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      Ralph Macchio on Getting In His Final Kicks in ‘Cobra Kai’

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      When Ralph Macchio was first approached about doing a “Karate Kid” series about the adult lives of Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, he was skeptical.“I was like, ‘I’m a car salesman?’” said Macchio, who starred in the original 1984 film as Daniel, a teenage transplant to Southern California, who learns karate and defeats his bully, Johnny (William Zabka), on the mat.“They didn’t have me at hello,” he said.But at a meeting that lasted over three hours in the courtyard of the Greenwich Hotel, in Lower Manhattan, the creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg won him over with their vision for that series, “Cobra Kai.” It wasn’t only a nostalgia play. It also looked to introduce a whole new generation of karate kids.“As they started talking about the younger characters — Miguel, Samantha, that next generation — and the parenting part,” Macchio said, “I started leaning forward.”Now, six seasons later, “Cobra Kai,” which is set in the San Fernando Valley approximately 30 years after the events of “The Karate Kid,” will release its final five episodes on Netflix on Thursday. The series, which stars Macchio and Zabka, puts a new lens on Johnny, who begins as a deadbeat dad, haunted by his fall from grace in the 1980s, but finds new purpose in reopening the Cobra Kai dojo and reigniting his rivalry with Daniel.Macchio in the sixth and final season of “Cobra Kai.” “It ends in a way that has all those ’80s movie feels and cheers and tears, and yet sees it through a ‘Cobra Kai’ kind of lens,” Macchio said.Curtis Bonds Baker/NetflixWe 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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      ‘Love Hurts’ Review: A Valentine Full of Action

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      Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose play reunited former associates from a criminal outfit. Sparks don’t exactly fly.In “Love Hurts,” Ke Huy Quan plays a cheery, cookie-baking real estate agent who has tried hard to forget his past life as an assassin. Ariana DeBose plays a former associate who emerges from the shadows and reminds him of what he’s left behind, in a movie that does its utmost to repress any memories of both stars’ being recent Academy Award winners.“Love Hurts” is the feature directorial debut of Jonathan Eusebio, who has amassed an eye-popping list of stunt- and fight-coordinating credits (“John Wick,” “The Matrix Resurrections”). In effect, he plays that role here as well, because there is little else worth directing: The plot is a barely-there thread of random incidents designed to string together action scenes in which Quan, banishing any thoughts of his own past playing Data from “The Goonies,” demonstrates an impressive facility for martial arts. The screenwriters, for their part, find ways to weaponize unlikely items: sharpened pencil here, amethyst there. Boba straws sure are sharp.The casting is effective, in part because few would guess that Quan would show such balletic grace in hand-to-hand combat, even though he has a background in stunts from the aughts. DeBose eventually steps up as an action star, too, albeit without quite as much sparring. (She generally seems to have more munitions on hand.) But somebody should have built them more of a movie to play in. At 83 minutes, “Love Hurts” falls somewhere between making a virtue of brevity and wheezing its way to the finish line.No sooner has Quan’s Marvin Gable (his name sounds distractingly like Marvin Gaye throughout) entered his office for the day than the Raven (Mustafa Shakir), a fellow assassin from the old days hiding there, smacks him in the face. It’s Valentine’s Day at the agency, and while everyone else — including Marvin’s dour assistant (Lio Tipton) — is doing their best to be festive, Marvin, behind a closed door, is fending off a killer who has a coat full of knives and a book of original poetry. His verses suggest an emo high schooler imitating Robert Frost.The Raven wants to know the whereabouts of Rose (DeBose), whom Marvin’s kingpin brother, Knuckles (Daniel Wu), had long ago ordered killed. Knuckles thought Rose was dead, but lately she has taken to sending out valentine cards. She is also Marvin’s secret love, and what drama there is turns on whether he will profess his ardor, and on whether, as he is increasingly bloodied, he will manage to keep his new life and status as “regional Realtor of the year.” The chemistry between DeBose and Quan is nonexistent, but it barely matters — the emphasis is on hurt, not love. But this self-amused movie barely leaves a mark.Love HurtsRated R. Love, lies, bleeding. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Smurfs’ Trailer Shows Rihanna as Smurfette and Promises New Music

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      The first preview of the animated feature shows the singer in her “blue era” and assures fans that new songs from her will be featured on the soundtrack.Music superstar, beauty mogul, fashion designer and … Smurfette? Rihanna’s next big role may not be what you were expecting.On Thursday, Paramount released a trailer for “Smurfs,” giving us a first look at the singer as the elflike, blonde-haired, blue-skinned creature. In an animation style that blends smooth 3-D rendering with elements that evoke the classic hand-drawn cartoons, Smurfette leads her cohort into the real, live-action world on a quest to Paris to find Papa Smurf after he mysteriously disappears.The trailer begins with Rihanna, in human form, addressing the audience.“I can’t wait for you all to see it this summer,” she says, with sunglasses largely covering her Smurf-blue eye shadow. She had teased the trailer in an Instagram post on Wednesday, which was a short video captioned “in my blue era.”The animated movie also features an ensemble cast including Nick Offerman, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Sedaris, Nick Kroll and Dan Levy, and is directed by Chris Miller, who previously helmed “Shrek the Third” and “Puss in Boots.” It will be a musical-comedy reboot of ‘The Smurfs’ film franchise, which last had an installment with “Smurfs: The Lost Village” in 2017.In addition to playing Smurfette, Rihanna is a producer on the movie. But, in what will most likely be the biggest news for her fans, who have been clamoring for more music since her album “Anti” was released in 2016, the trailer ends with a message advising people to “presave” the movie’s soundtrack, which will feature new music from Rihanna.It also says the movie will include the song “Higher Love,” recorded by Desi Trill and featuring DJ Khaled, Cardi B, Natania and Subhi.“Smurfs” is set to release on July 18. More

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      ‘Parthenope’ Review: Goddess Worship

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      Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, this decadent drama about a beautiful young woman is a one-sided meditation on art, desire and spirituality.“Beauty is like war — it opens doors,” says the middle-aged American writer John Cheever (Gary Oldman) to Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta), a statuesque brunette from Naples whom he meets at a resort. It’s southern Italy, 1973, and Cheever (Oldman in a small but memorably melancholic part) strikes up a friendship with her early on in the film.“Parthenope,” a characteristically decadent drama by the director Paolo Sorrentino, is about all the doors opened by Parthenope’s beauty. At first — when she’s seen primarily in a bikini, lounging by crystalline ocean waters — this means capturing the hearts of male suitors, like her namesake siren from Greek mythology.Cheever, who in real life spent years traveling around Italy, is one of the few men in the film who is immune to her charms — maybe it’s the booze, or his repressed yearning for men. Or maybe it’s because a woman like her should be admired from a distance as one does a religious icon or marble statue.If this way of idealizing women sounds painfully retrograde, know that Sorrentino isn’t interested in realism — or political correctness, for that matter. His work (including the Oscar winner “The Great Beauty” and the HBO series “The Young Pope”) is less about people than it is about big ideas: art, desire, religion, and, yes, beauty; the way they shape our lives with an almost mystical power.Now add to this an enduring fixation with Sorrentino’s native Italy, its past and present, and its contradictions. The country is home to some of the world’s great triumphs — think ancient Rome and the Sistine Chapel — but the director also depicts it as a hotbed of spiritual rot personified by its corrupt leaders. At one point in the film, Parthenope enjoys a dalliance with a monstrous bishop (Peppe Lanzetta), representing a union of the sacred and the profane.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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      ‘Heart Eyes’ Review: Love Is in the Air, Along With a Machete

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      Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding meet cute, then meet killer in this rom-com masquerading as a horror movie.Holiday rom-com lovers who are also slasher film completists: That’s the coterie that might go for Josh Ruben’s “Heart Eyes,” a romantic comedy feebly masquerading as a horror movie.The hallmarks of a Hallmark Channel meet-cute are baked into the setup: Ally (Olivia Holt), a young marketer for a jewelry company, at first resists the charms of a handsome freelancer, Jay (Mason Gooding), when they’re paired on a project.But as romance blossoms between the two, horror kicks in as they become the target of the Heart Eyes killer, a hulking maniac who travels the country slaughtering lovers, disguised behind a mask with heart-shaped eye holes that glow red.Ruben tries to keep the action moving. But he’s hampered by a disheveled and directionless script — credited to Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy — that repeatedly strands its characters in idle dialogue scenes, including a tedious episode at the world’s emptiest police station. Holt and Gooding have the chemistry of strangers whose speed date is speed tanking.It’s hard to discern who the film is for when it feels as if it’s been passed around genre writing classes in search of an identity. It’s Valentine’s Day-themed, but the rom-com crowd probably won’t last long with a monster who gruesomely plunges machetes into bodies. Horror fans have seen the film’s many slasher conventions employed before with far more novelty and purpose. The comedy is Nebraska: broad and flat.A horror rom-com can be delightful — “Lisa Frankenstein” nailed it — but this film would put even Cupid in a bad mood.Heart EyesRated R for prodigious violence, gore and literal heartbreak. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Bring Them Down’ Review: Sinister Revenge in Rural Ireland

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      Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan are beleaguered sheep farmers at war in this gory drama.The lush, green, gorgeous scenery of rural Ireland is on generous display in “Bring Them Down,” a drama written and directed by Christopher Andrews. Nevertheless, if you choose to subject yourself to this meticulously crafted but intermittently punishing film, you might emerge with a determination to never visit the place ever. You may also find yourself with a permanent disinclination to ever consume a leg of lamb.The people of this film are sheep farmers and they are not a happy lot. The focus is on two intertwined families. There’s Christopher Abbott’s Michael, a brooder, his black beard an insufficient mask for the ever-grim cast of his face. He lives with his incapacitated father, Ray, and when they’re alone together they speak Irish, an indication of their old-school values.Those are shared by their neighbor Gary (Paul Ready), who’s married to Michael’s ex-girlfriend Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone). The movie opens with a car accident, shortly after Michael’s mother informs him that she’s leaving his father. This crash kills the mother and leaves Caroline with a scar over one side of her face.That’s a lot of water under the bridge. In the present day, Gary and Caroline are the parents of Barry Keoghan’s Jack, a surly but ultimately heartbreakingly sensitive fellow. The shepherding rivalry between the two families grows increasingly vindictive and disturbingly gory as the picture moves along.This portrait of already wounded people who can’t stop inflicting pain on themselves and each other has a great deal of integrity. But if you’re seeking ennobling sentiment, you’ll do well to look elsewhere.Bring Them DownRated R for grisly animal treatment, language, themes. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Kinda Pregnant’ Review: The Belly of the Beast

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      Amy Schumer plays a jealous best friend who fakes her own pregnancy in this Netflix comedy filled with dopey men and miserable women.If the aftermath of the pandemic saw a number of horror movies about the miseries of maternity, another subgenre is making a comeback: the pregnancy comedy. Like “Babes” before it, Tyler Spindel’s “Kinda Pregnant” (on Netflix) takes childbearing, rearing and regretting and spins them into a romp.Starring a feral Amy Schumer, this clunker of a movie opens with a first act that appears filched from “Legally Blonde”: a marriage proposal that isn’t. The romantic letdown — which finds our heroine, Lainy (Schumer), shrieking in Spanx in public — coincides with the pregnancy of her bestie, Kate (Jillian Bell). What’s left for a gal to do other than don a silicone belly in envy?The potential of this bizarre prenatal cosplay for blows — and burns, and a stab wound — to Lainy’s fake stomach does not go overlooked, although the traditional cycle of the seasons seems to have been. Despite tracing Kate’s gestation from autumn to spring, the movie’s weather and attire are all over the place.Most egregiously, the world of “Kinda Pregnant” is filled with dopey men and despairing women whose torments, parental or otherwise, make for a land mine of comedy duds. Will Forte, playing a deus ex man-child, does manage to pull off a few funny lines and some real chemistry with Schumer. But this is a movie less interested in relationships than in the sundry items, from a balloon to a rotisserie chicken, that Lainy can stuff under her shirt to fake a baby bump.Kinda PregnantRated R for foul language and rotisserie chicken gags. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Armand’ Review: When a School Is a Trap

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      Renate Reinsve stars in a drama about an insular community that is intermittently interesting.Technically, “Armand” is not a folk horror movie. Technically, it’s not a horror movie at all. But the director Halfdan Ullmann Tondel wants us to wonder what we’re in for from the very start. First we see, in claustrophobically panicky close-up shots, a woman blazing down the road in her car. She’s speaking urgently on the phone to someone named Armand, asking if he is OK. Something is clearly wrong.Then we’re at a school, and the camera glides along the hallways slowly, as if it is a ghost observing the surroundings that we — and she — are about to enter. Ominous music plays. Something bad is lurking.What the bad thing is takes a while to unfold, and no, it’s not a monster. (Not exactly.) Instead, “Armand” is about the way harm, perpetuated across generations, causes communities to turn insular. Outsiders threaten established order, and must be dealt with accordingly. It’s this theme that makes the film feel like folk horror.But for most of its running time, “Armand,” which Tondel also wrote, feels more like a realist drama, the kind in which a school stands in for the whole of society, much like the 2023 film “The Teacher’s Lounge.” Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve), the woman in the car, is the single mother of 6-year-old Armand, who has done a disturbing thing to a classmate. That classmate’s parents, Sarah and Anders (Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Endre Hellestveit), are headed to the school as well for a meeting about the situation. The headmaster (Oystein Roger) and the school counselor (Vera Veljovic) have decided to put a junior teacher named Sunna (Thea Lambrechts Vaulen) in charge of the meeting. She may be in over her head.There’s a lot of sitting and talking in classrooms, and a lot of taking breaks so people can go to the bathroom or tend to a nosebleed. The meeting progresses in fits and starts, which is as annoying to the characters as it is to the audience: Just when things get started, the attendees stop, get up, go somewhere. We move in and out of the classroom with them, back and forth through the halls, the place eventually starting to appear like a maze in which every hallway simply leads to some place we feel like we’ve already been.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