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      A Dormant Dome for Cinephiles Is Unsettling Hollywood

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      Since the November night in 1963 when the Cinerama Dome opened its doors with the premiere of “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” — drawing Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett and Ethel Merman to the sidewalks of Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood — the theater, and the multiplex that later rose around it, has been a home for people who liked to watch movies and people who liked to make movies.Its distinctive geodesic dome, memorialized by Quentin Tarantino in the 2019 film “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” has become more retro than futuristic over the years, a reminder of a Technicolor past. Yet through it all, the complex known as the ArcLight Hollywood remained a cinephile favorite, with no commercials, no latecomers admitted and ushers who would, after introducing the upcoming show, promise to stay behind to make sure the sound and picture were “up to ArcLight standards.”But today the ArcLight Hollywood is closed, both a victim of the coronavirus pandemic and a symbol of a movie industry in turmoil, even in its own backyard.“There was nothing like the ArcLight — I was really surprised they closed,” said Amy Aquino, an actor who played Lt. Grace Billets in the television show “Bosch” and who had been drawn by the theater’s serious approach to moviegoing since seeing “Sideways” there in 2004.Her husband, Drew McCoy, said he now worried every time he passed the abandoned complex. “It’s too strange that a pre-eminent structure that was once killing it is sitting there like a white elephant,” he said.The shuttered complex — its entrance marked by plywood boards instead of movie posters — stands as a reminder of the great uncertainty that now shadows old-fashioned cinema in American culture. Dual strikes have shut down production. Competition from streaming services, as well as shortened attention spans in a smartphone era, has led movie theaters around the nation to shut their doors.The theater, with its distinctive geodesic dome, was memorialized by Quentin Tarantino in the 2019 film “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” Alex Welsh for The New York TimesThe record-shattering box office for “Barbie” and the strong showing for “Oppenheimer” this summer gave a beleaguered industry hope after what had been a long, slow decline in moviegoing, accelerated by the pandemic. But other big-budget would-be blockbusters have been humbled by soft ticket sales, and the lingering strike has prompted some studios to delay major releases. The fundamental challenges to theatergoing have not gone away, and the boarded-up ArcLight is a daily reminder of that.“Times are sad,” said Bill Counter, a cinema historian who has documented the history of the ArcLight. “The theaters that survive will be those that make filmgoing an event by offering the sort of amenities that made ArcLight a destination originally.”It is only fitting the ArcLight has become a Los Angeles mystery, the subject of speculation that befits a movie theater that was always more than just another neighborhood cinema.When the company that owns the ArcLight, the Decurion Corp., applied for a liquor license last year, movie fans seized on even that slight bit of movement as a sign that coming attractions might not be far behind. And executives at Decurion, which closed 11 ArcLight theaters across the country as part of a bankruptcy reorganization, have assured theater preservation groups that they will not walk away from what was known as the ArcLight Hollywood. But it has remained closed.“Everybody has been hoping it was on the verge of reopening,” Counter said. “Periodically things leak out. You hear about an architecture firm. It would be lovely to think about reopening for its 60th anniversary, which would be November.”The closing of the theater, a favorite among people who make movies and people who like movies, comes as Hollywood’s strikes have brought new production to a halt.Alex Welsh for The New York Times“Everyone loves it,” he added. “Filmmakers want to go there. It will reopen. They are just taking their time.”But Decurion continues to offer little insight into its intentions. “Thank you for reaching out,” Ted Mundorff, a senior executive with Decurion, said by email. “We are not commenting on the Hollywood property.”There has been some encouraging news recently for film enthusiasts in Los Angeles. The New Beverly Cinema, a revival movie house that Tarantino took over in 2014, reopened in June 2021 after being shut down because of Covid-19. Its motto: “All Shows Presented in Glorious 35 mm (unless noted in 16 mm).” Vidiots, the landmark store that closed in 2017 in Santa Monica, reopened in the old Eagle Theater in June, renting videos and showing a rich array of old movies. And a 12-screen multiplex opened this summer at Hollywood Park, across the way from the new SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.The concern about the ArcLight’s future is unfolding in a city where landmarks and institutions can disappear overnight in a burst of construction dust. Amoeba Music, a revered record store a block away from the ArcLight, recently bowed to the demands of a developer and abandoned its building for a new complex on Hollywood Boulevard. (“The building may be new, but Amoeba’s personality shines throughout,” its website promises.)“People have every right to be cautious when something closes in L.A.,” said Tiffany Nitsche, the president of the board of directors of the Los Angeles Historic Theater Foundation. “We lose things so fast.”Fans have jumped on any indication that the complex could reopen. Alex Welsh for The New York TimesThe murkiness of the deliberations has fed the concern. “I don’t know what they are doing,” said Antonio Villaraigosa, the former Los Angeles mayor who “went all the time” when he lived 10 minutes away in the Hollywood Hills. “If they are bringing it back, I’d like to be a part of it. Why wouldn’t we want to restore that beautiful place?”The Cinerama Dome, a geodesic dome modeled after a Buckminster Fuller design, rises like a 70-foot-high golf ball along Sunset Boulevard. As an officially designated Los Angeles cultural monument, the Dome is protected, which means it would be difficult — though not impossible — to knock it down for, say, an office building.“It’s very iconic,” said Linda Dishman, the president of the Los Angeles Conservancy.In 2002, the Dome expanded with the addition of an adjacent three-level 14-screen multiplex. Those theaters in particular drew a discriminating audience who appreciated the top-of-the-line sound and picture (and were willing to pay the premium prices). It was rare to hear anyone talk once the lights down, much less spot anyone sneaking a text. The coming attractions before the feature film were kept relatively short, and never cluttered by on-screen advertisements for, say, Coca-Cola. It became a popular place for premieres.Hugo Soto-Martinez, whose Los Angeles City Council district includes the ArcLight, said his constituents regularly press him on what was going on with the theater; he is as mystified as everyone else.Nitsche said that for all the mystery, she remained certain the ArcLight would be back. “We’ve watched theaters struggle for the last two years,” she said. “I’m not sure anyone is jumping to get back into that game.”“But I can’t imagine the ArcLight not reopening,” she said. “ I just don’t know when.”Nicole Sperling More

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      8 TikTokers Redefining the Movie Review

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      The personalities of MovieTok are not critics in the traditional sense. Their upbeat videos earn them contracts with Hollywood studios in addition to the devotion of movie lovers. These accounts offer a sampling of the new breed of movie reviewers.@straw hat goofy

      @straw_hat_goofy ♬ original sound – Straw Hat Goofy Name: Juju GreenAge: 31Followers: 3.4 millionSpecialty: Easter eggs and red carpet interviewsPast Clients: Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., ParamountBefore TikTok: Worked as an advertising copywriterMovie Hall of Fame: “Her” (2013)@maddikoch

      @maddikoch Why won’t they let him leave??? #plottwist #movie #movierecommendation #moviesuggestions #movieclips ♬ original sound – Maddi Moo Name: Maddi KochAge: 22Followers: 3 millionSpecialty: Movies you might have missedPast Clients: Peacock, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+Outside of TikTok: Studying finance at Virginia TechMovie Hall of Fame: “What Happened to Monday” (2017)@kodak_cameron

      @kodak_cameron Even technologically these movies are on par with Lord of The Rings. #spiderman #milesmorales #acrossthespiderverse #intothespiderverse ♬ Aesthetic – Megacreate Name: Cameron KozakAge: 21Followers: 1.5 millionSpecialty: News and analysisPast Clients: A24, Neon, PeacockOutside of TikTok: Studying film production at Oakland University in MichiganMovie Hall of Fame: “Whiplash” (2014)@cvnela

      @cvnela INFINITY POOL: CRAZIEST HORROR MOVIE⁉️ GO SEE IT IN THEATERS NOW TO DECIDE FOR YOURSELF #creepy #scary #horror #movierecommendations ♬ Creepy and simple horror background music(1070744) – howlingindicator Name: Monse GutierrezAge: 26Followers: 1.4 millionSpecialty: HorrorPast Clients: Neon, Amazon Prime VideoBefore TikTok: Worked as a substitute teacherMovie Hall of Fame: “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006)@cinema.joe

      @cinema.joe #fyp #foryou #movies ♬ original sound – Cinema.Joe Name: Joe AragonAge: 33Followers: 931,000Specialty: Monthly movie guidesPast Clients: A24, Peacock, Apple, Lionsgate, HuluBefore TikTok: Worked for an insurance companyMovie Hall of Fame: “Anything by David Fincher”@jstoobs

      @jstoobs It’s finally getting a wide release this month so see it and cry your eyes our #film #movies #pastlives ♬ original sound – stoobs Name: Megan CruzAge: 34Followers: 535,000Specialty: Women filmmakersPast Clients: Disney, Warner Bros.Before TikTok: Worked in restaurantsMovie Hall of Fame: “Jennifer’s Body” (2009)@stoney_tha_great

      @stoney_tha_great They Cloned Tyrone is GENIUS #TheyClonedTyrone #Netflix #MovieReview #JamieFoxx #JohnBoyega #SciFi #Comedy #Blaxploitation #BlackTikTok #conspiracytiktok #MovieTok #CapCut ♬ original sound – Stoney Tha Great Name: Bryan LuciousAge: 31Followers: 387,000Specialty: HorrorPast Clients: A24, Sony Pictures, Hulu, MGM+, Peacock, NetflixOutside of TikTok: Works for a tech companyMovie Hall of Fame: “Twister” (1996)@sethsfilmreviews

      @sethsfilmreviews #oppenheimer #moviereview #movies #foryou #fyp #filmtok #movietok ♬ original sound – Sethsfilmreviews Name: Seth Mullan-FerozeAge: 24Followers: 256,000Specialty: Audience polls, art house and foreign cinemaPast Clients: Mubi, Lionsgate, StudioCanal, HBOOutside of TikTok: Works as an online personal trainerMovie Hall of Fame: “Persona” (1966) More

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      On TikTok, Movie Critics Go By Any Other Name

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      On MovieTok, reviewers can reach an audience of millions and earn tens of thousands of dollars per post. “Critics,” they say, are old news.Maddi Koch loves to spread the gospel about a good movie. Her favorites are little-noted thrillers with few stars but juicy concepts or dig-your-nails-into-the-sofa plot twists.On TikTok, where Koch has three million followers (and goes by Maddi Moo), her review of “What Happened to Monday,” about a dystopian world where seven identical sisters share a single identity, has drawn over 24 million views. “If I were to die tomorrow, I’d watch this tonight,” she raved.Koch, who is a senior at Virginia Tech and is sometimes paid by film companies to promote their work, says she makes videos to connect people and to spare them “the pain of arguing over finding a movie or not knowing what you’re really looking for.” (Most of her videos, including the “What Happened to Monday” review, are not sponsored.) When asked, she’ll describe herself as a “random girl” who loves movies, a “content creator,” or, sure, even an “influencer.”But one title that she would never use might be the most obvious: “Critic.”“I just don’t see myself in that light,” she said.Koch, 22, is among dozens of personalities on TikTok, along with peers like Straw Hat Goofy and Cinema.Joe, who reach millions of people by reviewing, analyzing or promoting movies. Several earn enough on the platform — from posts sponsored by Hollywood studios (many have taken a break from working with them since the actors’ strike), through one of TikTok’s revenue sharing programs or both — to make their passion for film a full-time job, a feat amid longstanding cuts to arts critic positions in newsrooms.But the new school of film critic doesn’t see much of itself in the old one. And some tenets of the profession — such as rendering judgments or making claims that go beyond one’s personal taste — are now considered antiquated and objectionable.“When you read a critic’s review, it almost sounds like a computer wrote it,” said Cameron Kozak, 21, who calls himself a “movie reviewer” and has 1.5 million followers. “But when you have someone on TikTok who you watch every day and you know their voice and what they like, there’s something personal that people can connect to.”On MovieTok — as the community is known — the most successful users generally post at least once per day, with videos typically ranging between 30 and 90 seconds. Many attempt to capture the viewer’s attention within the first three seconds (“This movie’s perfect for you if you never want to sleep again,” begins Koch’s review of the hit horror film “Barbarian”) and speak directly to the camera, with screenshots from the film in the background.Many creators, most in their 20s or early 30s, specialize within a particular niche. Joe Aragon (Cinema.Joe, 931,000 followers) is known for his breakdowns of coming attractions; Monse Gutierrez (cvnela, 1.4 million followers) and Bryan Lucious (stoney_tha_great, 387,000 followers) demystify and rank horror films; Seth Mullan-Feroze (sethsfilmreviews, 256,000 followers) leans toward art house and foreign cinema.Unlike film departments at major metropolitan newspapers or national magazines, individuals on MovieTok generally don’t aspire to review every noteworthy film. And while most expressed admiration for traditional critics’ grasp of film history, they tended to associate the profession as a whole with false or unearned authority.“A lot of us don’t trust critics,” said Lucious, 31. He was one of many who pointed to the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, where the scores of “Top Critics” often differ widely from those of casual users, as evidence that the critical establishment is out of touch. “They watch movies and are just looking for something to critique,” he said. “Fans watch movies looking for entertainment.”MovieTok creators are not the first in the history of film criticism to rebel against their elders. In the 1950s, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and other writers of the journal Cahiers du Cinéma disavowed the nationalism of mainstream French criticism. In the 1960s and ’70s, the New Yorker critic Pauline Kael assailed the moralism associated with Bosley Crowther, a longtime movie critic of The New York Times, and others. And movie bloggers in the 2000s charged print critics with indifference or hostility to superhero and fantasy films.“There’s always this denigrating of those so-called ‘other’ critics as somehow elitist and old-fashioned while presenting yourself as the new avant-garde,” said Mattias Frey, head of the department of media, culture and creative industries at the City University of London and the author of “The Permanent Crisis of Film Criticism.” He defined criticism, by any name, as “evaluation grounded in reason,” citing the philosopher Noël Carroll.Juju Green, known as Straw Hat Goofy on TikTok, said he is on a “mission to combat film snobbery.”Alex Welsh for The New York TimesJuju Green, a 31-year-old former advertising copywriter, sees himself as on a “mission to combat film snobbery.” Known as Straw Hat Goofy, Green is the most prominent member of MovieTok, with 3.4 million followers and an emerging side career as a correspondent and host. His most popular video, in which he identifies Easter eggs in Pixar movies, has nearly 29 million views.Seven years ago, Green started a movie-themed channel on YouTube — which favors longer, more produced videos — but abandoned it after the birth of his first child. On TikTok, he found that he could reach an enormous audience with relatively little effort. He said one of his first videos on the platform, a post from January 2020 about Tom Holland’s performance in “Avengers: Endgame,” received over 200,000 views in about an hour.“I had a feeling like I was meant to do this,” he said. Green quit his advertising job last year.Without the salary of a news organization, MovieTok creators earn money by partnering with entertainment companies. A sponsored post promoting a film or streaming service can be worth anywhere from $1,000 to $30,000.Green’s clients have included Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros., among others. In January, Universal paid him to create a post at an N.F.L. game promoting the movie “M3GAN” that received nearly seven million views — part of a marketing campaign that helped the film earn $30.2 million in the United States and Canada on opening weekend, about 30 percent more than box office analysts had predicted.It is impossible, of course, to make a direct link between TikTok influencers and ticket sales. But there are signs that the impact can be considerable. Sony executives have cited MovieTok campaigns as one reason for the strong performance of “Insidious: The Red Door,” which cost $16 million to make and has taken in a surprising $183 million worldwide.Being paid by the studios presents an obvious conflict of interest. Creators may be reluctant to speak negatively about the products of a company that pays them (or might). While traditional news organizations, including The Times, sell ads to movie studios, they do not allow critics, reporters or editors to accept compensation from them and generally keep editorial and business operations separate.Carrie Rickey, who was the film critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1986 to 2011, said she refrained from working too closely with studios to avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.”“It would mar my reputation as an independent writer,” she said.Many on MovieTok have evolved an ad hoc code of ethics — accepting payment only for trailer announcements or general recommendations, for example, rather than true reviews — but recognize accusations of bias as an occupational hazard.“I always try to be super transparent with my viewers,” said Megan Cruz (jstoobs, 535,000 followers), noting that she is careful to identify gifts and sponsorships in her videos. “We do exist in this in-between space and I think it’s important to clarify whenever you’re getting any kind of advantage.” (By law, paid endorsements on TikTok must be labeled; but gifts, including swag boxes and travel to red carpet events, are not always disclosed.)Cruz, 34, echoed other MovieTok reviewers who said they dislike doing sharply negative posts and would be unlikely to slam a movie whether they were in business with the studio or not. She said she generally prefers to deliver negative opinions in the form of a “compliment sandwich,” preceded and followed by more positive remarks.Megan Cruz, known as jstoobs on TikTok, said, “I always try to be super transparent with my viewers,” noting that she is careful to identify gifts and sponsorships in her videos. Alex Welsh for The New York Times“It pains me to say that this movie, by and large, did not work for me,” she said, in a review of the horror-comedy “Renfield.” Cruz then added: “There are a lot of individual elements of this film that really do work.”Another source of income is TikTok itself. Since 2020, the platform has shared revenue with accounts that meet eligibility requirements. Gutierrez said that between sponsored posts and payouts from TikTok she has made as much as four times the salary of her previous job as a substitute teacher.After Hollywood actors went on strike in July, many creators stopped working for the studios in solidarity. SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, issued guidelines for influencers last month discouraging them from accepting “any new work for promotion of struck companies or their content.”Green, who had previously implied that he would continue working as usual, subsequently walked back those comments. He said in a recent interview that he had turned down eight proposals to work with struck companies and would continue to do so for the duration of the strike.“It was a mistake that I made and I completely own that,” he said.The lack of Hollywood work has prompted many creators to pivot to other subjects, such as independent films and anime. But with or without the studios, those interviewed for this story said their obsession with dissecting movies would remain.“I like to call it professional overthinking,” Green said.Brooks Barnes More

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      Barbie and Ken and Nothing in Between

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      For one trans viewer, Greta Gerwig’s hit offers both a too-pat idea of gender and a complex view of humanity.This article contains spoilers for “Barbie.”In Barbie Land, there are Barbies, and there are Kens. For every Barbie (in this case Margot Robbie), there must be a Ken (Ryan Gosling) who supports her, props her up and longs to exist within her gaze. Are there other dolls who live here? Yes, but they are on the edges, either because they are discontinued models (like Ken’s friend Allan, played by Michael Cera) or because they were created as second fiddles to Barbie (beloved, long-suffering Skipper).This binary has existed since the alternate universe’s founding in 1959, when the first Barbie doll went to market. It is a gender-swapped version of our own world’s hierarchy. The director Greta Gerwig’s smash hit “Barbie” is an opportunity to introduce a presumably younger audience to basic tenets of feminism (patriarchy, double standards for men and women, the male gaze, etc.) in a funny, candy-coated context. But as Barbie and Ken move from their world to ours, the story grows more complicated, yet its depiction of gender remains rooted in the overly simplistic vision of Barbies and Kens.Using them to provide a baby’s first feminism course makes perfect sense. After all, this duality is drilled into us as children early and often. Think of the very toy aisles that hold different products for boys and girls. Children themselves know which toys are “meant” for them, and they also know there might be harsh reprisal from peers or authority figures should they play with the “wrong” ones. In 2023, a caring parent would probably say that it’s OK if a boy plays with Barbie or a girl with G.I. Joe, but that allowance itself props up a pat view, one that “Barbie” feeds into.As a trans woman who writes and thinks a lot about film, I found the movie’s approach both deeply frustrating and strangely resonant. Yes, the film does well by trans people in some regards, especially by casting the trans performer Hari Nef as Doctor Barbie and giving her plenty to do. She isn’t just on hand to score “we love trans people!” points. Yet the film’s story line and its politics set up a kind of pure distillation of womanhood that seems specifically rooted in the cisgender experience and affords little room for anything outside a rigid understanding of gender.The film gives Hari Nef, second from right, plenty to do as Doctor Barbie.Warner Bros. PicturesNontraditional dolls can exist in Barbie Land but they have to be created through play, as happens with Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who has unnaturally chopped-off hair and marker drawings all over her face. Perhaps there are nonbinary dolls in Barbie Land, if children came up with them, but Mattel seems unlikely to manufacture such a doll anytime soon.As an alternate universe, Barbie Land is one thing, but its facile vision continues to be the film’s primary model for how the world works on our plane of existence. You could imagine a version of the film’s two-worlds setup that explores the split between how Barbie Land approaches gender and our own society’s much more complicated relationship to it, replicating the way children think in more nuanced ways about these ideas as they grow up.In practice, it mostly amounts to some quick scenes depicting how patriarchy functions in reality before Ken imports it to Barbie Land and disrupts the social order. There isn’t room for a Barbie Land with Barbies, Kens and a spectrum encompassing every point in between.Several trans women I know object to the film’s final line, in which Barbie, now a human, goes to a gynecologist. In this critique, the ending suggests that genitalia equals womanhood. I don’t agree with that reading; the final 15 minutes are about the thorny weight of being human, a state of reality that necessarily involves, for example, gynecologist appointments.I still understand why the line bothered the objectors. Trans people have been reading ourselves into narratives that don’t directly involve us as long as there have been stories, and this has happened with “Barbie,” too. Some nonbinary viewers have found common cause with Allan, a good-hearted doll who exists outside the Barbie vs. Ken duality. He eventually rejects the premise of the patriarchy and helps the Barbies defeat it.Yet when the movie reaches its climax and the Barbies have retaken their world from the Kens, they return to the old divide, resubjugating the Kens and installing themselves as the good and just power.At times, “Barbie” seems interested in the idea that this whole binary has been constructed for them by others. Thus that system is deeply broken and unfair to both Barbies and Kens. The characters know that they have creators at Mattel, that their world and its divide has literally been made by someone else and is fundamentally false. Instead of pushing against that, though, they prove largely willing to exist within it.Fighting the creators might prove too difficult, and at any rate, it wouldn’t allow Mattel, which produced the movie, to sell more toys. Trans people understand too well that one way society pretends to accept us is by marketing to us, but “Barbie” doesn’t even bother to do that.And yet part of me did find a lovely mirror of the trans feminine experience in the last 15 minutes. The war for Barbie Land over, Barbie realizes that life there is restrictive and false and that she wants to live in our world, with all its chaos and complications. She chooses to become real with the assistance of Ruth Handler, the woman who created Barbie in the first place. (Handler is played by Rhea Perlman from “Cheers,” which is a cosmology I can get behind.)The moment reminded me, deeply, of when I realized how artificial my time trying to live “as a man” had been. When I came out, a lifetime of emotions and experiences I had been holding at bay flooded me, and I realized what it meant to be “real,” or, to put it another way, to be human. Humanness is inherently messy, and as the film embraces that messiness, it finds space outside its dualities, space where trans people can thrive.The film’s finale suggests that our lives as humans are united by fundamental truths that supersede all of the false binaries we have constructed to imprison ourselves. As Barbie realizes, to be human is to accept that we are all born, and we all die. Hopefully along the way we find people and things that give our lives meaning, yet that meaning doesn’t arrive automatically. We must find and embrace it for ourselves.You are, as Barbie reminds Ken, not your girlfriend or your job. You need to be Kenough on your own. More

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      ‘Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback’ Review: Fully in the Building

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      Elvis Presley’s 1968 TV special showcased the king of rock ‘n’ roll in his unadulterated glory. A new documentary shows how it happened.“I heard the news/There’s good rockin’ tonight.” That’s what Elvis Presley sang in 1954, on his second single, a cover of a jump blues tune originated by Roy Brown. The lyrics come to mind while watching the new documentary, “Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback,” directed by John Scheinfeld, because the movie seems explicitly formulated to reach people who have not, so to speak, heard the news about Presley: his impact on pop culture and his preternatural performing charisma.Both of those realities were inarguably blunted by Presley’s manager, the slippery Col. Tom Parker. Baz Luhrmann’s fictionalized biopic of Presley from last year managed to both villainize and at least slightly humanize the guy who turned Presley from an alluring danger to youth morals into a cheesy family entertainment attraction. This movie outright brands him the villain and brings on a shot of a smoking cigar every time he’s reintroduced.The hero of the story is the television producer-director Steve Binder, who put together the 1968 television special that briefly made Elvis electric and provocative again. (Binder is also an executive producer of the movie.)In addition, the movie is a celebration and defense of Presley. While not overtly mentioning the accusation that Presley was guilty of cultural appropriation, the film counters it from several directions, including the critic Kelefa Sanneh’s assertion that what Presley accomplished was a fusion of modes, not theft. And contemporary musicians here sing Presley’s praises, including the Black country singer Darius Rucker and the Dominican recording artist Maffio.The clips from the special itself are irresistible, as when Elvis, chatting with old bandmates, mocks his signature lip curl, saying, “I got news for you, baby, I did 29 pictures like that.” He also sings up a storm. If today Presley really needs a sales pitch, this movie is a good one.Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 ComebackNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      ‘Untold: Hall of Shame’ Review: Cheaters Never Prosper

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      An infamous sports-world doping scandal is related with insight in this compelling, albeit slight, Netflix documentary.Why would an athlete use performance-enhancing drugs? “Untold: Hall of Shame,” a documentary about a high-profile doping scandal in the early 2000s that shocked the world of competitive sports, offers a persuasive reason: because every other athlete is taking them.Victor Conte Jr., a self-taught sports nutritionist and trainer who provided several sports stars and Olympians with steroids through his Bay Area firm Balco, insists in “Hall of Shame” that performance-enhancing drug use in pro sports is “rampant,” to the extent that using them is all but necessary to win. He frames the decision to dope as one between unethical victory or noble failure. “Show me an athlete not on steroids,” he says, “and I’ll show you a loser.”With compelling verve, “Hall of Shame,” from the director Bryan Storkel, tells the story of Conte’s ignominious rise and fall. It draws you into the addictive thrill that his athletes felt as they were winning medals and breaking records, and although it’s somewhat slight on the whole, the film makes clear why elite competitors such as Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Barry Bonds were willing to compromise themselves for a taste of elite glory.Both Jones and Bonds declined to appear in the film — and both have denied ever knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs — but Montgomery, candid and vulnerable, opens up about his reasons, to dramatic effect. “I don’t care if I die,” he describes having told Conte, in dope-boosted pursuit of the world record for 100-meter dash. “I want to see what it feels like to be the greatest.” He broke the record in 2002; it was invalidated two years later. As “Hall of Shame” makes clear, if you win by cheating, greatness is not what you achieve.Untold: Hall of ShameNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Michael Oher, Depicted in ‘The Blind Side,’ Says He Was Conned With Adoption Promise

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      Michael Oher, whose life was depicted in the 2009 film, says in a lawsuit that he was never fully adopted by the family that took him in and was swindled into signing away his decision-making powers at 18.The former N.F.L. player Michael Oher, whose journey out of poverty and into football stardom was dramatized in the 2009 movie “The Blind Side,” asked a Tennessee court on Monday to formally end his legal relationship with the family who took him in, claiming that he had never actually been adopted and had been tricked into signing away his decision-making powers so the family could make millions of dollars off his life story.Oher, 37, is seeking a termination of the conservatorship that began when he was 18, plus money that he says he should have earned from the movie, as well as an injunction preventing Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy from using his name and likeness.The petition, filed in Shelby County in Tennessee, claims that when he thought he was being adopted, the Tuohys urged him to sign a conservatorship in which he relinquished his ability to enter into contracts. The lawsuit also claims that Oher, who started living with the Tuohys at age 16, unknowingly signed away the rights to his life story to 20th Century Fox in 2007.Oher’s lawyer, J. Gerard Stranch IV, declined to comment beyond what was stated in the lawsuit.For “The Blind Side,” the hit film that starred Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy and Quinton Aaron as Oher, the Tuohys negotiated a contract of $225,000 plus 2.5 percent of future “defined net proceeds” for themselves and their biological children, the lawsuit said.Oher says in the lawsuit that he received nothing while the movie generated more than $300 million in revenue worldwide.The Tuohy family did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The New York Times. In an interview with The Daily Memphian on Monday, Sean Tuohy said that he had been “devastated” to hear about the lawsuit and that it was “upsetting to think we would make money off any of our children.” Tuohy said that he would be willing to end the conservatorship and that everybody in his family, including Oher, got an equal share from the movie, around $14,000.Sean Tuohy went on to say the conservatorship had been intended to allow Oher to play at the University of Mississippi, which he and his wife attended.Sean Tuohy Jr., the son of Leigh Anne and Sean, said in an interview with Barstool Sports on Monday that he made “60, 70 grand over the course of the last four, five years” from the movie.In Tennessee, a conservatorship is defined as an arrangement in which a court removes at least some “decision-making powers and duties” from “a person with a disability who lacks capacity to make decisions in one or more important areas” and grants those duties to a conservator or co-conservators. The 2004 order that granted Oher’s conservatorship to the Tuohys states that Oher appeared to have “no known physical or psychological disabilities.”According to the petition, Oher only recently found out — in February this year — that he had not been legally adopted. Oher agreed to enter into the conservatorship thinking that it was a required part of the adoption process, the lawsuit says.Oher, who retired from football in 2017, was selected with the No. 23 overall pick in the 2009 N.F.L. draft by the Baltimore Ravens and played eight N.F.L. seasons as an offensive tackle for the Ravens, the Tennessee Titans and the Carolina Panthers. He won the Super Bowl with the Ravens in 2013.He played college football from 2005 to 2009 at Mississippi, where he earned two first-team All-Southeastern Conference honors, in 2007 and 2008, and was named a consensus first-team all-American in 2008.“The Blind Side,” which was released in 2009 and was adapted from a 2006 book by Michael Lewis, depicts Oher as a poor teenager growing up in Memphis and looking after his mother, who was addicted to cocaine. The movie portrays Oher as a naturally talented athlete, at both basketball and football, who is spotted by a coach at a local private school, which later admits him. Oher comes to know Sean Tuohy Jr. before moving in with the family and earning a scholarship to Mississippi.But Oher seemed uncomfortable with the movie’s depiction of him, and what it meant for his career. In a 2015 interview, when he was playing for the Panthers, Oher said that the movie had portrayed him as less intelligent than he was and had influenced how people saw him within the sport.“People look at me and they take things away from me because of a movie,” Oher said. “They don’t really see the skills and the kind of player I am. That’s why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field.” More

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      Will Hollywood Learn These 5 Lessons From ‘Barbie’?

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      If studios greenlight more movies about toys, they’ll be missing the point. Greta Gerwig’s hit is about smart filmmaking, not brand awareness.Over the past week and a half, Greta Gerwig’s comedy “Barbie” passed the billion-dollar mark at the global box office, and it won’t be long before it overtakes “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” to become 2023’s highest-grossing movie worldwide — a title it’s likely to hold onto. That’s a staggering achievement in so many ways: No movie directed by a woman has ever topped the yearly box office, and it’s been well over two decades since a live-action film without any significant action elements became the biggest movie of the year. (That’d be the Jim Carrey vehicle “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” which ruled 2000.)But can the runaway success of “Barbie” reshape Hollywood? I’m too cynical to think studio executives will learn all the right lessons from it. Instead, they’ll probably just greenlight more movies about toys. Still, “Barbie” proved at least five things to be true, if decision makers are willing to think outside the pink box.1. A summer movie can be smartly writtenWe count on summer movies to deliver spectacle, but how many also come with a witty, thoughtful script? Too often, big-budget blockbusters are rushed into production before the screenplay is finished, and even while shooting, they’re in a constant state of flux, with new writers clambering aboard to stitch everything into some sort of viable patchwork quilt.“Barbie,” by contrast, feels totally thought through instead of frantically rewritten. Despite the outsize scale of the film, it still shares a distinctive comic sensibility and offhand intellectualism with “Frances Ha” and “Mistress America,” the two movies previously written by Gerwig and her partner, Noah Baumbach, and there are actual ideas at play here that have given “Barbie” a conversational shelf life far longer than most summer films. Though “Barbie” proves that a big movie can be both fun and thoughtful, that’s likely to happen only when a studio hires smart writers, resists sanding down their sensibilities, and gives them enough time and space to truly make the story sing.2. Make more female-led event filmsThough movies as varied as “Bridesmaids,” “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Where the Crawdads Sing” have all become breakout hits in recent years, they’re often treated as aberrations: Peruse a typical theatrical calendar and you’ll find little trace of those films’ influence. Studio executives routinely take female audiences for granted, handing their biggest budgets to movies made by and starring men because the conventional wisdom is that though women will go see those titles, male moviegoers are reluctant to watch a female-driven story.“Barbie” has now blown a hole in that argument. It isn’t just that men had no choice but to see “Barbie,” lest they be left out of the cultural conversation — the film also demonstrated how women will show up in record-breaking numbers to watch something that truly speaks to them (often bringing friends and going a second or third time, too). Female-led blockbusters don’t all have to star a superheroine: They can be comedies, romances or dramas based on best-selling books, as long as they’re presented as major events.3. Don’t rely on past-their-prime franchises“Barbie” will end this summer outdrawing every major sequel. That’s in part because those franchises are so long in the tooth: We’re on the seventh “Mission: Impossible” movie, the 10th “Fast and Furious” and the fifth “Indiana Jones.” Younger audiences have no sense of ownership over those older series, and even longtime fans may be experiencing diminishing returns. If any lasting lesson can be drawn from the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon that sent both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” soaring past their initial projections, it’s that audiences are eager for big movies that feel genuinely new. Films that stoke their curiosity can be even more potent than old reliables.4. A great soundtrack is effective marketingThough studios will explore every possible method to market a movie — from billboards to Instagram ads to Happy Meals at McDonald’s — there are few tie-ins as potent as a really killer soundtrack. We used to count on our big summer movies to deliver radio hits, but loaded soundtrack albums have become few and far between these days, despite films like “Black Panther” and “The Greatest Showman” amply demonstrating the boost a film can get from an album that people can’t stop playing.It’s nice, then, that the “Barbie” soundtrack is filled with bops, like Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” and “Barbie World” from Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice. Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” is destined to make the shortlist for the original-song Oscar, and even Ryan Gosling’s plaintive power ballad “I’m Just Ken” debuted on Billboard’s Hot 100. In an era when TikTok has become a music-industry hitmaker and virality on that platform can rival any paid marketing push, a fun pop soundtrack like the one “Barbie” boasts is worth its weight in rose gold.5. Stop saving the good stuff for the sequelWith “Barbie” on a path to become the year’s highest-grossing movie worldwide, Warner Bros. will inevitably try to conjure a franchise from it. Yet much of what makes “Barbie” feel fresh is that it tells a complete story and doesn’t spend time setting up spinoffs or sequels. In fact, it ends in a place that would be hard to roll back: with its lead at the definitive end of her character arc. Gerwig and her stars aren’t signed for “Barbie” sequels, and when I spoke to Gerwig after her blockbuster opening weekend, she said she’d put every idea she had into this movie without the thought of doing more: “At this moment, it’s all I’ve got.”A “Barbie” sequel would certainly make money, but there’s no way it could capture the lightning-in-a-bottle moment that makes this movie feel like such a collector’s item. Would Warner Bros. and Mattel have the guts to preserve the value of “Barbie” by letting it stand on its own? As a top-tier legacy title undiluted by shoddy sequels, it could continue to generate untold amounts of revenue in the years to come. So although it’s unlikely that studio heads will ever choose common sense over cynical cash grabs, the idea of “Barbie” as a one-and-done deserves consideration: After all, a toy only lasts forever if you know when to put it away. More