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      ‘Apartment 7A’ Review: All Devil, Few Details

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      A lackluster prequel to the 1968 horror classic “Rosemary’s Baby” doesn’t have much to add.“Apartment 7A” is a prequel, of sorts, to “Rosemary’s Baby,” still one of the most chilling films ever made about losing agency over your own body. The 1968 horror classic takes place in the fictional Bramford, a rambling apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that seems to have been colonized by a coven of devil worshipers. Early in that film, Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse (John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow), a young couple new to the building, meet a troubled woman in the laundry room. Her name is Terry Gionoffrio. “Apartment 7A” is her story.In the prequel, Terry (played by the reliably good Julia Garner) is a mousy Nebraskan who moved to New York with stars in her eyes. She’s a dancer who’s dying to see her name in lights above a Broadway marquee, just like millions of young people before her. When we meet her, she’s getting her first big break, which unfortunately for her translates to an actual break — of her ankle, that is, onstage. The accident both sidelines her dancing for a while and earns her a reputation around town as “the girl who fell.”A few months later, desperate to be cast in something, she’s back on the circuit. She flubs her audition for the flashy new show from the Broadway producer Alan Marchand (Jim Sturgess). In a last-ditch shooting of her shot, she heads to the Bramford, where Marchand lives. Things don’t go as expected with him. But she happens to meet Roman and Minnie Castevet (Kevin McNally and Dianne Wiest), a weird but generous older couple who just so happen to have an empty spare apartment that she can stay in if she wants. Just till she gets back on her feet.At this point, you can sketch the rough outlines of what will happen next. That’s particularly true if you’ve seen “Rosemary’s Baby,” because the two films are strangely similar, a fact that makes this one feel self-defeating. Most of the audience for “Apartment 7A” will, presumably, be familiar with the older film’s plot. As characters from that film are introduced, we already know how their stories will end, and the screenplay (written by Natalie Erika James, Christian White and Skylar James) holds few additional surprises.That’s the main problem with “Apartment 7A,” though Natalie Erika James directs competently enough. It’s passably spooky, sure. But all interesting prequels have something in common: They shed new light on their predecessors that expands, illuminates or complicates them in some way. “Apartment 7A” feels like a predictable retread.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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      Want to Turn Your House into the Art House? Try Metrograph at Home.

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      The Metrograph theater in New York has expanded to include a streaming platform that spotlights foreign, art house, independent, classic and documentary selections.When the Metrograph theater opened on New York’s Lower East Side in spring of 2016, it wasn’t just a cinema; it was an experience, offering up two screens of new independent films, archival screenings and special events, as well as an on-site bar, restaurant and bookshop. In the years that followed, Metrograph’s reach continued to grow, as did the opportunities for film lovers to patronize the theater beyond its walls, thanks to the establishment of Metrograph Pictures (a distribution company restoring and championing archival releases) and the Metrograph Journal (featuring thoughtful film writing from a variety of contributors).But like so many other theaters, particularly independent ones, Metrograph faced a crisis in the spring of 2020, as Covid forced the doors to close at 7 Ludlow St. But that July, the company launched what was initially known as Metrograph Digital, with an ambitious calendar of live screening events developed and curated by the theater’s programming team, featuring new releases and repertory titles supplemented by guest introductions and interviews. Those events were initially limited to Metrograph members, but that October, the program expanded to include screenings that were available to nonmembers à la carte.In the years that followed, the service — rechristened Metrograph at Home — expanded from the theater’s website into the streaming platform space, transforming a pandemic stopgap into a specialty streamer spotlighting foreign, art house, independent, classic and documentary selections and monthly verticals. Like similar services we’ve spotlighted here, the library may not be gigantic (it currently boasts 158 feature films, 10 short films, and 55 original videos), but the curation is excellent, the interface is easy to use and the audio and video quality are top-notch. Best of all, it’s affordable; access is bundled with a Metrograph Membership, which is only $5 per month or $50 annually (and which also includes discounted tickets, special events and other perks for in-person members).Here are a few recommendations from their current library:‘The French’: One of Metrograph Pictures’s proudest discoveries is this 1982 documentary from the expatriate American photographer and filmmaker William Klein, who was the first director ever granted permission to shoot at the French Open. He captures the 1981 tournament, in which Bjorn Borg defeated Ivan Lendl, in cinéma vérité style; we see plenty of action on the courts, including Borg’s dramatic victory, but Klein seems less interested in the spotlight than the margins, and the most fascinating footage finds sports gods hanging out and talking shop in the locker room, or trading strategy and gossip in the stands. (There are also plenty of opportunities to observe John McEnroe being a brat.) It’s a panoramic view, keenly observed, and serves as a valuable time capsule of the sport in an earthier and less corporatized era.Isabelle Adjani and Michael Hogben in “Possession.”Gaumont‘Possession’: When Andrzej Zulawski’s psychological horror drama was first released in the United States in 1983, it was in a badly butchered cut, excising much of the film’s weightier material to appeal to a straightforward horror audience that dismissed it. It was all but impossible to see in its original form for years, but Metrograph Pictures oversaw a new 4K restoration, which was the first film screened at the theater when it reopened in the fall of 2021. It’s a deeply unsettling picture, which begins with the marriage of its focal couple (played to the hilt by Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill) in total disrepair, and things go steeply downhill from there; suffice it to say that Adjani’s subway miscarriage is one of the most stunning pieces of acting ever committed to film, a scene that remains indescribable in spite of its notoriety and meme-ability.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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      ‘We Will Dance Again’ Review: Remembering Oct. 7

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      In this documentary by Yariv Mozer, Israelis who attended the Nova music festival near the Gaza border describe how they survived the attack last year.“We Will Dance Again” reconstructs the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 from the perspectives of attendees of the Nova music festival. At least 360 people were killed at the event that was near the border with Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. Directed by Yariv Mozer, this documentary opens with an acknowledgment of the fraught subject matter. “The human cost of the Hamas massacre in Israel and the war that followed in Gaza has been catastrophic for both Israelis and Palestinians,” the text says. Citing death tolls from both sides of the conflict, it adds, “This film cannot tell everyone’s story.”That caveat also hints at why assessing “We Will Dance Again” as a movie is so difficult. Impassioned viewers will undoubtedly have their own opinions, and it would be disingenuous to say that a film released in advance of the attack’s anniversary — and in the middle of an active war — could somehow be seen apart from the divisive politics surrounding the region.Through phone videos, interviews with festivalgoers and, eventually, footage attributed to Hamas fighters, “We Will Dance Again” assembles a timeline of how the attack was experienced at the festival, where people had gathered to attend a multiday rave. Some remember spotting rocket fire as the sun rose on the morning of Oct. 7. “Wow, Lali, there’s fireworks!” one interviewee, Liel Shitrit, known as Lali, quotes a friend as saying. “They really went all out this year!” Soon after, over images of streaks in the sky, we hear an off-camera voice speculate that “the drugs are kicking in.”But the interviewees explain how the reality of the situation became clear. As the film’s narrative unfolds, we hear from witnesses like Noa Beer, who recounts a harrowing escape by car and a call to the police, who she says didn’t yet understand the situation. Elinor Gambarian, a single mother, hid inside a refrigerator.Two of the interviewees, Eitan Halley and Ziv Abud, recall a grenade attack on a roadside shelter where they had taken refuge; both commend efforts by Aner Shapira, who was killed, to toss back grenades before they exploded. Halley says he saw Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was taken hostage by Hamas and whose body was later recovered, in the immediate aftermath of the blast.While the fluid editing of such disparate source material is impressive, some of Mozer’s aesthetic choices tend to cheapen the testimonies. (The rave-like electronic scoring as Shitrit describes looking for circling birds to see where gunfire was coming from seems particularly unnecessary.) But if the shock of that day’s violence has faded after a year, “We Will Dance Again” aims to keep it visible, and to memorialize it viscerally.We Will Dance AgainNot rated. In Hebrew, English and Arabic, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      Kathryn Crosby, Actress and Bing Crosby’s Widow, Dies at 90

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      She was a Texas-born starlet when she married the beloved crooner, but put aside her career at his urging.Kathryn Crosby, a Texas-born beauty queen and aspiring actress who put aside her movie career when she married Bing Crosby, the movie star and honey-voiced baritone, died on Friday at her home in Hillsborough, Calif. She was 90.Harlan Boll, a publicist speaking for her family, announced her death. The pair met cute on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles in 1953. Kathryn Grant, as she was then known, was a new contract player rushing to deliver a load of petticoats to the wardrobe department while on her way to a tennis game. Mr. Crosby, the laconic, blue-eyed heart throb, was already an American institution.“What’s your rush, Tex?” Mr. Crosby asked, standing in the door of his dressing room. She stopped short, and down went the petticoats and her tennis racket.They kept colliding, though less dramatically, in the days that followed — Ms. Crosby even tried out for a part in one of Mr. Crosby’s big hits, “White Christmas.” When she asked to interview the star for her column, “Texas Girl in Hollywood,” which was running in several Texas newspapers, he finagled the appointment into a dinner date at Chasen’s, the Hollywood canteen. On the drive home, he took her hand and sang “You’d Be So Easy to Love.” She was 19; he was 49.Kathryn Grant, as she was then known, with Mr. Crosby at the 27th Academy Awards in 1955.Bettmann/Getty ImagesTheir courtship was far from easy, though Mr. Crosby proposed that year. The star, beloved for his public image as a laid-back everyman, was diffident and mercurial. He disappeared for months at a time, set wedding dates and broke them — once because, as he joked, he’d left his toupee at home, and once because another romantic entanglement had threatened suicide. He was also involved with Grace Kelly, his co-star in “The Country Girl” and “High Society.” The couple finally married in a Las Vegas courthouse in 1957.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Optimus Prime and Megatron Learned to Transform in ‘Transformers One’

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      The director Josh Cooley narrates an action scene from the film.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.Transforming can be tough, especially if you’ve never done it before and you’re being shot at while tumbling down a hill.That’s where the characters find themselves in “Transformers One,” the animated origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron. Up to this point in the movie, the film’s leads have not been in the possession of the cogs needed to transform. Having just acquired them, the characters must quickly figure out how to use their new powers while under attack. It initially doesn’t go well.“I had all the toys growing up,” the director Josh Cooley said in an interview. “Most of the time, they were just sitting around on the ground half-transformed because they were actually pretty hard to do.” Cooley said he thought it would be enjoyable to watch the characters struggle the same way he struggled with his toys.Regarding that tumble, Cooley said that he wanted to use the hill to make transforming even more difficult. He said that one of his references was a cheese rolling competition that takes place each year in England.Read the “Transformers One” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      11 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week

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      Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.Critic’s PickA double dose of dark comedy.Sebastian Stan in “A Different Man.”A24‘A Different Man’Edward (Sebastian Stan), a man with a condition that warps his facial features, discovers his problems are internal after he gets cosmetic surgery and meets another man, Oswald (Adam Pearson), who has the same condition in this dark comedy written and directed by Aaron Schimberg.From our review:Like many literary and cinematic fables before it — think of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” or “The Elephant Man” — “A Different Man” is really a morality play, of a kind. It’s just that the moral isn’t all that straightforward. It’s about a societal obsession with particular standards of beauty. The fact that conventionally attractive people, or people with certain features and skin colors, tend to encounter more success in life simply by dint of genetic luck is explicit throughout. But that fact is so obvious, and stated so blatantly outright, that it feels like a joke.In theaters. Read the full review.Like two cool cats who just swallowed the canary.Brad Pitt and George Clooney enter their Redford-Newman era in “Wolfs,” written and directed by Jon Watts.Apple TV‘Wolfs’George Clooney and Brad Pitt play underworld fixers — the people you call to make criminal evidence disappear — who begrudgingly team up for a job.From our review:It isn’t remotely tense or mysterious, and its modest thrills derive wholly from the spectacle of two beautifully aged, primped, pampered and expensive film stars going through the motions with winks and a degree of brittle charm. The movie is a trifle, and it knows it. Mostly, though, “Wolfs,” written and directed by Jon Watts, is an excuse for its two leads to riff on their own personas, which can be faintly amusing and certainly watchable but also insufferably smug. It’s insufferable a lot.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickGirls gone gory.Demi Moore in “The Substance.”Mubi‘The Substance’In this body horror stunner directed by Coralie Fargeat, Elisabeth (Demi Moore) is an aging starlet who tries a new drug that promises to create a younger, better version of herself (Sue, played by Margaret Qualley). It performs as advertised, but with disastrous and disgusting consequences.From our review:Be warned: This is a very gory and often bombastic movie. The logic is also not airtight, especially when it comes to whether, and how, Sue and Elisabeth share a consciousness. … It’s all metaphor, though, not in the least bit meant for a literal analysis. That’s an awkward thing to mix into a movie that turns every subtext into text, which means its constant hammering of its points starts to feel patronizing, as if we might not get it. But it’s also quite funny, and the worse things become for Elisabeth, the harder it is not to giggle with glee. By the end, things have become monstrous and mad.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickSisters, under the skin.Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne in “His Three Daughters,” directed by Azazel Jacobs.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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      Natasha Lyonne’s Success Is Driven by a Sense of Mortality

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      Natasha Lyonne has her funeral all planned out.Not just planned, really, but choreographed, produced and directed, complete with music cues and writing prompts, to calibrate the emotion just right. “Otherwise it can run long,” she explained. So Lyonne, the downtown vivant actress, writer and director, has diligently assigned her passel of famous friends “jobs that they didn’t want.”There will be a month of commemorative screenings at Film Forum and songs by Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs (“I have a sworn promise that she performs; I’m very grateful”) and the “Color Purple” star Danielle Brooks, because her voice “breaks my heart.” The comedian John Mulaney will be on hand to punch up material. “I actually tasked him with writing speeches for people that wouldn’t want to get onstage,” Lyonne said, like her BFF Chloë Sevigny. “I was like: You need to give Chloë some jokes.”The plot she acquired, at the Hollywood Forever cemetery, alongside her boyfriend at the time, Fred Armisen, she has now graciously ceded to his wife, Riki Lindhome. “I probably don’t want to be buried in Los Angeles anyway, if I’m honest,” she allowed. But she’s still making him the funerary musical supervisor.That Lyonne, at 45, has thought at length about her own demise is, to anyone who knows her or her oeuvre, not surprising. All of her recent, most celebrated projects — including “Russian Doll,” the Emmy-winning Netflix series; “Poker Face,” the retro crime procedural on Peacock; and her latest role, in the Netflix drama “His Three Daughters” — find her confronting life’s end. She does it with a spectacular, bewitching buoyancy. Even in “His Three Daughters,” in which she displays an unexpected reserve (but exuberant hair) opposite Carrie Coon and Elizabeth Olsen as estranged sisters caring for their father in his last days. It’s earning her Oscar talk.As a producer, Lyonne “likes the grind and the hustle, and the hard work that comes with it,” said Amy Poehler. “That’s not always the case.”OK McCausland for The New York TimesSo, when we found ourselves in an East Village restaurant on a drizzly Friday night, ordering a dessert made of Pop Rocks and talking about death, it felt just as the universe — or New York City, same difference — intended.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