romantic person my whole life,” Reilly said. “My mother would play these standards on the player piano at our house, and I would sing along.” It was “Mister Cellophane” that reawakened in him, he said, an appreciation for a bygone era of theatricality. He finished shooting the HBO series “Winning Time,” about the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, on a Friday, “and on Monday night, I had my first Mister Romantic show,” he said. “I was like, oh, I just want to get out onstage and express myself.”John C. Reilly’s Mister Romantic project includes a cabaret show and a new album, “What’s Not to Love?”Mister Romantic at work. Reilly’s Oscar-nominated role in “Chicago” reawakened a love of theatricality.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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      From ‘The Materialists’ to ‘The Bear,’ Pop Culture Takes Up Smoking Again

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      From movies and TV shows to music, the habit is no longer taboo. It’s even being celebrated for the way it makes characters look cool or powerful.In the new romantic dramedy “Materialists,” about 21st-century dating, Dakota Johnson loves cigarettes.Playing Lucy, a New York matchmaker, she’s puffing when she gossips with a pal during a work party. Later, she holds a lighted cigarette near her face while flirting with an ex. There’s no hand-wringing over her smoking. She’s just a smoker. And she’s wildly on trend. That’s because, at least in the world of entertainment, cigarettes are once again cool.“Materialists” is just the tip of the ash. The musicians Addison Rae and Lorde both mention smoking in recent singles. The stars of “The Bear” are smokers on- and offscreen. The “Housewives” count many among their ranks. Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd smoke in the big-screen comedy “Friendship,” while the chic Seema (Sarita Choudhury) on the series “And Just Like That” does as well. In the kitschy video for her track “Manchild” Sabrina Carpenter uses a fork as a cigarette holder. Even Beyoncé has lit up onstage during her Cowboy Carter Tour. In one instance, she throws the cigarette on a piano, which artfully ignites as she performs “Ya Ya.” If Beyoncé is doing it, you know it’s reached the upper echelon of culture.And these smokers are largely celebrated. The overwhelming sentiment is: Sure, cigarettes are bad for you, but they make you look good — as evidenced by Lucy, who keeps her smokes in an elegant silver case, perhaps to emphasize how sleek the habit is, and brandishes them to show just how effortlessly hot she can look bringing one to her lips.In a still from her music video for “Aquamarine,” Addison Rae wields not one but two cigarettes.Jared Oviatt, the man behind the Instagram account @Cigfluencers, which features photos of celebrities glamorously smoking, told me he had noticed an upswing in material recently. When he started the account in 2021 he had to look harder to find content.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 Jon Bernthal Became Hollywood’s Most Dependable Bruiser

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      When Jon Bernthal was cast as a petty drug dealer in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Martin Scorsese’s 2013 white-collar crime epic, the actor wasn’t even supposed to have many lines. But Bernthal went into that film intending to take his shot. So he came in for a wordless B-roll scene in which the script had him lifting weights in a backyard, asked the second-unit director to mic him and riffed for 45 minutes. Scorsese wasn’t there that day, but here’s what he saw in the footage: a shirtless Bernthal curling dumbbells, tormenting some teenage boys with a baseball bat and peacocking his virility. “Bring some of them chicks around here sometime,” he says. Then Bernthal makes a brilliant little decision about his tough guy’s whereabouts. “Hey, Ma, we got chicken or what?” he yells toward the house. “Ma!” There was no “Ma” in the script. No one even said he lived with his mother.The role introduced Bernthal as an excellent character actor. Since then, he has become the guy who shows up onscreen unexpectedly, delivers the most memorable performance in a scene or two and then vanishes. This is perhaps why he’s so often playing dead men in flashbacks. He’s the dramatic center of gravity in FX’s “The Bear,” appearing just once or twice per season as the deceased family patriarch, and the tragic romantic in the 2017 Taylor Sheridan film “Wind River.” Bernthal was so good in “The Accountant,” an improbable 2016 Ben Affleck-led movie about an autistic accountant turned gunslinger, that the filmmakers made this year’s sequel a two-hander.Bernthal has had leading roles too, most notably in “We Own This City,” the HBO miniseries about Baltimore police corruption in which the actor’s performance was criminally overlooked. But for the most part, he has carved out a career of supporting roles. So it made perfect sense when he told me that one of his favorite movies is “True Romance,” Tony Scott’s 1993 adaptation of Quentin Tarantino’s first script. Christian Slater may have been the lead, but it was the supporting characters played by Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt and Dennis Hopper who stole the film. “There are so many people who are in it for a scene or two,” Bernthal said, “but you could have made a movie about any one of those characters.”We were having breakfast in Ojai, Calif., where Bernthal lives. The previous day, he returned from New York where he was promoting “The Accountant 2.” Before that he was in Greece and Morocco, filming a role in “The Odyssey” with Christopher Nolan, which is perhaps the greatest honor that can be bestowed on a dramatic actor these days. In front of him was a pile of egg whites, spinach, fruit and gluten-free toast. “I’m like a gorilla,” he said. “I eat a lot.”Most actors, once they get lead roles, are advised to turn down anything smaller. But Bernthal is allergic to strategizing about how to become a leading man or listening to agents and managers who want to find him a “star vehicle.” The only real mistake he made in his career, he told me, happened because he let that sort of thinking get in his head. But he has switched agents since then. He knows he has become the guy who everyone calls for a favor, but then again “The Bear” was a favor. And that turned into one of the most rewarding experiences of Bernthal’s career. The intensity he brought to the role won him an Emmy, and now he has even co-written an episode in the upcoming season. “I can’t imagine deciding what you’re going to do in this super-tenuous field while being so dependent on some businessman’s strategy,” he said.Jon Bernthal, right, with Jeremy Allen White and Abby Elliott in the 2023 episode of “The Bear” that earned him an Emmy.Chuck Hodes/FX, via Everett CollectionWe 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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      ‘Titan: The OceanGate Disaster’ Review: A Company’s Failures

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      Netflix’s documentary about the catastrophe uses familiar techniques to spotlight the faulty judgment of Stockton Rush, who ran OceanGate.It was only a matter of time before a flurry of documentaries about the Titan submersible disappearance turned up on streaming platforms. The event captured the world’s attention in 2023 after the vessel, operated by the company OceanGate Expeditions, vanished in the North Atlantic, triggering a days-long search for survivors.Netflix’s “Titan: The OceanGate Disaster” offers an adequate rundown of the story. Directed by Mark Monroe, the film wisely does not linger in the lurid details of the Titan’s catastrophic end, and instead uses an investigative framing that sketches the company’s origins and use of carbon fiber while chronicling a series of problematic dives leading up to its final plunge. As it catalogs OceanGate’s failures, the documentary spotlights the faulty judgment of one man: the company co-founder and chief executive Stockton Rush, who died in the implosion.That Rush mismanaged his employees and played fast and loose while priming Titan is, by this point, old news. And creatively, “Titan: The OceanGate Disaster” often relies on familiar techniques, such as a continuous, synth-heavy score and sensationalist chyrons for interviewees: the insider, the investigator, the whistleblower.But audio recordings that capture Rush in fits of frustration, alongside startling footage of him cutting corners during an expedition — “close enough,” he declares, after reaching 3,939 meters on a dive meant to hit 4,000 — lay bare his grandiosity. Add to that the haunting sound of carbon fibers breaking at depth and one appreciates the case for giving this well-known story an audiovisual treatment, even if it is a standard one.Titan: The OceanGate DisasterNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More