Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Mitzi Gaynor, Leading Lady of Movie Musicals, Is Dead at 93

      by

      She was best known for starring in the 1958 screen version of “South Pacific.” But her Hollywood career was brief, and she soon shifted her focus to Las Vegas and TV.Mitzi Gaynor, the bubbly actress, singer and dancer who landed one of the most coveted movie roles of the mid-20th century, the female lead in “South Pacific,” but who abandoned film as the era of movie musicals came to an end, died on Thursday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 93. Her managers, Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda, confirmed the death.The role of Nellie Forbush, a World War II Navy nurse and (in the words of a song lyric) a “cockeyed optimist” in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s hit 1949 Broadway musical, had been originated and defined by Mary Martin. But when it came time to cast the 1958 movie of “South Pacific,” some considered Ms. Martin too old (she was in her 40s) and perhaps too strong-voiced for any actor who might be cast opposite her. (Ezio Pinza, her Broadway co-star, had died.)Doris Day was considered. Mike Todd wanted his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, to play the role. Ms. Gaynor was the only candidate to agree to do a screen test, she recalled decades later, although she was an established actress, with a dozen films, seven of them musicals, to her credit.In fact, she was shooting “The Joker Is Wild” (1957), a musical drama with Frank Sinatra, when Oscar Hammerstein II came to town and asked to hear her sing. (Ms. Gaynor always credited Sinatra with making her best-known role possible, because he asked for a change in the shooting schedule that would give her a day off to audition.)Ms. Gaynor in 1962. A year later, she would make her last movie, but she became a star in Las Vegas.Don Brinn/Associated Press“South Pacific” was a box-office smash, and Ms. Gaynor’s performance, opposite Rossano Brazzi, was well received. (She turned out to be the only one of the film’s stars to do her own singing.) But she made only three more films, all comedies without music; the last of them, “For Love or Money” with Kirk Douglas, was released in 1963. She turned instead to Las Vegas, where she headlined shows at major resorts for more than a decade, and to television.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

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Rumours’ Review: No One Will Save Us

      by

      Cate Blanchett stars as a lusty, preening stateswomen in a geopolitical satire from the experimental filmmaker Guy Maddin.“It’s better to burn out than to fade away” is both a Neil Young lyric and the quote that encapsulates the ethos of “Rumours,” an extremely funny geopolitical satire from the fertile imagination of Guy Maddin, the Canadian experimental filmmaker who once put Isabella Rossellini into a pair of beer-filled glass legs.There are no prostheses, see-through or otherwise, in “Rumours,” though there are substitute delights: a brain the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, a chatbot designed to ensnare pedophiles and mummified Iron Age corpses. All these creations bedevil the seven fictional heads of state who have convened at an annual G7 summit hosted by Germany, whose randy leader (Cate Blanchett) can’t wait to get it on with her sexy Canadian counterpart (Roy Dupuis). Over a lengthy lunch in a gazebo at a woodsy estate, the seven struggle to draft a joint statement on an unspecified global crisis, unaware that their anodyne musings on peace and prosperity will soon be derailed by mud-splattered mayhem and onanistic zombies.Sporadically ingenious, occasionally chilling and entirely bonkers, “Rumours” sees Maddin (writing and directing with his longtime collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson) abandoning his more familiar black-and-white, silent-film aesthetic for vibrant color. His fondness for soapy melodrama and bawdy humor, though, remains intact. Canada and Germany slip off for some sylvan slap-and-tickle, unnoticed by Canada’s former lover, the uptight United Kingdom (Nikki Amuka-Bird). Back at the table, France (Denis Ménochet) and Japan (Takehiro Hira) are bonding over historical speeches, while Italy (Rolando Ravello) is repenting for having once dressed up as Mussolini. An apparently addled United States (Charles Dance, who remains however resolutely British) just wants a nap.Shot in Hungary, Stefan Ciupek’s richly textured and often surreal images drive a mood that darkens inexorably from goofy to skin-pricklingly ominous. As night falls, the seven find themselves abandoned in the forest with neither cell service nor servants. Unnerved by eerie sounds and a vile wind, they discover that an ancient bog man, which Germany had exhumed, has now caused other oozing carcasses to rise up, some with penises slung around their necks like knobby necklaces. Or maybe they’re just filthy political protesters?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

    • 63 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Line’ Review: Greek Tragedy

      by

      The dark side of college fraternity life comes to light in this harrowing, well-acted campus drama.Films about fraternities tend to describe a familiar arc of moral degradation, and Ethan Berger’s campus cautionary tale “The Line,” about the initiation of freshmen into a well-heeled but toxic brotherhood at a Southern liberal arts college, is no exception: You probably won’t be shocked to learn that frat life is crude, boorish and dangerous, as “The Line” makes abundantly clear. But if the movie’s portrayal of rivalrous (and homoerotic) hypermasculinity doesn’t always seem original, it is nevertheless realized with seriousness and vigor. Berger takes a keen anthropological approach to the rites and rituals of the fictitious Kappa Nu Alpha house, and he makes it so that you can almost smell the stale beer and crumpled Ralph Lauren. The details are believable, and therefore more disturbing.Our entree into the crass, bad-mannered world of KNA is Tom Backster (Alex Wolff), an obtuse sophomore militantly devoted to the traditions of the frat. Wolff plays him with a thick, mealy-mouthed Southern accent, which he painfully exaggerates to better fit in with his dunderheaded peers, for whom articulating a full sentence is tantamount to betrayal.Tom’s clashes with Gettys O’Brien (Austin Abrams), the club’s handsome, Billy Budd-esque newcomer who repeatedly flaunts the rules, is the conflict at the heart of the movie. Its escalation is predictable, but Wolff and Abrams (both excellent) embody their characters with intensity and conviction, which makes even the film’s most heightened confrontations feel deeply plausible.The LineNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Woman of the Hour’ Review: Who is Bachelor No. 3?

      by

      Anna Kendrick’s ably directed drama about a real-life serial killer focuses on his victims instead.An oft-repeated quotation usually attributed to the writer Margaret Atwood — it’s actually a paraphrase, but no matter — posits that men are afraid women will laugh at them, while women are afraid men will murder them. It’s repeated frequently because it has the ring of truth. Most women have experienced the panicked discomfort of placating a man who seems unhappy with some response of hers, because it’s unclear what will happen if she doesn’t. Whether he is a guy at a bar, an explosive partner, a random stranger, a colleague after hours or someone else, her own unease takes a back seat to mollifying his bruised ego.“Woman of the Hour,” directed by Anna Kendrick and written by Ian McDonald, is this maxim in the form of a feature-length movie. It’s based on the true story of Rodney Alcala, a serial killer who sexually assaulted his victims. He was convicted of murdering six women and one girl in the 1970s, though text at the end of the movie states that some authorities believe he murdered as many as 130 women.Alcala also, improbably, appeared as Bachelor No. 1 on a 1978 episode of “The Dating Game,” right in the middle of a yearslong killing spree. He won, though the woman on the show subsequently declined to go on a date with him because he creeped her out.That “Dating Game” appearance, lightly fictionalized (he’s become Bachelor No. 3, for one thing), provides one of the main narrative threads in “Woman of the Hour,” named for the woman who queries the three bachelor contestants during the show. Kendrick plays the woman, here named Sheryl, an aspiring actress on the verge of giving up altogether and leaving Los Angeles. Her agent convinces her to go on the show because it will get her “seen,” and Sheryl reluctantly agrees.There are other women in other timelines, too. In 1979, a teenage runaway (Autumn Best) is trying to find somewhere to sleep and meets a gentle man who compliments her looks. In 1971, a flight attendant (Kathryn Gallagher) is moving into her new New York City apartment and asks the guy across the street for help. In 1977, a pregnant woman abandoned by her boyfriend (Kelley Jakle) has met a longhaired photographer who seems like a sweet guy. And in 1978, a woman (Nicolette Robinson) attending a taping of “The Dating Game” suddenly begins to feel nervous about one of the guys onstage.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

    • 63 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Union’ Review: Amazon Workers Unionize

      by

      As this documentary by Brett Story and Stephen Maing chronicles, the efforts to unionize a warehouse in New York were successful — but also a grind.When employees at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island voted to unionize in 2022, the result was seen as a major victory for organized labor. A year earlier, the documentarians Brett Story (“The Hottest August”) and Stephen Maing (“Crime + Punishment”) got on the ground with the workers and the organizers; in their engrossing new film, “Union,” they show how the vote’s outcome was hardly assured.The filmmakers introduce Christian Smalls — a founder of the Amazon Labor Union, the group striving to represent the workers at the JFK8 fulfillment center — as he grills food at a tent outside the warehouse. Even then, in 2021, Smalls is already, as a woman meeting him puts it, “low-key famous,” having been fired in 2020 after planning and attending a walkout over pandemic safety conditions.“Union” is partly about the grind of organizing: of chatting with workers over burgers, of attending video meetings, of resolving petty disputes. Smalls’s leadership does not always command the group’s full confidence. Natalie Monarrez, an early ally, grows disillusioned as “Union” proceeds. “I can’t leave one boys’ club at Amazon and work for another boys’ club in the union,” she tells Madeline Wesley, an organizer and recent college graduate who becomes another compelling voice in the story.Like Barbara Kopple’s organized labor documentary “American Dream,” “Union” is as interested in intra-union disputes as it is in the fight writ large. But the external obstacles are clear as well, as Smalls and company face daunting math and an anti-union campaign from inside, where the sometimes-tense footage, the filmmakers have said, was shot by the workers themselves.UnionNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Nocturnes’ Review: They Come at Night

      by

      In the forests of northeast India, an ecologist tracking moths creates a tiny oasis of light in the darkness.Early in the enlightened nature documentary “Nocturnes,” a simple cut captures the mix of micro and macro that its directors, Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan, explore.Mansi Mungee, a quantitative ecologist, is counting moths in the forests of northeast India by hanging a lamp-lit sheet of fabric for the insects to land on. One such setup becomes a tiny oasis of light in the woods, and then, suddenly, we see the moon. Through this visual play with scale, moths and humans are placed in perspective as fellow creatures on the same level in the cosmos.“Nocturnes” is about Mungee’s hard work as a scientist, scouting and watching, and it’s also about the land itself. This lush and gorgeous stretch of Arunachal Pradesh, its misty landscapes drizzled with rain, has its own life apart from the scientific observers who come to the area. Mungee is measuring the sizes of hawk moths at different elevations and the effects of changing temperatures, but the filmmakers allow our gaze to dwell on the arabesques of wings on the hanging sheets, or, by day, the ethereal tree cover.This isn’t nature as an orderly picture book. Mungee and her team at one point must smash fallen rocks to clear a road, and they patiently endure cold and damp weather. In the award-winning film’s sound design, the din of animals — rustling and fluttering, plus calls of all sorts — becomes a raucous narration of its own.The moths remain a puzzle of data that awaits analysis. Dutta and Srinivasan’s understated approach shows research and nature in action without pretending to make a forest give up its secrets.NocturnesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘High Tide’ Review: Between Two Worlds

      by

      Written and directed by Marco Calvani, this film follows a gay Brazilian man working under the table one summer in Provincetown, Mass.Finding and securing a sense of belonging is at the heart of “High Tide.” This poignant film, written and directed by Marco Calvani, highlights the life that Lourenço (Marco Pigossi) strives to protect as a gay Brazilian in the United States.Newly dumped by his boyfriend, Lourenço is suddenly alone for the summer, working under the table in Provincetown, Mass., on a tourist visa. In this gay haven, he is far away from his religious mother, whom he isn’t out to. (On a video call, she questions whether he has a photo of Jesus in his bedroom.)The cinematographer, Oscar Ignacio Jimeñez, shoots Provincetown — a “beautiful bubble,” as Lourenço calls it — as if it is wrapping its cleansing shores and cozy cottages around Lourenço, who makes ends meet by cleaning houses.Kindness and community flourish through compassionate figures, including Lourenço’s protective landlord (Bill Irwin) and a free-spirited artist (Marisa Tomei, also an executive producer) whom he befriends while working on a painting job at her house. At the beach, he hits it off with a nurse from New York named Maurice (James Bland), one of the few Black tourists in the mostly white town.Even though it’s unclear whether Lourenço will return to rural Brazil, the thought haunts him throughout his visit. With his exceptionally lived-in performance, Pigossi brings Lourenço’s heartbreaking emotions to life, making even the script’s contrivances feel natural.His eyes alone are evocative, like flickering bulbs fighting to stay lit.High TideRated R for language, club drugs, nudity and steamy sex. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 50 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Goodrich’ Review: Daddy Lessons

      by

      An art gallery owner (Michael Keaton) gets a shock when his second wife (Laura Benanti) goes to rehab and he has to take care of their twins.“Goodrich,” by Hallie Meyers-Shyer, is a crowd-pleasing family comedy so frankly observed that you can imagine the first draft being scribbled on the back of a therapy bill.An art gallery owner named Andy Goodrich (Michael Keaton) gets shocked out of his self-absorption when his second wife, Naomi (Laura Benanti), phones to announce that she’s checked herself into 90 days of Malibu rehab. Andy hadn’t noticed she was strung out on prescription pills, much to the disdain of everyone else who had, including the couple’s 9-year-old twins, Billie and Mose (Vivien Lyra Blair and Jacob Kopera), and his 30-something daughter, Grace (Mila Kunis), from his first marriage, who rightly refuses to pick up his slack.Today’s modern father is expected to be more engaged than when Keaton first faced elementary school drop-off in the 1983 movie “Mr. Mom.” Yet, Meyers-Shyer makes clear that women are still shouldering the burden — and blame. Upon realizing he has no clue where his family stores the spices, Andy sputters in frustration, “Why would somebody keep the salt there?”That joke, plus dozens of others, hits its target like a pie to the face. Keaton’s an old pro at getting audiences to love a well-intentioned jerk, and the script gets good chuckles out of his inconsiderate attempts at generosity — offering to take Grace, who is pregnant, out for sushi, or treating the tykes to a movie night where he insists on watching “Casablanca.”Meyers-Shyer is a realist, so don’t expect Andy to turn his life around after delivering a big, wet-eyed speech. But Kunis’s Grace gets a great one about loving him despite his shortcomings that’s so honest and raw she made me giggle, tear up and giggle again.GoodrichRated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. In theaters. More