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      ‘Raymond & Ray’ Review: Oh, Brother

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      Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke struggle to dig themselves out of this dreary drama about damaged siblings reckoning with their father’s death.A movie that spends much of its time at a funeral home, a morgue and a grave site is unlikely to be a bundle of fun, but “Raymond & Ray” is a humdinger of hopelessness. Only the efforts of Ewan McGregor and, especially, Ethan Hawke, as the estranged half brothers of the title, save this doleful drama from sinking entirely into bathos.En route to bury the father they both loathed, the siblings strain to reconnect. Raymond (McGregor) is a sad-sack businessman on the precipice of his third divorce; Ray (Hawke) is a recovering addict and reclusive trumpet player. Both are deeply damaged, scrubbed of self-confidence and shying from emotional connection. Imagine their shock when conversations with their father’s circle of friends reveal a man they barely recognize from the womanizing abuser who raised them.These bones of a nuanced, even moving story are soon boiled into a watery stock of familial surprises and tragicomic setups. Some of these feel wearyingly forced, like the father leaving behind a spirited ex-lover (Maribel Verdú) and a wry nurse (Sophie Okonedo), each of whom connects with one of the brothers. Along with Vondie Curtis Hall, as the father’s snazzy pastor, Verdú and Okonedo bring warmth and life to the movie, yet their characters are little more than convenient romantic props and vectors of healing and wisdom — narrative devices to nudge the brothers forward.Written and directed by Rodrigo García, “Raymond & Ray” is a funeral-as-exorcism movie, as inert as the image of the detested parent, sprawled naked in his coffin — a man so carelessly cruel he gave both brothers the same name.Raymond & RayRated R for one nude woman and two broken men. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      ‘V/H/S/99’ Review: Death on the Way to DVD

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      The long-running horror anthology has a new installment.The problem with being buried alive, dramatically speaking, is that it’s hard for things to get worse. When screaming in a coffin, the sound of rain and dirt pitter-patting above, how do you raise the stakes?In “Suicide Bid,” one of the gooey, squirmy shorts in “V/H/S/99,” the solid fifth installment of the found footage anthology series, Johannes Roberts, its writer and director, finds a way. While not wildly original, his jack-in-the-box surprises are skillfully, tautly executed. If you have a taste for schlock with shocks, this works.When “The Blair Witch Project” popularized the found footage genre, the most maddening question in horror shifted from “Why did those fools go into that dark room?” to “Why don’t those idiots turn off the camera?” Rarely was there a great answer, but terror-addicts will overlook a lot of contrivances if you can scare or gross them out enough. While the “V/H/S” franchise has always been uneven, last year’s “V/H/S/94” was its best, featuring a cleverly shot entry in a funeral home by Simon Barrett and a giddily unnerving movie in the sewer movie by then-newcomer Chloe Okuno, whose latest feature “Watcher” has gotten raves.Building on that success, “V/H/S/99” smartly dispenses with the wraparound plot that was always the worst part of all its predecessors, but finds a creative if unnecessary connective tissue. The shorts are better tied together by how they subvert current 1990s nostalgia, digging into the darkest side of Y2K and Woodstock 99 and other cultural artifacts from the final decade of the last millennium.The director Maggie Levin sharply captures, skewers and celebrates the atmosphere of the Generation X indie music scene in “Shredding,” about a band that revisits the site of a concert disaster. In an idea so perfect it makes you wonder why you haven’t seen it before, “Ozzy’s Dungeon,” directed by Steven Ellison, a.k.a. Flying Lotus, explores the ugly undercurrents of the popular kids game show “Double Dare” where contestants were regularly humiliated by being splashed with colorful liquids (Steven Ogg is an ominously oily host). “Gawkers” performs a similar unpacking, but with “American Pie”-like comedies, but the creepy voyeurism of teenage boys receives a slithery comeuppance.These revenge stories move methodically from the familiar to the monstrous. They lean into gore, excess and, critically, smirking humor. A commitment to its staticky, period-appropriate aesthetic is the only thing its artists take deadly seriously. Sometimes, the playfulness tips over into goofy camp as in the final short “To Hell and Back,” whose title tells you the plot but whose vibe is amateurish haunted house. Still, in the right mood, even that can be dopey fun.V/H/S/99Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. Watch on Shudder. More

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      ‘Ticket to Paradise’ Review: Yes, They Like Piña Coladas

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      George Clooney and Julia Roberts take another dip into romantic comedy with this Bali-set film.“Ticket to Paradise,” the latest vacation romp from the filmmaker Ol Parker (who penned “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” and wrote and directed “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”), is a screwball adventure that forgets to pack the laughs. Having made a mint off his picturesque travelogues of Jaipur and Greece, Parker — who never met a mosquito that wasn’t edited out in post — now concocts a fantasyland Bali where an American law school graduate named Lily (Kaitlyn Dever) falls in love with a dimpled kelp farmer (Maxime Bouttier) and agrees to marry him one month after he quite literally fishes her from the sea.The script by Parker and Daniel Pipski has scrubbed away any apprehensions concerning economics, education or class. (Lily’s intended, Gede, lives in a well-appointed beach hut filled with leather-bound books.) Nevertheless, Lily’s engagement proves to be the one thing able to unite her estranged parents David and Georgia (George Clooney and Julia Roberts), who hop on a plane to prevent the wedding. Any apprehensions the audience might have concerning the plot are confirmed during this flight sequence where the spiteful exes discover that not only are they stuck in the same seat row, but Georgia’s current boyfriend, a puppyish Frenchman (Lucas Bravo), is — surprise! — the pilot.Such contrivances (and the even more ludicrous ones to follow) could work if the comedy vibrated on the edge of mania, if Roberts had a jolt of Katharine Hepburn’s wackadoo electricity or if Clooney’s Clark Gable-esque grin allowed him to convincingly grab a spear and hunt a wild pig when he hasn’t eaten since lunch. But these stars are too aware that the film’s draw is simply seeing the two of them together. Roberts and Clooney wear their stature like sweatpants, rousing themselves to do little more than spit insults like competitive siblings. They’re selling their own comfortable rapport, not their characters’ romantic tension.When Parker needs to project that Roberts is steaming mad, he puts a clothes steamer in her hand so she can deliver her gripes between gusts of hot air. Dever, a major talent who will likely win her own Oscar someday, is too earnest to commit to inanity, while the marvelous Billie Lourd — the one cast member who can execute the tone — is squandered in a bit part where her sole personality trait is being drunk.Eventually, the film succumbs to the actors’ delusion that they’re in a sincere dramedy where people also conveniently get bitten by poisonous snakes. The score shifts from playful flutes to somber piano chords; the lighting remains golden, bathing the actors in an apricot glow at the expense of forcing half the movie to take place at sunrise or sunset.Locals know best whether Parker’s depiction of Balinese nuptials is accurate. (This critic is so far unable to confirm the rite where a bride taps her bare foot three times on a coconut.) The more authentic custom may be when David and Georgia resurrect their old college ritual: beer pong. It’s the film’s best scene as the soundtrack blasts House of Pain’s “Jump Around” at such a volume that there’s no emphasis on dialogue, only the visual delight of Julia Roberts and George Clooney goofing around.Ticket to ParadiseRated PG-13 for strong language and a mild suggestion of sexuality. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Quintessa Swindell, a Trans and Nonbinary Star of DC’s ‘Black Adam’

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      “My trans and nonbinary identity is the thing that I’m the most confident about in my life,” Mx. Swindell said.Name: Quintessa SwindellAge: 25Hometown: Virginia Beach, Va.Now Lives: In a loft in Downtown Los Angeles and a one-bedroom apartment in the East Village of Manhattan.Claim to Fame: Quintessa Swindell is a nonbinary trans actor who stars in DC’s “Black Adam,” a big-budget film in which Mx. Swindell plays Cyclone, a superhero who has the power to manipulate the wind. The film, which opens on Oct. 21 and also stars Dwayne Johnson, marks one of the first times that a transgender actor has been cast in a main role in a DC production. “My trans and nonbinary identity is the thing that I’m the most confident about in my life,” Mx. Swindell said. “Having that understanding and comfort has enabled me to progress through my life with way more ease than I ever had in the past.”Big Break: Raised by a single father in Virginia Beach, Mx. Swindell took theater classes at the Governor’s School for the Arts during high school as an outlet for personal growth. “Acting became therapy sessions because I was forced to translate bottled-up feelings into whatever scenes I was studying,” Mx. Swindell said.In 2015, Mx. Swindell moved to New York City to study theater at Marymount Manhattan, before dropping out two years later to pursue acting in Los Angeles. A former acting coach put Mx. Swindell in touch with Robert Myerow, a talent agent at the Gersh Agency, which led to roles in the 2018 film “Granada Nights” and, later, as a high school senior grappling with family issues on HBO’s “In Treatment.” “I’m always super-focused on how every performance or piece of work can be better than the last,” Mx. Swindell said.Mx. Swindell plays Cyclone in “Black Adam,” who has the power to manipulate the wind.Frank Masi/Warner Bros.Latest Project: Balancing comic-book blockbusters with independent films, Mx. Swindell also stars in “Master Gardener,” a philosophical thriller with Sigourney Weaver that premiered last month at the Venice Film Festival. (The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis called the film “an austere, beautiful, romantic, wordy, implausible and touchingly Utopian story of love, loneliness, violence and redemption.”) “When I met Sigourney, the first thing I thought was, ‘How am I possibly going to thank her for everything she has done?’” Mx. Swindell said.Mx. Swindell also stars in “Master Gardener,” a thriller with Sigourney Weaver that premiered at the Venice Film Festival.Jingyu Lin for The New York TimesNext Thing: Mx. Swindell is in the early stages of producing two films that “say something about the world we live in today.” One is “a movie about female dispatch riders during World War II.” The other is “about two female D.J. pioneers in London’s ‘second summer of love.’”Gender Performances: Mx. Swindell found New York City to be a wellspring for identity studies — not only in college classrooms, but at after-hours parties like Battle Hymn, where gender fluidity was flaunted and celebrated. “I was learning things in my gender-studies classes, and at the same time I was going out at night and seeing the very things I was learning about in the wild.” More

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      ‘Triangle of Sadness’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

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      ‘Year One: A Political Odyssey’ Review: Biden by the Numbers

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      Despite the insider access, a documentary about the president’s first year in office is short on intriguing tidbits.With the even keel of an official chronicle, the documentary “Year One: A Political Odyssey,” by the director John Maggio, sets down an account of diplomacy during President Biden’s first 365-plus days in office. The selective overview is mostly recounted by administration officials, with the New York Times correspondent David E. Sanger acting as a valuable guide throughout.Underlining Biden’s international, alliance-building outlook, the focus is on efforts to reckon responsibly with the power plays of Russia, China and Afghanistan. Key figures including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary (but not Biden), sit down for sober interviews that feel like a well-sourced recap. Some crises are less frequently referenced now (the SolarWinds hack); others still loom (Russia’s war on Ukraine).We’re reminded that Biden took office in the still-shellshocked aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021, promising a vital return to normalcy and democracy after the presidency of Donald Trump. His Covid vaccination achievement was followed that summer by a one-two punch: the rise of coronavirus variants and the fall of Afghanistan. But the chaotic unfolding of events in Afghanistan yielded lessons for responding to the run-up of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Yet the movie is quiet on domestic policy apart from the pandemic, while covering several international summits. And despite the insider access, intriguing tidbits — like how leaks kept Sanger informed about U.S. intelligence on Russia — will be few to anyone who has been reading the news. The film’s skimping on economic and social issues echoes one description of Biden’s own messaging by some pundits: low-key to the point of obscuring the full picture of his efforts.Year One: A Political OdysseyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. Watch on HBO Max. More

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      Luke Parker Bowles, the Queen Consort’s Nephew, on Life in New Jersey

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      The film and television producer, who works with the British Consulate, is also committed to saving small-town movie theaters in the United States.Last month in New York City, the outpouring of grief over Queen Elizabeth II’s death mostly happened in a handful of English specialty shops and inside many, many apartments. But there was at least one public memorial service, which took place at the Queen Elizabeth II Garden in Lower Manhattan.“Long live the king,” proclaimed Luke Parker Bowles, a film and television producer and one of a few individuals who helped create the garden in 2005 to honor members of Commonwealth nations who died on Sept. 11.As a New Jersey resident and the nephew of Camilla Parker Bowles, Mr. Parker Bowles suddenly finds himself a diplomat, of sorts, for the crown in the metropolitan area. “I do like being an ambassador for her and His Majesty in New York,” he said. “I am the Parker Bowles who is here.”Besides his day job — he works with the British Consulate to promote British talent and owns a film-production company, Odd Sausage — he and Patrick Wilson, the actor, started and now help to run Cinema Lab, an initiative that rescues struggling small-town movie theaters and turns them into sophisticated venues for eating, drinking and taking in the latest blockbuster. The group currently owns five theaters, including several in New Jersey and one in New Canaan, Conn. “These theaters are metaphorically and literally the heart beats of certain towns,” Mr. Parker Bowles said.Mr. Parker Bowles, 44, lives with his wife Daniela Parker Bowles, 47, and their three children in Montclair, where he helps oversee the town’s film festival, scheduled this year for Oct. 21-30.Ahead of the Montclair Film Festival, Mr. Parker Bowles spoke with The New York Times about his work and mission. The following interview has been edited and condensed.What inspired you to move to New York?I was visiting New York City from London for a long weekend with two friends. We went to this club named Spa that was located right next to Union Square. That night P. Diddy jumped onstage and started playing this impromptu performance. I thought this is just how New York is and this happens every night.Some Key Moments in Queen Elizabeth’s ReignCard 1 of 9Becoming queen. More

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      Review: In This ‘Wuthering Heights,’ Music, Moors and Untamed Spirits

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      Emma Rice’s glorious stage adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel is a feat of storytelling, with a singing and dancing chorus embodying the moors.With a whip in one hand and a wind-bent tree in the other, the barefoot girl makes a taunting entrance, radiating caprice like some malicious sprite. This is Catherine Earnshaw, wild thing of Wuthering Heights, and if she is faintly ridiculous in her menace, it is menace nonetheless.Landing a first impression that distills the essence of a character is a rare art, and one of many things that the quick-witted, nimble-bodied company of Wise Children’s wondrous “Wuthering Heights” does exceptionally well. Adapted by the British director Emma Rice from Emily Brontë’s 19th-century novel, this music-filled version is an embrace, an envelopment: a feat of storytelling that wraps itself around the audience, pulling us into its silliness and sorrow.As besotted with the gale-tossed Yorkshire moors as Catherine and her tormented Heathcliff ever were, it makes that landscape a playground of the imagination, pausing every so often to ensure — in a friendly, tongue-in-cheek fashion — that we’re following along. Because as a baffled stranger says, when he bumbles into this multi-household, multigenerational saga, “Everyone’s related, all the names sound the same.”Well, yes, but this is a show so devoted to clarity that it helps us keep track of each fresh death (and goodness, these people die at an alarming rate) by chalking that character’s name on a blackboard the size of a small tombstone and walking it slowly across the stage. That’s also our clue that the next time we see the actor whose character has died, that cast member will most likely be playing someone else — possibly the dead person’s child.Also, the moors in this production at St. Ann’s Warehouse, performed last winter at the National Theater in London, are not just the locale, which Vicki Mortimer’s rough wooden set suggests mainly with the low gray clouds moving past on an upstage screen. (Video design is by Simon Baker.) The moors are embodied, too, by a chorus that sings, dances and possesses opinions — particularly the Leader of the Yorkshire Moors (a wonderful Nandi Bhebhe), who wears a headdress of brambly magnificence and takes on some of the vital background-providing function that the old family retainer Ellen has in the novel.Anyway, no need to brush up on your Brontë. You’ll be fine.Foreground from left: Liam Tamne, Tama Phethean and McCormick.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAt the heart of it all are Catherine and Heathcliff, two halves of the same soul who are just scamps when her father finds little Heathcliff parentless on the Liverpool docks and brings him home to join the family at Wuthering Heights. Catherine’s older brother, Hindley, takes an instant loathing to the newcomer and treats him viciously, feeling his birthright threatened by the presence of this boy whose skin is darker than his.“Gypsy,” Hindley calls Heathcliff, and pummels him whenever he gets the chance.For Catherine, Heathcliff is a best friend and partner in mischief. Their youngest selves are played initially by puppets, then seamlessly succeeded by the adult actors Lucy McCormick and Liam Tamne, who bring a roiling chemistry to what will become Catherine and Heathcliff’s desperate mutual obsession. But as they gambol about the moors in those early years, it’s the joy they take in each other, and the freedom they feel together, that forms a bond so unbreakable it transcends death.Like the other inhabitants of Wuthering Heights and the neighboring estate Thrushcross Grange — home of the laughably effete Linton siblings, Edgar (Sam Archer) and Isabella (Katy Owen, the show’s brilliant comic powerhouse) — Catherine and Heathcliff are formed and deformed by their environment, a place where it’s easy to be solitary, to nurse a grudge, to wreak revenge.As beastly as Catherine generally is, and as enormous as her eventual betrayal of Heathcliff is, it’s the men who, beginning as boys, do great violence to one another, both physical and psychic, and spend their lives perpetuating it. Heathcliff, of course, is the prime example, growing from an ingenuous child into a glowering adult who spins all the considerable evil ever done to him — much of it based on race and class — into justification for his long game of retribution.From left: McCormick, Tamne, Phethean and Katy Owen, a font of mirth in a variety of characters.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesYet Rice — a longtime St. Ann’s favorite for productions including “Brief Encounter” and “Tristan & Yseult” — makes certain that this beguiling “Wuthering Heights” is no carnival of gloom. Owen, especially, is a font of mirth, not only as Isabella but also as her extravagantly spoiled son, Little Linton, a creature so enfeebled by his cosseted upbringing that he’s practically boneless. Frances (Eleanor Sutton), the fragile nitwit who has the poor taste to marry Catherine’s brother, Hindley (Tama Phethean), is also a delicious source of comedy — as are assorted bitey dogs: puppets made of skulls on scythes.Hindley has kindness solely for Frances, and when she dies he crumbles squalidly. Yet as cruel and falling-down drunk as Phethean is as Hindley, he is equally gentle — which is not to say saintly — as Hindley’s son, Hareton, who has been beaten down by both his father and Heathcliff, but chooses not to emulate them by targeting victims of his own. It is a gorgeous performance, its agility and tenderness of a piece with this production’s.Stalked by Catherine’s perambulating ghost, and infused with live music by Ian Ross that feels somehow like earth and air, this is a show with a gloriously untamed spirit. On this first stop on its American tour, it is better — deeper and sexier — than the excellent version I saw in London early this year.At nearly three hours, including the intermission, it asks an investment of time that’s absolutely worth it. I, for one, want to go again.Wuthering HeightsThrough Nov. 6 at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn; stannswarehouse.org. Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes. More