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    ‘Landscape With Invisible Hand’ Review: Hit Subscribe, Alien Overlords

    The latest film from Cory Finley follows two teens on an alien-controlled earth who stream their love life to an extraterrestrial audience.“Landscape With Invisible Hand” mashes up the teen romantic comedy and alien-invasion horror genres to campy, mixed results. In an opening montage of paintings created by one of our high-school-age heroes, Adam (Asante Blackk), we’re introduced to a near-future in which an alien race known as the Vuvv has taken over Earth, not by force but through salacious dealings with the planet’s most enterprising capitalists. Over time, the Vuvv — who, far from ferocious creatures, resemble hermit crabs without shells and communicate by rubbing their paddle-like hands together — have rendered most Earth jobs obsolete with advanced technology, forcing humans to find creative ways to scrape together enough money to survive.While in art class, Adam falls for the new girl at school, Chloe (Kylie Rogers), and invites her struggling family to stay in the rundown house where he, his mother, Beth (Tiffany Haddish), and sister, Natalie (Brooklynn MacKinzie), are living. Tensions arise between Beth and Chloe’s father (Josh Hamilton) and brother (Michael Gandolfini) because the new arrivals can’t pay rent. This leads Chloe to suggest a “courtship broadcast,” where she and Adam stream their dating life to a paying alien audience — a sort of intergalactic Twitch channel, broadcast through futuristic implants. The Vuvv, who reproduce asexually, have a fixation on human dating culture and romance. It’s as unnerving and darkly funny as it sounds.Based on a young-adult novel by M.T. Anderson, “Landscape With Invisible Hand” is the director Cory Finley’s third feature after “Thoroughbreds,” and “Bad Education,” and like those prior films, it relishes in eerie discontent punctuated by oddball humor. But the plot never fully gels; characters ebb and flow in and out of the spotlight, and soon Adam and Chloe’s get-rich-quick scheme — and its strain on their relationship — falls by the wayside for a much stranger charade involving Beth and a young Vuvv who wants to play the role of a nuclear-family father. The one constant is Adam’s beautifully rendered artwork, which depicts the gradual creep of Vuvv control over human life through a teenager’s eyes.Finley’s allegorical gestures toward issues of class, race and authoritarianism are more than apparent, but the film’s tonal inconsistencies make the satire wobble. There’s certainly intention in the way Finley depicts the Vuvv’s injection of propaganda into the human school curriculum, and how he shows certain Earthlings, like Chloe’s father, eagerly prostrating themselves in front of the alien invaders. But despite real-world parallels, these thematic elements contain no bite. The Vuvv, with their blatant lack of empathy and outdated perception of human society, are treated as jokes from the beginning. As a result, even their most alarming threats to Adam and his family come across as slight and inconsequential, undercutting the film’s central theme of resiliency.Landscape With Invisible HandRated R for science-fiction violence and a space alien’s idea of intimacy. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Birth/Rebirth’ Review: Staying (Not Quite) Alive

    Two women nurture a reanimated child in this grisly gynecological horror movie.Motherhood is both mad and monstrous in “Birth/Rebirth,” Laura Moss’s ultrasmart, ferociously feminist take on the Frankenstein myth. Yet while the story (by Moss and Brendan J. O’Brien) surges to corporeal extremes, the movie is most resonant when — like Prime Video’s “Dead Ringers” and the harrowing AMC+ drama “This Is Going to Hurt” — it resolutely records the gross indignities of everyday procreation.For Dr. Rose Casper (Marin Ireland), a chilly morgue technician, dead tissue is infinitely more interesting than living. In her dingy apartment in the Bronx, Rose experiments obsessively with reanimation, using embryonic stem cells. (How she obtains them involves a sick joke which I refuse to spoil.) A snuffling pig called Muriel has so far been Rose’s sole success.Elsewhere in Rose’s hospital, an overworked maternity nurse named Celie (a terrific Judy Reyes), struggles to find time for her lively six-year-old daughter, Lila (A.J. Lister). But after Lila succumbs to a deadly infection, a guilt-wracked Celie and an avid Rose will find common purpose in revivifying the child’s corpse. What follows is a quietly freakish, slyly humorous tale of devoted co-parenting, with Lila serving as daughter to one woman and science experiment to the other.Wrapped in drab locations and jaundiced lighting (Chananun Chotrungroj’s photography is brilliantly bleak), this grisly gynecological horror movie is not for the squeamish. Pregnancy hasn’t been this perverse since the underappreciated “Alien 3” (1992); yet as the women’s behavior grows ever more shocking — and Ariel Marx’s nerve-plucking score intensifies — Moss offers no rebuke to their heedless amorality. There is only the audience to judge.And, perhaps, Lila. “I’m not getting enough attention,” she whispers to her mother early in the film. Little did she know that all she had to do was die.Birth/RebirthRated R for purloined placentas and stolen semen. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Simone: Woman of the Century’ Review: An Admired Leader in Focus

    Elsa Zylberstein and Rebecca Marder play the French politician Simone Veil in this heavy-handed biopic.In “Simone: Woman of the Century,” the director Olivier Dahan applies the same ultra-glossy lacquer he lavished on biopics of Edith Piaf (“La Vie en Rose”) and Grace Kelly (“Grace of Monaco”) to the life of the French politician Simone Veil (1927-2017), a Holocaust survivor who, as health minister, fought for the legalization of abortion in France and who later served as the first female president of the European Parliament.Veil’s remarkable, decades-spanning career — which also included advocacy for the rights of Algerian prisoners and for patients with H.I.V., at times when both were shunned — calls for a grand canvas. Dahan’s default mode is closer to bombast.Early on, in a sequence set on the brink of the abortion law’s passage in 1974, he supplies a lengthy montage of male legislators shouting invective in close-up. Later, in this decidedly nonchronological film, Veil’s internment at Bergen-Belsen becomes an occasion for Dahan to execute a virtuoso Steadicam shot through the barracks. No matter how grave the situation, “Simone: Woman of the Century” treats it as spectacle.Veil is played at different ages by Rebecca Marder and Elsa Zylberstein. Timeline-wise, the actresses switch sometime around the upheaval of May 1968, although the complicated, at times barely motivated flashback structure means that they are in effect coleads throughout.Dahan, who also wrote the screenplay, provides a serviceable overview of Veil’s accomplishments and ethical sense (partly shaped by her experiences in the camps), and of the barriers she overcame in misogynistic civic spheres. But her biography deserved a more considered treatment — and a considerably less heavy hand.Simone: Woman of the CenturyNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Miguel Wants to Fight’ Review: A Rite of Passage

    In Oz Rodriguez’s coming-of-age film, a martial arts-obsessed teenager is determined to throw his first punch.In the lives of the four protagonists of “Miguel Wants to Fight,” brawls are ubiquitous. But when a fight breaks out on a basketball court and the martial arts film aficionado of the group, Miguel (Tyler Dean Flores), doesn’t participate, it becomes clear that he has never actually thrown a punch.After his parents break the news that his family will be moving soon, Miguel becomes obsessed with picking a fight before he leaves — a misguided way to cope with his anger.Directed by Oz Rodriguez (“Vampires vs. the Bronx”), “Miguel Wants to Fight” is an endearing and offbeat take on the teenage coming-of-age film. It centers on best friends Srini (Suraj Partha), Cass (Imani Lewis), David (Christian Vunipola) and Miguel, who grew up together in Syracuse, N.Y., immersed in the boxing world. Miguel’s father Alberto (Raúl Castillo), owns a gym, and David’s father was a boxing star. Miguel spends his time making TikTok reels of fight scenes starring his friends.There are some laughs and the cast is talented, but the movie ultimately falls flat, missing an opportunity to delve into the insecurity, teen bravado and anger that leads to physical fighting in the first place.Instead, it leans too heavily into references to and re-enactments of classic films, like “The Matrix” or “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which take up space in the film that could instead have been devoted to character development. As a result, “Miguel Wants to Fight” ends up feeling one-note, lacking the depth that might have elevated it to a must-watch movie.Miguel Wants to FightNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. Watch it on Hulu. More

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    ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ Windmill Is for Sale in England

    The property, which was the home of Dick an Dyke’s character in the 1968 film, is listed for 9 million pounds, or $11.4 million.A historic windmill in the English countryside that appeared alongside Dick Van Dyke and a magical flying car in the 1968 movie “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” has gone up for sale.The black-and-white Cobstone Mill, in Buckinghamshire, England, just outside London, is part of a property that also includes a main house, about 37 acres of land and a swimming pool. It could be yours for 9 million pounds (about $11.4 million).The mill is thought to have been built around 1816 and was used to grind cereal until 1873, according to Savills, the real estate firm selling the property. Before the windmill could be used as a movie location it needed substantial renovations. The property had been damaged by a fire and, according to local media reports at the time, squatters had been living in it.In the film, which was loosely based on a children’s book by the James Bond creator Ian Fleming, the windmill served as the home for Mr. Van Dyke’s character, a nutty, widowed inventor named Caractacus Potts, who lives with his children, Jeremy and Jemima. Together with his love interest Truly Scrumptious, played by Sally Ann Howes, and his car, named Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for its distinctive engine sounds, they journey to the land of Vulgaria to battle the tyrant Baron Bomburst.The windmill survived this encounter with Van Dyke’s character’s latest invention. Hughes Warfield/United Artists Britain, via ShutterstockBut the windmill’s film industry connections didn’t end there.In 1971, the actress Hayley Mills bought the property at auction with her husband, Roy Boulting, a film director. Ms. Mills wrote about the first time she saw the property in her 2021 memoir, “Forever Young.”“I recognized it at once as the children’s home in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ and it was love at first sight,” she wrote, envisioning her and her husband watching their child play in the afternoon sun, even though the property was “utterly impractical.”Mr. Boulting then surprised her by buying it at auction for 30,000 pounds (about $38,000). “It was crazy, completely, marvelously crazy,” she wrote. While she hoped the windmill would become her dream home in the country, and while she started renovating the property to make it livable, the windmill’s renovations weren’t finished, according to the autobiography, and the couple later divorced.The property was later owned by David Brown, an English industrialist and a former owner of the automaker Aston Martin. In the 1980s, the property was sold to the current owner, according to Stephen Christie-Miller, one of the realtors on the listing.“It’s such a landmark when you drive through the valley,” Mr. Christie-Miller said, “It dominates.”The windmill is a Grade II-listed building, which means it’s considered of national importance and is legally protected from being demolished or significantly altered without special permission.Though the price tag is steep, there has been interest in the property, Mr. Christie-Miller said, especially for the usually slow month of August during which many prospective buyers are on vacation.“So many people know it,” he said, adding that he was planning to show the windmill to two potential buyers on Wednesday and had already showed it to one couple who were, he said, “very keen.”Since peaking in August last year, house prices in Britain have begun to drop. Last month, prices fell 3.8 percent compared with a year earlier, according to Nationwide Building Society, the steepest annual drop in more than a decade.Between the windmill and the house, the property has six bedrooms and four bathrooms, according to the listing. The windmill’s sails were restored in the past 18 months, according to Savills.With views over the nearby countryside, “the windmill itself would be a lovely place to have an office,” Mr. Christie-Miller said, but added, “not that you’d get any work done.”It’s not just “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” fans who might be excited. The windmill looks over the village of Turville, where scenes from the 1990s English sitcom “Vicar of Dibley” were filmed.Mr. Christie-Miller said the listing stands out in his 40-year career. “It comes up once in a generation,” he said. “It was last on the market in 1988. The next person will probably own it for another 30 years.” More

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    A Dormant Dome for Cinephiles Is Unsettling Hollywood

    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

    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

    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