Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Trolls Band Together’ Review: This Must Be Pop

      by

      The third installment of the “Trolls” franchise reunites ’N Sync in this entertaining boy band fever dream.When DreamWorks kicked off the “Trolls” franchise in 2016, one could practically hear the squeals of joy from studio execs: a tentpole blockbuster that took the name-brand dolls and reimagined them as colorful singing creatures doing renditions of seemingly every pop hit of the last half century. It was built for mass appeal toddler fixation. The movies also could be charming and even take their premise in interesting directions.After the previous film delved into various music genres, the natural next progression for the third movie, “Trolls Band Together,” seemed to be the boy band craze. After all, Justin Timberlake was already the franchise’s star (and yes, the third “Trolls” movie is what reunites ’N Sync for their first new song in over two decades). It turns out, his character, Branch, has four older brothers and they once formed a boy band known as BroZone. When the band broke up, so did the brotherhood.But when one of his brothers is kidnapped and drained of his talent by an evil pop duo, Velvet and Veneer (Amy Schumer and Andrew Rannells), Branch — with the encouragement of Poppy (Anna Kendrick) — begrudgingly reunites with his brothers for a rescue mission.That journey takes us on what, with its alarmingly frenetic pacing and visual stimuli, feels at times like experiencing an acid trip at a rave for babies. And yet, in execution the movie, directed by Walt Dohrn, never feels cheap. The animation is strong, if too candy-coated, and the film is clever and funny from time to time. And parents might even find their own inner boy band fever ignited alongside their kids.Trolls Band TogetherRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Strangler’ Review: All the Pretty, Pitied Corpses

      by

      This strange, seductive film from 1970, directed by Paul Vecchiali, borrows the conventions of the serial-killer thriller and turns them inside out.Originally released in France in 1970, and now available in a new restoration, “The Strangler” is a strange, seductive film that takes the conventions of the serial-killer thriller and explodes them with baroque colors and convulsive camera movements. It’s like “Peeping Tom” meets one of Dario Argento’s giallo joints, but slathered in a coat of melancholic malaise.The titular lady-killer isn’t frantic and blood-starved; he’s a baby-faced young man, Émile (Jacques Perrin), who takes to the streets of Paris on the lookout for women he perceives as lonely and suicidal. For the most part, these women indeed meet Émile, their agent of mercy, halfway — a process the director, Paul Vecchiali, depicts as an eerie, enigmatic dance of death and desire.Born in 1930, Vecchiali belonged to the same generation as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Despite beginning his filmmaking career in the early ’60s, he was never associated with the “nouvelle vague” crowd. He came to prominence later in life, with the critical success of “The Strangler” playing a substantial role in his rise. With Diagonale, the production company he founded in 1976, he gained a reputation for transgressive themes and experimental methods — and up until his death in January of this year, he continued to work on the margins of the French film industry.Using a white knitted scarf as his weapon of choice, Émile stalks new victims as three individuals separately stay on his tail, each with a different pursuit: Simon, a burly detective (Julien Guiomar); a thief (Paul Barge) who swipes cash and jewelry from each corpse; and a woman, Anna (Eva Simonet), who seems to want to be a future victim.Contrary to what you might expect from such a lurid nightmare scenario, “The Strangler” is quite unlike the exploitative slasher fare from which it draws inspiration. The killer loses his will to kill; the investigators, their desire to solve the crimes. Vecchiali makes poetic — and tragic — what the true-crime junkie must experience after bingeing one too many episodes: the emptiness of all those pretty corpses.The StranglerNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      Jimmy Kimmel Said to Be Returning as Oscars Host

      by

      It will be the late-night comedian’s fourth time as M.C. of the awards ceremony, which won back some viewers last year.Academy Awards organizers have decided to stick with a tried and true host: Jimmy Kimmel.Mr. Kimmel, the late-night comedian who has hosted the event three times, will return to the Oscars stage on March 10 to steer the 96th ceremony, according to two people briefed on the plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose it. Molly McNearney, the co-head writer and an executive producer of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC, will serve as an executive producer for the 96th Oscars telecast.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did not respond to requests for comment.Seeking cultural relevancy for the ceremony following a period of plunging ratings, the academy and ABC, which broadcasts the Oscars, have bounced between formats in recent years. They tried three hosts in 2022 (Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall, Amy Schumer) and zero hosts, from 2019 to 2021. For the 2023 show, the academy returned to one host — Mr. Kimmel, who also did the job in 2017 and 2018.He delivered. Viewership rose to nearly 19 million people this year, according to Nielsen, up from 16.6 million the year before and 10.4 million in 2021, the lowest ever. Before 2018, the telecast had never dropped below 32 million.Just as important for the academy, Mr. Kimmel’s return was free of controversy, helping to restore luster to an event tarnished in 2022 when Will Smith marched onstage and slapped Chris Rock. The academy and ABC also overhauled the red carpet preshow, hiring consultants with experience at the Met Gala to make star arrivals feel less chaotic and more glamorous. The red carpet was vanquished in favor of a champagne-colored one.Hosting the ceremony was once viewed as a feather in the cap of top comedians like Billy Crystal, a nine-time host, and Whoopi Goldberg, who was M.C. four times. But many stars have become leery about the time commitment and potential backlash that hosting can bring. Trash-talking the Oscars — for its stilted banter, for the choices made by voters, for its very existence — has become a hallmark of the social media age.Hollywood’s awards season has been slow to start this time around because of the actors’ strike, which prevented stars from promoting finished work. With the strike resolved, studios and publicists have quickly ramped up awards campaigns, pushing stars like Emma Stone, a front-runner for a best actress nomination for her debauched performance in the surrealist comedic drama “Poor Things,” and films like “American Fiction,” a satire about a writer who puts together a fake memoir that turns on racial stereotypes.Other films expected to prominently figure into the 96th Academy Awards include “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” both of which were runaway successes at the global box office. If they receive as many nominations as people in Hollywood expect, it will help Mr. Kimmel: Viewership for the Oscars tends to increase when popular films are honored. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      “Harry Potter” Stuntman Tells His Story in a New Documentary

      by

      In a new documentary, David Holmes, a stunt performer in the ‘Harry Potter’ films, recalls his life before and after a harrowing accident on set that left him paralyzed.When David Holmes arrived at rehearsal to perfect a fight scene for the penultimate “Harry Potter” film, he was strapped into a harness that was supposed to send him flying backward.But Holmes was jerked back too fast, hitting a wall and breaking his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.His career as a stunt performer was over, at age 25. He had portrayed Daniel Radcliffe’s title character and others, including Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom, since the franchise’s first installment.After years behind the scenes, Holmes will now tell his story in a new documentary, “David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived,” which is streaming on Max and will air on HBO on Wednesday at 9 p.m. and on Sky Documentaries and NOW in Britain on Saturday.Holmes is teaming up again with Radcliffe, the executive producer on the project, which captures his life before and after his injury. Radcliffe and Holmes said they hoped to call attention to stunt performers, who often put their lives at risk with little recognition.“It’s nice to know my legacy in film is not just me hitting that wall,” Holmes said in an interview.Holmes hasn’t fully embraced the limelight, Radcliffe said, and “just wants to shine it onto other people.”Radcliffe and Holmes had known they wanted to work on a project together for a while, they said. Initially, though, Holmes didn’t want to be the focus.“You put on a costume, and you take on a character the same way an actor does. You have that safety net to live behind that character,” Holmes said. “It’s very different now because it’s me.”Radcliffe and Holmes had worked together on a podcast called Cunning Stunts, interviewing stunt performers and coordinators about their work. Radcliffe had also filmed some of the interviews and thought that he’d try his hand at directing a documentary. But he wasn’t quite satisfied with his work.“We started filming some stuff, and then after a while I thought, ‘I don’t think I’m very good at this,’” he said. “We should bring someone else in.”To direct, they landed on Dan Hartley, who had worked as a video assist operator among other roles in the “Harry Potter” films and recently directed “Lad: A Yorkshire Story,” a coming-of-age film about a 13-year-old boy befriending a park ranger after losing his father. The three eventually agreed to shift the focus of the film to Holmes.It wasn’t the plan to use someone from the “Harry Potter” crew, but Hartley seemed like a perfect fit, Radcliffe said.The cast and crew grew close on the film sets, and Radcliffe referred to Holmes as a “cool older brother.”“We wanted someone who has the same kind of connection to Dave that we do,” Radcliffe said. “Not someone from the outside who is going to shape Dave’s story into something else for the sake of making something more sensationalized.”As they started creating the film, they realized it was the first time they had all spoken together about Holmes’s accident.“No one wanted to be the first one to bring it up,” Radcliffe said, “but I definitely think there was something like quite cathartic for everybody on this film who got to talk about it with each other.”Holmes spoke about what life was like after the injury and the people he had met while he was hospitalized, including Will Pike, who was injured in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks and was in the bed next to his.Hartley and Radcliffe said that seeing young men being emotional was moving, as was parting from traditional masculine stereotypes that can be prevalent in stunt culture.“What I think is really powerful is seeing these young, sensitive men talking,” Hartley said. “They were just so vulnerable and honest.”Above all, Holmes said he wants his story to bring hope.“We all experienced loss in our life. I learned that at the age of 25,” he said, “and it taught me to be present to appreciate the now.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Kevin Hart to Receive Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

      by

      The comedian and movie star will get the honor, the most prestigious in comedy, at a March ceremony.In his rise to the very top of the comedy world, Kevin Hart has done everything from delivering hit specials to selling out a football stadium to starring in box office smashes like “Jumanji.”On Wednesday, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts recognized that versatility and announced that it would award its 25th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to Hart at a ceremony on March 24. The center cited his “iconic characters, inimitable physical comedy, and relatable narratives,” as well as his achievements as a comedian, actor, writer and producer.In a statement, Hart, 44, noted that he had been performing stand-up since at least the inception of the award. “To be honored in this commemorative year feels surreal,” he added. “Comedy is my outlet for social commentary and observations on life — I am grateful to the Kennedy Center for recognizing my voice and impact on culture. I can’t wait to celebrate!”He got his start in Philadelphia at a comedy club amateur night and built up a career that included major tours like “Laugh at My Pain” (2011), one of several shows that were turned into concert films. That includes his 2015 performance before 53,000 fans at the Philadelphia Eagles stadium. In addition to appearing in TV series like “Real Husbands of Hollywood” and “Modern Family,” he found big-screen success as a foil for Dwayne Johnson (the “Jumanji” movies, “Central Intelligence”), Ice Cube (the “Ride Along” franchise) and Mark Wahlberg (“Me Time).There have been controversies along the way. Hart was to host the Oscars in 2019, but a backlash over old tweets and jokes that were considered homophobic led him to withdraw, saying, “I sincerely apologize to the L.G.B.T.Q. community for my insensitive words from my past.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Orin O’Brien Broke Barriers in Music but Doesn’t Want Center Stage

      by

      A new documentary tells the story of Orin O’Brien, a double bassist who became the only woman in the New York Philharmonic when she joined in 1966 and helped open doors for others.For decades, the New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, was an all-male bastion. Then, in 1966, came Orin O’Brien, who played the double bass.Often described as the first woman to become a permanent member of the Philharmonic, O’Brien was part of a pioneering group of female artists who opened doors for other women. Last year, for the first time in its 180-year history, women outnumbered men in the ensemble.O’Brien, who retired from the Philharmonic in 2021 after a 55-year career, has resisted speaking publicly about her life in music, preferring to stay in the background.But a new documentary short, “The Only Girl in the Orchestra,” directed by her niece, the filmmaker Molly O’Brien, looks at her struggles and achievements. (The film premiered last week at DOC NYC, a festival that celebrates documentary film.)The Philharmonic, which was founded in 1842, was long closed off to women. It was not until 1922 that it hired its first female member: Stephanie Goldner, a harpist. But she departed after a decade, and the orchestra became a male bastion once again until the arrival of O’Brien.In a recent interview at her Manhattan home, O’Brien, 88, reflected on her early days in the Philharmonic, the strides made by women in classical music and growing up in California with movie-star parents. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.A scene from “The Only Girl in the Orchestra,” the documentary film made by O’Brien’s niece, Molly O’Brien.The Only Girl in the Orchestra ProductionYou made history at the Philharmonic but you’ve avoided talking about your time there. Why did you agree to take part in this film?I hate the idea of being photographed. I hate the idea of talking about myself. It’s just awful. In music, you’re part of a group and you enjoy the camaraderie with the other musicians. My niece begged me for years. She told me, “Maybe it will help the cause of classical music.” If she wasn’t my relation, I would just say no. It’s all her fault.Your appointment to the Philharmonic was the subject of many news reports that focused on your gender. How did you feel about the attention?I didn’t like it because, first of all, the difficulty was not being female. The difficulty was studying for years and practicing and also being encouraged by your teachers and being encouraged by your colleagues.I felt there was undue attention on me, especially because the orchestra was so great and Leonard Bernstein, the music director, was so great. Bernstein would yell out once in awhile, “Bravo, Orin!” because I could count. And I felt so embarrassed. I felt my face turning red. He was trying to be nice and friendly and welcoming. But I felt that the other musicians would resent it because I was new. I mean, who was I? I was just a member of a section. I wasn’t anybody that important. But I was made important by the P.R. at the time, and I shrank from it.Much of the coverage at the time was sexist. A Time magazine article said that you were “as curvy as the double bass she plays.” A New York Times article called you “as comely a colleen as any orchestra could wish to have in its ranks.”It seems a little frivolous, doesn’t it? It doesn’t say anything about my background or experience or the fact that my teacher, Fred Zimmermann, was in the orchestra for 36 years before me, and that I had a tremendous working knowledge of the orchestra because I had heard every concert they played for two whole years when I worked as an usher at Carnegie Hall. I absorbed their style that way.In the 1960s and 1970s, the maestro Zubin Mehta opined that he did not think women should be in orchestras because they “become men.” He also said that female musicians were “just not as good at 60 as a man is at 60.” He was named the Philharmonic’s music director in 1976. How did you feel about his remarks?They were so unfounded and ridiculous and prejudiced. I thought it was laughable because there were so many talented women. One of the best musicians in the Philharmonic, although her name was very often not listed, was the pianist Harriet Wingreen, who could sight-read any score. And the concertmaster at New York City Ballet was Marilyn Wright. I remember the violinist Nathan Milstein came and sat in the front row to listen to her play the big violin solo in Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker.” And she didn’t flinch and played perfectly.“I felt I was welcomed in as a musician, as a member of the group. The feeling was ‘You’re a musician like us,’ except they were my heroes.”James Estrin/The New York TimesWhen you joined the Philharmonic, there were no dressing rooms for women. At the beginning of the 1970s, there were only five women in the orchestra. How did you feel you were treated in those early years?I felt I was welcomed in as a musician, as a member of the group. The feeling was “You’re a musician like us,” except they were my heroes. They were special people. I knew them by name. And now they were talking to me? I was very thrilled to be there.Some women in the Philharmonic have said that they struggled to be paid as much as their male counterparts and were offended when male colleagues referred to them as “the skirts.” Did you encounter those issues?I never heard that. They were too polite to say that to me, I think. Everybody has a different experience.How do you feel about the fact that women now make up roughly half of the New York Philharmonic?It’s an uncomfortable subject. It was when I joined, and it still is for me. I don’t think that it has anything to do with music. It doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t think that female composers are any better than men or any worse. I have friends in the orchestra of both genders.One of your fans was Bernstein, who led the Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969 and once described you as a “source of radiance in the orchestra.”I remember when Bernstein said he was going to take some time off to compose something special. I had just bought a book about Masada, the ancient fortress in Israel. I wrote him a letter saying, “I think I found a theme for you for an opera or maybe a cello concerto. And if you want, I can loan you my book.” And the next week at rehearsal he stops and he says: “Orin, thank you for your letter. It’s a very good idea.” And all the guys turned and looked at me and I thought, “Oh my God, I’m never going to write him another letter. Never.” And I never did. I was so embarrassed and humiliated.You say in the film that you chose the double bass because you liked being in the background. Was that a reaction to the fame of your parents, George O’Brien and Marguerite Churchill, who were both movie stars in the 1930s?That was definitely part of it. My brother and I would go out to dinner with my father and fans would come up and ask for his autograph. We were bitterly resentful of that because that took him away from us because he loved the attention. “I’d love to sign an autograph.” And we were then deprived of his attention for awhile and we were hurt by that. But you could see that he just reveled in it. He enjoyed the perks of fame and fortune. And my mother probably did, too — she was an actress onstage here in New York before she went to Hollywood. If you’re a bass player, you don’t expect that much attention. And that’s maybe one reason I gravitated to it.How do you feel about the future of classical music, as cultural institutions work to recover from the pandemic?I’m a little bit in despair because I see audiences not coming as well-informed as they used to be, and the programming is being watered down. I’m sorry to say, but not every composition is a great composition and the great compositions are still basically the lifeblood of an orchestra: Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Haydn, and so on. Sometimes I feel that the real great repertoire is neglected in favor of other things. Musicians need to play the classics.After you retired from the orchestra, you continued to teach and perform. How do you see the totality of your career?I just feel so lucky that I was able to do something that I loved all my life, and I was so lucky that I landed in my favorite orchestra. When my father would pick me and my brother up, he would ask, “Are you coming into church?” I would say, “No, I’m going to stay in the car and listen to the New York Philharmonic.” And that’s when I decided music was my religion.If I can convince my students to love music the way I’ve been lucky to love it — through their whole lives — and if it gives them the same joy it’s given me, that’s all I really would like. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived’ Review: Harry Potter’s Stunt Wizard

      by

      A documentary looks at the friendship that formed during the Harry Potter movies between Daniel Radcliffe and his main stunt double, who was seriously injured in 2009.Viewers of the eight Harry Potter features may never have considered the bonds that formed over the decade required to make them. “David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived” revolves around the friendship between Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry, and Holmes, who served as his stunt double for most of those years.Radcliffe, an only child, describes viewing Holmes as a cool older-brother figure. “He did so much for me that was crazy,” Radcliffe says. The documentary shows a side-by-side comparison to illustrate how Holmes would shoot an action sequence and Radcliffe would copy his moves. “I’ve probably got more broomstick air miles than any other human being on the planet,” Holmes quips.In 2009, Holmes was seriously injured in a rehearsal for a “Harry Potter” stunt; the accident ultimately left him partly paralyzed. “David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived” puts his life and his philosophy of living at its center. He has remained upbeat over the years, despite multiple setbacks and surgeries. The film also depicts his continuing rapport with Radcliffe and other members of the franchise’s stunt team, who gather in the documentary like lifelong school buddies. (Radcliffe says the “Potter” alumni he was closest to were not his fellow stars but members of the crew.)The documentary, directed by Dan Hartley, isn’t all optimism. “In the nicest way, I’m going to say I wish I’d never met him,” Greg Powell, the stunt coordinator on the series, says of the guilt he still feels over what happened to Holmes, even though both have expressed having felt like father and son during the films. “The Boy Who Lived” provides an unusual behind-the-scenes portrait of how life goes on after movies are made.David Holmes: The Boy Who LivedNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. Watch on Max. More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      Did ‘Demolition Man’ Predict the Millennial?

      by

      A cult classic saw the future — kind of.Now that we live in the future, we no longer seem to make as many films about the future — at least not the way we once did, when we tried our hardest to imagine a future as different from the present as we were from ancient history. Today, with all of human knowledge in our pockets, we prefer to think in terms of alternate timelines, paths not taken, the multiverse of infinite possibilities. We’re looking sideways, not forward. But for most of the existence of cinema, a glorious near-centennial from “Metropolis” (1927) to, let’s say, “WALL-E” (2008), people used celluloid to dream of what lay ahead.Growing up with those movies, I liked to keep a mental scorecard concerning which of their futures seemed most likely. I would have hoped that by now we’d be experiencing the vibrant urban chaos of “The Fifth Element” (1997). But no. What about HAL and the blind faith in technological advancement that connotes progress in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)? Kind of. The computers controlled by constant hand-waving in Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report” (2002)? Not quite. All of these are classics, but the one that I think got it most right is a 1993 action-comedy whose hallmark is a tremendous recurring poop joke.In “Demolition Man,” a cop named John Spartan (played by Sylvester Stallone) is frozen in 1996, for spurious reasons, and thawed out in the year 2032, when Southern California has been merged into an enormous metroplex called San Angeles. He’s tasked with hunting down a homicidal maniac, played by a blond, mugging Wesley Snipes. The joke is that in this future, everyone is kind and gentle to one another. Lenina Huxley, Spartan’s ’90s-loving partner, explains that alcohol, caffeine, contact sports, meat, bad language and gasoline, among other things, are banned. “It has been deemed that anything not good for you is bad,” goes the tao of “Demolition Man.” “Hence, illegal.” ‘Demolition Man’ imagined a future generation who might view our civilization, at the peak of its powers, as utterly barbaric.The movie’s pleasure doesn’t lie in its plentiful violence (well, some of it does). It’s in the humor that arises from these future San Angeleans’ disgust over Spartan’s primitive ways, like his desire to use guns and to smoke and to have sex “the old-fashioned way,” rather than through a virtual-reality headset. They mock him over the fact that he asks for toilet paper. (Everyone now uses something called the Three Seashells, which is never explained.) Spartan is baffled by new technology like the omnipresent Alexa-like morality boxes that issue instant fines for offensive language, and kiosks that offer words of affirmation on the streets (“You are an incredibly sensitive man who inspires joy-joy feelings in all those around you”). Stallone’s cop has been subliminally rehabilitated while frozen and wakes up knowing how to knit. “I’m a seamstress?” he laments.What separates “Demolition Man” from other sci-fi films of much higher aspiration is that it imagined a future generation who might view our civilization, at the peak of its powers, as utterly barbaric. We’re not quite there, but it feels as if the world that the younger generations loathe is the one I was raised in. And in the process, this has turned the film, at least for me, into an explosive, sometimes vituperative allegory for aging. As Spartan finds out, it hurts to wake up one day and find that the world has moved on without you.Some days I feel like I’ve woken up from cryosleep, and am looking around to discover that I’m the only one who misses our previous era of casual cynicism and dubious morality and brilliant jerks. Back in the ’90s, I sat in the cinema and watched this film like thousands of other people, never imagining that I might one day feel like Spartan. I am living in the future, and I don’t belong. Everyone else has moved on. I’m still wiping myself with toilet paper instead of the Three Seashells.It’s a shame that “Demolition Man” doesn’t have more of a place in popular culture. If it has any presence at all, it’s through unhinged libertarians online. There’s a person on X, for example, who takes inspiration from the film and rants about what he describes as the “deranged parallel universe” we’re in. These types might be more similar to the only people who reject society in the movie. Led by a cholesterol-loving Denis Leary, who longs to “smoke a cigar the size of Cincinnati in the nonsmoking section,” they live underground eating rat burgers.I’m more ambivalent. Newly unthawed, how would I live? I turn to “Demolition Man” for guidance on how to navigate the future. Most everyone else accepts this timid new world. I can see why — it’s very appealing. Everyone is extremely nice. There’s no crime. There’s the choice of only one restaurant. (It’s Taco Bell.) No conflict is necessary because they’ve banned everything worth fighting over. If this is where we’re heading, it might be better than the past, if not as much fun, infused with a whiff of the dystopian. Everyone else seems to have made their accommodation with this future. Why can’t I?Perhaps I find this film resonant not so much because it turned out to be prophetic, but because it reminds me that I once was certain of what the future would look like and my place in it. I think I’m like Spartan, but I’m actually more like a wistful Lenina Huxley, surrounded by 1990s contraband, unable to let go. “You’re still addicted to the 20th century,” another cop admonishes her. “High from its harshness.” I know how she feels.Kabir Chibber is a writer and filmmaker. Born in Hong Kong, he lives in New York. More