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      Taika Waititi on “Thor” and “Our Flag Means Death”

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      Even when your job is to dream up the interplanetary adventures of a Norse god, you might still want to run off and play pirates.So during the weeks he was editing “Thor: Love and Thunder,” the Marvel movie that opens on July 8, Taika Waititi, its director and co-writer, would occasionally take weekends off for a different journey.He would get outfitted in a flowing gray wig, matching facial hair and temporary tattoos, and don deliciously fetishistic leather gear to portray Blackbeard, the swashbuckling, loin-kindling buccaneer of the HBO Max comedy series “Our Flag Means Death.”This is admittedly not a bad way to spend your spare time, though Waititi did occasionally fret over the trade-offs. As he explained recently, “Sometimes you’re pissed off at life and you’re like, ‘Why did I say yes to everything? I don’t have a social life — I’m just working.’ But then the thing comes out, you see where the hard work goes and it’s really worth it.”On TV, Waititi, 46, has had a hand in the FX comedies “Reservation Dogs” (as a co-creator) and “What We Do in the Shadows” (a series based on a movie he co-wrote and co-directed), as well as a “Shadows” spinoff, “Wellington Paranormal.” At the movies, you can hear him voice a good guy in “Lightyear” or see him play a bad guy in “Free Guy.”Waititi is also editing “Next Goal Wins,” a soccer comedy-drama that he co-wrote and directed for Searchlight. He’s writing a new “Star Wars” movie for Lucasfilm, a “Time Bandits” series for Apple TV+. He’s preparing two Roald Dahl projects for Netflix and adapting a graphic novel by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius for a feature film.“All my films are about underdogs,” Waititi said. “Not being able to choose your family and sometimes that’s not your blood family, it’s just who you end up gravitating towards.”Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesIf that isn’t enough, consider that it’s taken this many paragraphs to acknowledge that in 2020 Waititi won an Academy Award for the adapted screenplay of his World War II comedy-drama “Jojo Rabbit,” in which he played — in his own words — “a lovable, quirky, whimsical Hitler.”From this inventory alone (“not even mentioning the five other things that haven’t been reported on yet,” Waititi said), you can gauge how highly desired his services are. In just a few years, he has become one of the industry’s most ingenious and reliable purveyors of escapist fare while devising for himself some fulfilling escape routes from those escapes. And his filmmaking style is distinctive enough that it still shines through on monolithic and increasingly familiar Marvel movies.But his runaway résumé is also a sign of how difficult Waititi finds it to say no. And if you wonder how anyone can possibly balance so many demanding projects, rest assured Waititi is asking himself these same questions.“Sometimes I’ll wake up and be like, Am I having a midlife crisis?” he said. “Should I even be a filmmaker? Maybe I should have been a carpenter. Maybe I should just be a gardener.”Waititi’s estimable career isn’t necessarily the one he imagined for himself while growing up in New Zealand — half a world away from Hollywood and wondering how to gain its attention. “It was never my dream to do this,” he explained. “I would much rather have been a fighter pilot or a fireman, but then it appeared that you’ve got to be actually quite smart to be a pilot.”He added, more sincerely, that he didn’t start making films until his late 20s, at which point he’d already been a graphic artist, a musician and a comedian. “I don’t know if I’ve ever chased any of my dreams,” Waititi said. “My dreams have sort of developed through being part of the dream.”Though he fell in love with film, he calls it “an arranged marriage.” And the solution he has found for managing his workload is, essentially, not to think too much about it and never to stand in one place for too long.“Because if I was to step back and look at all of the things I’m doing, I’d probably have a panic attack,” he said. “I know there’s too many things. I know I’m doing a lot. I just have to keep pivoting every couple of hours.”Earlier this month, Waititi kept stationary long enough to savor a plate of smoked trout and avocado toast in the lobby of a Midtown Manhattan hotel. Wearing loosefitting clothes in pastel colors and a neatly trimmed mustache, he carried himself like all of the Marx Brothers rolled into one: He could be suave, sheepish or scheming, and was always ready with a self-deprecating quip.For example: “New Zealanders hate compliments,” Waititi said. “I think it’s because of our moms. Our moms are the ones who go, ‘Don’t worry — I still liked it.’ That’s the kind of support you’ll get.”Decked out in a gray wig and leather gear for “Our Flag Means Death.”HBO Max Chris Hemsworth in “Love and Thunder.” After the first sequel, he said, “we were waning, as far as support for the character.”Jasin Boland/Marvel StudiosWaititi was not the most obvious candidate to join the Marvel roster when the studio began to consider him in 2015. At the time, his directorial efforts included intimate short films (including the Oscar-nominated “Two Cars, One Night”) and features like “Boy,” an affectionate, coming-of-age tribute to his upbringing in a rural Maori community, about a child enthralled by his charmingly reprobate father (played by Waititi, of course).Before that, Waititi was a theater student at Victoria University of Wellington, where he befriended future collaborators like Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie (who would form the satirical rock duo Flight of the Conchords), obsessed over Monty Python and yearned for outlets for his wry comic voice.“In those days, you’re like, I wish I had something to work on,” Waititi said. “I would just make lists of things I would like to do.”Explore the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe popular franchise of superhero films and TV series continues to expand.‘Ms. Marvel’: This Disney+ series introduces a new character: Kamala Khan, a Muslim high schooler in Jersey City who is mysteriously granted superpowers.‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’: With a touch of horror, the franchise’s newest film returns to the world of the mystic arts.‘Moon Knight’: In the Disney+ mini-series, Oscar Isaac plays a caped crusader who struggles with dissociative identity disorder.‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’: In the latest installment of the “Spider-Man” series, the web slinger continues to radiate sweet, earnest decency.But others from that era regarded Waititi as highly motivated and likely to fulfill his ambitions.“I still see within Taika the same cheeky alternative comic from the 1990s,” said Rhys Darby, a longtime friend and a co-star on “Our Flag Means Death.”“He found that creating behind the camera was more viable than being in front of it,” Darby explained. “But even when he directs, he’ll get in front of the camera and show the actors what he wants them to do. He gets them to mimic him. That’s why he always ends up in his own films. Because he’s trying to control everything.”At Marvel, the studio knew it needed a comprehensive reinvention of “Thor.” That film’s sluggish 2013 sequel, “The Dark World,” remains no one’s favorite entry in the franchise.“We were waning, as far as support for the character,” said Chris Hemsworth, who has played Thor since 2011. “I felt fatigued and there was an audience fatigue, too. If we didn’t do something different and change it up, I wasn’t convinced we were going to bring back an audience.”The comic-book literate Waititi was no fan of the annoyingly flawless Thor, whom he described as “a rich kid from outer space who’s trapped in the ghetto.” But as he reflected further, Waititi wanted to understand his own resistance to the hero and see if he could make a movie that acknowledged and embraced those traits.Moreover, Waititi wanted to know if he could handle making movies at a mammoth scale. Addressing himself, he said, “You’ve always been scared of working with studios, worried about working in America and what it might do to you. But why not go straight into the deep end and see how that goes?”The result was the wildly successful “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017), in which the Viking deity is stripped of his magical hammer and shorn of his flowing locks but overcomes his villainous sister, Hela (Cate Blanchett), and the flamboyant Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum).Why do so many in Hollywood try to hire Waititi? “He gives you his cachet, and he puts himself 100 percent behind your ideas,” said David Jenkins, creator of “Our Flag Means Death.”Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesDirected by Waititi (from a screenplay credited to Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher L. Yost), “Ragnarok” featured plenty of his personal flair — like two different battle sequences set to Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” — while allowing him to play the soft-spoken stone warrior Korg. (It was well-reviewed and sold more than $853 million in tickets worldwide, outstripping its predecessors.)Almost immediately, Waititi and Marvel began devising a follow-up, but getting him back in the director’s chair was not so simple. Within weeks of his Oscar victory, the pandemic hit.“Painting, learning a language, exercising — you think I did any of them?” he said. “No, I didn’t. What I wanted to do was sleep for a month and then I got to sleep for six months.”Then he launched into projects he had been neglecting. By this point, Marvel had become accustomed to sharing Waititi.As Kevin Feige, the studio’s president, explained, “On ‘Ragnarok,’ it was, ‘I’m just finishing this little thing.’” That turned out to be Waititi’s 2016 comedy-drama “Hunt for the Wilderpeople.” “While we were writing and developing this movie, it was, ‘I’m just going to do this other thing in Manhattan Beach.’” That was Waititi’s work on the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian,” for which he directed an episode and voiced the robot bounty hunter IG-11. “‘I’m just going to Hawaii for a few weeks.’ Oh, I guess family vacation?” Feige recalled. Actually, he was filming “Next Goal Wins.”Even after the “Thor: Love and Thunder” shoot ended in Australia last summer and postproduction began in Los Angeles, Feige said, “we were always on alert for Taika being spread too thin. We were very ready to be like, We’re in the cutting room, it’s 8 p.m., where is he? But he was always sitting right next to us.”Hemsworth said that Waititi’s numerous extracurricular activities are not diversions, but intellectual necessities. “If he isn’t continually creating, he would become stagnant,” Hemsworth said. “Most of us would fall flat on our asses from exhaustion. That’s what fuels him, in a strange way.”Waititi’s to-do list included “Our Flag Means Death,” whose creator, David Jenkins, spent three years wooing Waititi — first to serve as an executive producer and director of the pilot, and then to play Blackbeard.“It’s like writing a song for Prince,” said Jenkins, who got Disney and Marvel’s permission to borrow Waititi on weekends. “He gives you his cachet, and he puts himself 100 percent behind your ideas.”“I would much rather have been a fighter pilot or a fireman, but then it appeared that you’ve got to be actually quite smart to be a pilot,” Waititi said.Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesWaititi said he did not need much persuading to play Blackbeard once Jenkins suggested he was right for the part. “This is what I needed to hear,” Waititi said. “My ego loves that.”But “Our Flag Means Death” offered Waititi more than just a morale boost. (Here there be spoilers, me hearties.) While the series told the comic tale of Stede Bonnet (Darby), a befuddled but well-meaning aristocrat trying to make it as a pirate, it did not simply dangle Blackbeard as an unlikely mentor to Bonnet and a source of will-they-or-won’t-they, bro-ho-ho innuendo.In the first season’s penultimate episode, Bonnet and Blackbeard realized they loved each other and shared a tender kiss. Their romance has become integral to the series going forward, and the inspiration for countless works of fan art that Waititi keeps saved on his phone.As much as he understands the cultural fascination with Stede and Blackbeard’s kiss, Waititi said he wished it wasn’t remarkable for its rarity: “It needs to be normalized.”It is a wish that Waititi understands he cannot necessarily fulfill in a Marvel movie, despite some of the wink-wink repartee shared by Thor and his hunky ally Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) in a “Love and Thunder” teaser trailer.“No one talks about Tom Cruise hooking up with Jennifer Connelly in ‘Top Gun,’” he said. But in “Our Flag Means Death, “it’s a massive talking point that two dudes kiss on the beach. I’m cool with talking about it because I’m really proud of the moment. But my dream is to be like the world of the pirates, where no one bats an eye.”The new “Thor” is partly concerned with expanding the Marvel empire to include Russell Crowe as the vainglorious Greek god Zeus and Christian Bale as the nefarious Gorr the God Butcher. But as the title implies, the movie is also a romance, one that continues Thor’s journey from “Avengers: Endgame” (2019).Looking at the character there, Waititi said he asked himself, “What is he missing most in his life?” And the answer: “It was love. It was a partner. For people who are larger than life, what completes them? I think a lot of superheroes, when you look at them, they’re just lonely.”The story line provided the opportunity to bring back Natalie Portman, who played Thor’s love interest Jane Foster in the first two films but did not appear in “Ragnarok.”Portman, who gets to wield Thor’s mighty hammer in the new film, said that she had seen “Ragnarok” and was excited that Waititi’s style was “so free and creative.”“His other work, too, has impressed me so much over the years and how he’s able to blend the silly and the profound, all with a distinctive visual style,” Portman said. “Everything in his films always feels spontaneous and hilarious and full of heart.”The idea of yearning for companionship is particularly prevalent in this “Thor,” and one could speculate about why it appeals so strongly to Waititi. His parents separated when he was young, and he is divorced from the film producer Chelsea Winstanley, with whom he has two daughters.But as we talked about the strands that tie his work together, Waititi preferred to point to broader themes.“All my films are about underdogs,” he said. “Not being able to choose your family and sometimes that’s not your blood family, it’s just who you end up gravitating towards. You’re like, How did I end up with these weirdos? What is it about these guys?”Waititi didn’t start making films until his late 20s. “Before that,” he said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever chased any of my dreams.”Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesWithout quite naming himself, Waititi spun an extemporaneous monologue about why certain people — whoever they might be — can never see themselves as being successful or having made it.“What drives people is this idea of, I’ll show you,” he said. “Sometimes it’s an ill-perceived, false idea that people don’t believe in you. You still carry that around and people will be like, ‘You can stop now — you’ve proven your point.’”His voice rose to a comic volume as he continued: “No, there’s still some dead people I need to show! My dead dad, he needs to see!” Then in a softer, more sincere tone he added, “It’s a weird infatuation.”Once this “Thor” has been safely launched into the world, more work awaits Waititi. “I’m trying to write the ‘Star Wars’ idea at the moment,” he said. “I’ve got to see how that goes, because once I submit it, that might determine when it gets made or if it gets made, even.”But then again, “I am cool as well to take six months off and just go hang out with my kids.”I asked him if he was starting to feel like Leonardo DiCaprio in “Inception,” just desperate to walk through the front door and have his children embrace him, and Waititi did not dismiss the comparison. “They’re in New Zealand,” he said. “I mean, they couldn’t be further away.”For now, Waititi takes solace in the fact that he tried to have his daughters on the set of “Thor” as much as possible and provided them with experiences that would someday be meaningful to them.“I know in the future, they’ll look back and go, ‘Wow, we were on set with Christian Bale,’” he said. “‘And we were rude to him and ignored him.’” More

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      ‘Endangered’ Review: When Journalism Becomes Imperiled

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      A new documentary from Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady explores threats to press freedom, but not with the focus this global issue deserves.Shot in 2020 and 2021, “Endangered,” the latest documentary from Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (“Detropia”), explores a variety of threats to the freedom of the press across three countries.In Brazil, the writer Patrícia Campos Mello became the target of a barrage of sexist attacks — in one news clip President Jair Bolsonaro implies she was willing to trade sex for a scoop — after she reported on a disinformation campaign during the 2018 presidential election cycle. Campos Mello successfully sued the president and his son Eduardo Bolsonaro, also a politician, for “moral damages.”In Mexico, where, a title card says, more than 100 journalists have been murdered since 2000, the photographer Sáshenka Gutiérrez risks her safety to document protests against what critics see as an insufficient government response to a rise in femicides — girls and women being killed because of their gender.In the United States, Carl Juste, a longtime photojournalist for The Miami Herald, shoots the area’s George Floyd protests; he speaks about his father, who introduced him to journalism, and wonders if his own career is coming to a close. The British reporter Oliver Laughland documents the 2020 presidential campaign for The Guardian and encounters distrust for the news media from Trump supporters. There are also brief sections that concern the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization based in New York.“Endangered” spreads itself thin over 90 minutes, leaving even basic points, such as what laws protect journalists in Brazil and Mexico, mostly unaddressed. Covered in isolation, any of these interview subjects, or any of the problems facing journalists raised — online harassment, police intimidation, hedge fund ownership of newspapers, news deserts — might have made for a more detailed and compelling film.EndangeredNot rated. In English, Portuguese and Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on HBO platforms. More

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      ‘Doula’ Review: Rules of Contraction

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      An expectant mother and a male birthing counselor learn to get along in this dry, refreshingly candid comedy.Everything about Sascha (Will Greenberg), the titular character of the gestation comedy “Doula,” is comforting: his gentle voice, his soft belly, his cuddly cardigan. He’s like a plush toy reimagined as a birthing partner, and he’s exactly what Deb (Troian Bellisario), the unprepared mother-to-be, needs.Convincing her of this is the most entertaining section of a screenplay (by Arron Shiver) that initially skips and darts before taking a deep dive into the birth canal. The rom-com beats are deceptive: “Doula” (directed by Cheryl Nichols) has much more on its mind than romance. And a good thing, too, as the independent, outspoken Deb seems entirely mismatched with her controlling boyfriend, Silvio (Shiver). So when Silvio unilaterally hires Sascha, the son of Deb’s recently deceased midwife, as a replacement, Deb is not easily won over.“I’d like to show you some yoni stretches,” Sascha offers Deb, who would prefer to be masturbating. This explicitness about sex and desire during pregnancy, as well as other pleasures like alcohol and weed, is refreshing, as is the movie’s refusal to proselytize for home birth. Silvio might have purchased a birthing tub — again, without consulting Deb — but “Doula” takes sides only with the mother, its repeated insistence on a woman’s right to make her own choices landing with unexpected timeliness.Though finding mild humor in Silvio’s insecurities and the magnificently hairy forearms of Deb’s gynecologist (Chris Pine), “Doula” thrives mainly on Bellisario (always the most interesting of the “Pretty Little Liars”) and Greenberg’s tart-sweet connection. The running time is too long, and the finale’s screaming too prolonged; but, unlike childbirth, this good-natured movie delivers a dry, funny and utterly painless experience.DoulaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      Stream These 9 Movies and Shows Before They Leave Netflix in July

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      Subscribers in the United States will lose a classic ’90s rom-com among other delightful titles. Watch these while you can.One of the funniest sitcoms on Netflix makes its exit for U.S. subscribers at the end of July. If that’s not cause enough for distress, the streamer is also jettisoning a handful of delightful coming-of-age movies, a classic ’90s rom-com and one of the most influential movies of the 2010s. Watch them while you can. (Dates reflect the final day a title is available.)‘The Social Network’ (July 1)The screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and the director David Fincher seemed, at first, like an odd pairing — a shotgun marriage of florid dialogue to a moody, sensual visual style. But in collaborating on this 2010 fictionalized account of the rise of Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, they complemented each other: Fincher gives Sorkin’s words a distinct visual snap, and Sorkin gives him a script in which the dialogue is as sharp as the imagery. Sorkin picked up an Oscar and Fincher nabbed a nomination, as did the film’s star, Jesse Eisenberg, who finds the perfect note of know-it-all desperation as Zuckerberg.Stream it here.‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ (July 1)The writer Shirley Jackson, who died in 1965, is having a bit of an unexpected moment of late. In addition to this moody Netflix adaptation of her 1962 novel, her book “The Haunting of Hill House” was adapted for a mini-series on the streamer, and she’s the subject of the Hulu biopic “Shirley.” Taissa Farmiga and Alexandra Daddario star in “Castle” as the Blackwood sisters, who live (along with their infirm Uncle Julian) in solitude and mystery; their parents died years earlier, under cloudy circumstances, and they’re still the subject of talk in town. That chatter grows louder with the arrival of an enigmatic cousin, Charles (Sebastian Stan, wild and woolly), who shakes the precarious household to its core. Farmiga and Daddario exude both fragility and danger, while Crispin Glover underplays nicely (and surprisingly) as Uncle Julian.Stream it here.‘Django Unchained’ (July 23)The writer and director Quentin Tarantino and the actor Christoph Waltz pulled off a sly repeat of their “Inglourious Basterds” Oscar triumph, again nabbing the trophies for best original screenplay and best supporting actor for this 2012 spaghetti western riff. Jamie Foxx stars as the title character, a former slave in the pre-Civil War South who befriends a bounty hunter (Waltz) and learns the trade; Leonardo DiCaprio is gleefully villainous as a plantation owner who stands between Django and his wife (Kerry Washington). It’s Tarantino, so the violence and profanity are plentiful, but the set pieces are thrilling, the characterizations are vivid and the laughs stick in the throat.Stream it here.’30 Rock’: Seasons 1-7 (July 31)Tina Fey went from serving as head writer on “Saturday Night Live” to creating this series, in which she stars as … head writer of a late night NBC sketch show. Well, they say to write you know! But it wasn’t the inside jokes that made “30 Rock” one of the most rewatchable sitcoms of our time; it was its distinct mixture of finely tuned characters, quotable dialogue and rapid-fire pacing (on a sheer jokes-per-minute basis, it’s unbeatable). And as network television grows steadily sillier, “30 Rock” spoof shows like “MILF Island” and “God Cop” seem less like satire and more like prognostication.Stream it here.‘The Edge of Seventeen’ (July 31)Before she was garnering acclaim in the title role in “Dickinson” or working her way up the pop charts, Hailee Steinfeld starred in this bittersweet coming-of-age comedy from the writer and director Kelly Fremon Craig. Steinfeld stars as Nadine Franklin, a wise and witty but not terribly popular high school junior whose world turns upside down when her best friend (Haley Lu Richardson) hooks up with Nadine’s older brother (Blake Jenner). Craig’s perceptive, unflinching writing turns what could have been a predictable high school comedy into something a good deal more nuanced; she’s sympathetic to Nadine but is careful to make her a complex character, not always conventionally likable or admirable.Stream it here.‘Lean on Me’ (July 31)Morgan Freeman landed one of his first leading roles in this 1989 high school drama, starring as Joe Clark, a principal whose tactics for turning around a high-crime, low-achievement high school in Paterson, N.J., earned him the nickname “Crazy Joe.” The director, John G. Avildsen, was also behind “Rocky” and “The Karate Kid,” and he occasionally flattens the (still relevant) questions of effective educational reform into his go-to mode of rousing underdog story. But the film is full of powerful moments, most of them courtesy of Freeman’s tough-as-nails performance.Stream it here.‘Little Women’ (July 31)Every generation gets it own adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, it seems, and while Greta Gerwig’s recent version was tiptop, Gen Xers are still dedicated to this 1994 take from the Australian director Gillian Armstrong (“My Brilliant Career”), who maintains, and even sharpens, some of the rougher edges that earlier adaptations sanded down. Winona Ryder, in an Oscar-nominated turn, leads an ace ensemble that also includes Trini Alvarado, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst and Samantha Mathis as her sisters; Susan Sarandon as their mother; and Christian Bale, Gabriel Byrne and Eric Stoltz as the men in their lives.Stream it here.‘My Girl’ (July 31)Those who know Anna Chlumsky only from her wickedly funny (and deliciously foul-mouthed) work on “Veep” may be surprised by this, her debut film, a sweet coming-of-age drama set in the summer of 1972 and released when she was only 11 years old. She stars as Vada, whose father (Dan Aykroyd) runs the local funeral parlor, which has made little Vada (perhaps understandably) into a hypochondriac. Jamie Lee Curtis co-stars as a potential romantic interest for Vada’s dad, while Macaulay Culkin is heartbreaking as Vada’s summer pal (and first kiss).Stream it here.‘You’ve Got Mail’ (July 31)Five years after the spectacular commercial and critical success of “Sleepless in Seattle,” Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan and the writer-director Nora Ephron teamed up for another contemporary riff on a classic Hollywood romantic comedy. They came up with “You’ve Got Mail,” which updates “The Shop Around the Corner” for the internet age, with Hanks and Ryan in an online romance, unaware that they’re professional enemies in real life. Ephron assembles a stacked supporting cast — Dave Chappelle, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Jean Stapleton and Steve Zahn all turn up — but it’s once again Hanks and Ryan’s show, as they light up the screen with their sunny movie-star charisma and impeccable love-hate chemistry.Stream it here.ALSO LEAVING: “Home Again” (July 7); “Radium Girls” (July 15); “Chicago Med”: Seasons 1-5 (July 21); “21,” “Forrest Gump,” “Love Actually,” “Poms” (July 31). More

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      The Best Actors to Play Elvis Onscreen

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      In honor of Austin Butler’s performance in the Baz Luhrmann biopic, we ranked 10 of the best — and worst — Presleys to grace the silver screen.Kurt Russell had the hip swivel down cold. Val Kilmer nailed the sincere, soulful voice. And Michael Shannon … well, the credits identified him as Elvis Presley, so that was the character he must have been playing in “Elvis & Nixon,” right?Since the King’s death in 1977, at 42, more than a dozen actors — and one space alien — have portrayed his walk, talk and famous charm in dozens of films and TV shows. Now one more has joined their ranks — Austin Butler, whose on-point hip gyrations are at the heart of Baz Luhrmann’s new “Elvis.”So how does Butler’s sultry, baby-faced King stack up against Jonathan Rhys Meyers’s Golden Globe-winning crooner or Harvey Keitel’s over-the-hill rocker? We offer our rankings. 1979Kurt Russell, ‘Elvis’ 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸The perfectly coifed pouf, the raw, emotive voice, the frenzied hip thrusts, the gleaming, skintight rhinestone jumpsuit … blink, and you could easily believe, thanks to this near-flawless portrayal in a 1979 TV movie, that Kurt Russell is Elvis. Sure, Russell doesn’t actually sing — that was all the country artist Ronnie McDowell — but that speaking voice is spot-on. Buy it on Amazon.2005Jonathan Rhys Meyers, ‘Elvis: The Miniseries’ 🎸🎸🎸🎸The two-part show, which tackles Presley’s rise from high school in Mississippi to international superstardom, is a showcase for Rhys Meyers’s heart-pounding leg pumps (with memorable supporting turns from Randy Quaid as Col. Tom Parker, Presley’s manager, and Rose McGowan as the actress Ann-Margret, with whom Presley was rumored to have had an affair). Like Russell, Rhys Meyers doesn’t do his own singing, but he lip-syncs flawlessly to an even better option: the real thing. (This was the first biopic that the Presley estate allowed to use the master recordings.)Rent it on DVD.com.2005Tyler Hilton, ‘Walk the Line’ 🎸🎸🎸🎸Hilton pops up in four scenes of this Johnny Cash biopic as a young Elvis, opposite a young Joaquin Phoenix as Cash. It was one of Hilton’s first forays into acting — he considered himself more of a musician at the time — but he nails Presley’s slurred vocal style and the deeply felt conviction of his singing.Stream it on Tubi; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.1993Val Kilmer, ‘True Romance’ 🎸🎸🎸🎸This romantic crime drama written by Quentin Tarantino centers not on the King, but on an Elvis fanatic (Christian Slater) and his new wife on the run from mobsters. But Kilmer’s apparition of Elvis, complete with gold lamé suit, might just be the most memorable part. (That’s saying something in a film that also featured Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson and a young Brad Pitt.) Kilmer’s appearance tops out at around two minutes and he’s credited only as “Mentor.” But the suave voice whispering murderous thoughts into Slater’s ear is unmistakably intended to be the King’s, and Kilmer aces it.Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.1998Harvey Keitel, ‘Finding Graceland’ 🎸🎸🎸OK, so strictly speaking, Harvey Keitel is not Elvis but “Elvis,” a fictional older — and very much alive — version of Presley who faked his death in 1977 after becoming overwhelmed by the pressures of fame. Keitel nails the melted-chocolate quality of the rocker’s voice and delivers a full-throated portrayal of an over-the-hill King, complete with hip thrusts and shoulder shimmies. (The film was produced by Elvis’s ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, and scenes were actually filmed inside the Graceland mansion in Memphis.)Buy it on Amazon.2003Bruce Campbell, ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’ 🎸🎸🎸In this R-rated comedy-horror flick, Bruce Campbell is an aged Elvis impersonator in a nursing home, Ossie Davis is a fellow resident who claims to be President John F. Kennedy, they fight an Egyptian mummy sucking out residents’ souls through their butts, and, just trust us, it works. Campbell brings an endearingly crusty charisma to the part, and his self-deprecating hospital-bed monologues about growing old are surprisingly moving.Stream it on Tubi or Amazon Prime; rent or buy it on Apple TV or Vudu.1988David Keith, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ 🎸🎸🎸“Heartbreak Hotel” sounds, from the title, like an Elvis-adjacent chick flick, but it’s actually a comedy written and directed by Chris Columbus about a teenage boy who kidnaps Elvis as a present for his mother when she’s recovering from a car crash. (Elvis happens to be his mom’s favorite singer.) Critics — and the public — gave Keith’s portrayal a rather tepid reception, with Rita Kempley of The Washington Post concluding in her scalpelesque pan that “Playing Elvis is like playing a Kennedy, nearly impossible.” At least someone liked it: Keith’s King, who was fatherly, clean-cut and drug-free, did get the blessing of the Presley estate and Elvis’s national fan club.Buy it on Amazon.1981Don Johnson, ‘Elvis and the Beauty Queen’ 🎸🎸This made-for-TV movie focused on the end of Elvis’s life and his relationship with the beauty-pageant contestant Linda Thompson, whom he was romantically involved with after the end of his six-year marriage to Priscilla Presley. To judge by YouTube clips, Johnson rocked a jumpsuit as a zonked-out Elvis, yes, but his high-pitched speaking voice was better suited for a “Saturday Night Live” sketch than a seduction scene, and his bushy black wig was downright hokey — and that was before the heavy eyeliner and mascara.2016Michael Shannon, ‘Elvis & Nixon’🎸If you didn’t hear a security guard say, “It’s Elvis Presley!” you wouldn’t know Michael Shannon’s careworn, sullen Elvis was supposed to be the King. His craggy face is at odds with the King’s smooth features, and, combined with a voluminous black wig, his Elvis smacks of Michael Crawford in “Dance of the Vampires.” The film, a historical comedy, focused on a 1970 meeting between Presley and President Richard Nixon (played by Kevin Spacey, who also does not resemble his real-lie counterpart). Shannon is a great character actor, but he can’t overcome this confoundingly bad casting, despite the gleaming gold belt buckle, tinted glasses, high-collared shirt and flashing rings.Stream it on Amazon Prime; rent it on DVD.com.2002Bonus: Stitch in ‘Lilo & Stitch’He ain’t nothin’ but a hound alien. In this animated comedy, Experiment 626 — a.k.a. Stitch — uses a black wig, white jumpsuit and ukulele to indulge Lilo as she tries to teach him to be a model citizen. And honestly, based on the number of beachgoers who swooned when they got one of his flirtatious winks, we’d have to crown him the hip-swivel champion.Stream it on Disney+; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube. More

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      ‘Marcel the Shell With Shoes On’ Review: Bigger Isn’t Better

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      The one-inch-high shell voiced by Jenny Slate gets a feature-length vehicle, but the transition from YouTube fame is only partly successful.When I was a kid, my sister and I had shelves filled with carefully arranged miniatures, ceramic animals and the tiny, delicate like. I never thought much about these displays, though now I see that collecting and ordering these diminutive emblems of the world is a way children express agency and control as they enter it. It’s no wonder that miniatures seem so charming: They’re time machines. The minuscule gives us access to “the enlarging gaze of the child,” as the philosopher Gaston Bachelard puts it in his book “The Poetics of Space.”This partly explains the tug of “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” about a teeny-tiny creature in a great, big world. He’s a curious fellow, as in inquisitive, but also simply peculiar. For starters, he’s a shell. Not a land snail or one of the sea creatures whose hard protective layer can be found washed up on shores. Marcel is inexplicably alive, even if, from the looks of him, he’s little more than a walking, talking empty carapace, a whatsit about an inch big with one googly eye, two shoes and an animated mouth that’s a font for a high-pitched, babyish voice.That adenoidal falsetto — courtesy of the comic performer Jenny Slate — is a lot. And it could easily have been a deal-breaker. Marcel is very talkative in the way that, at its most sweet and appealing, recalls the sincere burbling of children sharing every single little thing racing through their fired-up minds. At its least attractive, you may grimly flash on the last gasbag you were stuck next to while waiting on some interminable line. It took me time to warm to the voice, admittedly. In part that’s because you can hear all the calculation shaping Marcel’s stream, the coyness and practiced comedy of its ebb and flow, though mostly flow.It’s fine and sometimes productive to see the labor in a performance, but not here. That’s because while “Marcel the Shell” captivates you with its mix of real objects and animation, its nubby textures and huge thumbtacks, for it to work you need to forget about Slate and just go with the lightly surrealistic silliness. It helps, in other words, to fall in love with Marcel. He’s the protagonist, so there’s no escaping him. But caring for him is crucial because, once he’s shown you around and you’ve met his grandmother — another shell voiced by the invaluable Isabella Rossellini — there is not all that much going on, even if quite a bit happens.Marcel was birthed in 2010 in a three-minute-plus short. Created by Slate and Dean Fleischer Camp, who posted it to YouTube, the short introduced Marcel with small strokes, a shoestring budget and rudimentary but effective stop-motion animation. Of indeterminate origin, Marcel lives in a big house, sleeps on bread and drags around a ball of lint with a human hair. “My one regret in life,” he said then, “is that I’ll never have a dog.” With its artful naïveté and a gentle undertow of melancholia, the short racked up millions of views, and what Marcel soon did have was fame, more shorts, a book and now this feature-length vehicle.“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” builds on its predecessors to intermittently productive effect. Once again, Marcel is pulling on lint, making a bed of bread and living in a human house, a wee soul in a land of giants. And as he did before, Marcel is talking to, though often at, a guy. This man has a name, Dean (affably voiced by Camp), and a back story. When the movie opens, he is living in Marcel’s house, which has been converted into an Airbnb with disastrous consequences that give the tale shape and sentimentality. He’s also making a documentary about his unusual roommate that he soon posts to, yes, YouTube.Brands are part of Marcel-land, which is a letdown, as is the part of the story which turns on that quintessentially American chronicle of identity, being and becoming: celebrity. Dean’s portrait racks up views, makes Marcel famous and stirs up trouble; enter Lesley Stahl and gawkers wielding selfie sticks. Some of this is funny, if overly familiar, but the self-reflexiveness of the entire enterprise only breaks the spell that Slate and Camp work hard to maintain — one which Rossellini effortlessly keeps intact with intelligence, beautifully controlled phrasing and a soft, melodious warmth that feels like a tender caress.Marcel the Shell With Shoes OnRated PG for some itty-bitty peril and a death. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Ken Knowlton, a Father of Computer Art and Animation, Dies at 91

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      His work at Bell Labs in the 1960s laid the groundwork for today’s computer-generated imagery in film and on TV.Ken Knowlton, an engineer, computer scientist and artist who helped pioneer the science and art of computer graphics and made many of the first computer-generated pictures, portraits and movies, died on June 16 in Sarasota, Florida. He was 91.His son, Rick Knowlton, said the cause of death, at a hospice facility, was unclear.In 1962, after finishing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, Dr. Knowlton joined Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J., a future-focused division of the Bell telephone conglomerate that was among the world’s leading research labs. After learning that the lab had installed a new machine that could print images onto film, he resolved to make movies using computer-generated graphics.“You could make pictures with letters on the screen or spots on the screen or lines on the screen,” he said in a 2016 interview, recalling his arrival at Bell Labs. “How about a movie?”Over the next several months, he developed what he believed to be the first computer programming language for computer animation, called BEFLIX (short for “Bell Labs Flicks”). The following year, he used this language to make an animated movie. Called “A Computer Technique for the Production of Animated Movies,” this 10-minute film described the technology used to make it.Though Dr. Knowlton was the only person to ever use the BEFLIX language —he and his colleagues quickly replaced it with other tools and techniques — the ideas behind this technology would eventually overhaul the movie business.By the mid-1980s, computer graphics were an integral part of feature films like “Tron” and “The Last Starfighter.” In 1995, a studio in Northern California, Pixar, released “Toy Story,” a feature film whose images were generated entirely by computer. Today, computer-generated imagery, or CGI, plays a role in practically every movie and television show.“He was the first man to fill a movie screen with pixels,” said Ted Nelson, a computer science pioneer and philosopher who wrote about Dr. Knowlton’s early work. “Now, every movie you see was created on a digital machine.”Kenneth Charles Knowlton was born on June 6, 1931, in Springville, N.Y. His parents, Frank and Eva (Reith) Knowlton, owned a farm in that small community, about 30 miles south of Buffalo, where they grew corn and raised chickens.After graduating a year early from high school as class valedictorian, Dr. Knowlton enrolled in a five-year engineering and physics program at Cornell University, where his parents had first met while studying agriculture before deciding to buy a farm. He stayed at Cornell for a master’s degree, which involved building an X-ray camera using parts from an electron microscope.At Cornell, he met his future wife, Roberta Behrens, and together they joined the Quakers. After he finished his master’s degree, they traveled to Quaker work camps that helped build housing infrastructure for the poor in El Salvador and Mexico, where he contracted polio. He walked with a leg brace or a cane for the rest of his life.It was at Cornell in the mid-1950s that Dr. Knowlton developed his interest in computers — room-size machines operated via punched cards and magnetic tape reels that were just beginning to arrive in government labs, academia and industry. After reading about a group at the Massachusetts Institute Technology that aimed to build computer technology that could translate between languages, like English and French, he joined the project as a Ph.D. student. His thesis advisers included the linguist Noam Chomsky and Marvin Minsky, a founding father of artificial intelligence.At Bell Labs, Dr. Knowlton realized that he could create detailed images by stringing together dots, letters, numbers and other symbols generated by a computer. Each symbol was chosen solely for its brightness — how bright or how dark it appeared at a distance. His computer programs, by carefully changing brightness as they placed each symbol, could then build familiar images, like flowers or faces.Dr. Knowlton and Dr. Harmon’s 12-foot-long computer-generated mosaic of a nude woman was hung on the wall of their boss’s office as a joke. This remastered version was recreated under Dr. Knowlton’s supervision in 2016. Jim Boulton, Leon Harmon and Ken Knowlton; remastered from Jim Boulton’s backward-analyzed digital files of Leon Harmon and Ken Knowlton’s “Studies in Perception I, 1966.”After experimenting with movies, he applied similar techniques to portraits and other still images. In the mid-1960s, he and a collaborator named Leon Harmon created a 12-foot-long computer-generated mosaic of a nude woman and, as a joke, hung it on the wall of their boss’s office.Their boss, Edward E. David, Jr., the Bell Labs executive director of communications research, who would later serve as science adviser to President Richard M. Nixon, was not amused. But the portrait later caught the attention of the pop artist Robert Rauschenberg, who put it on display in his New York City loft when he launched a project called Experiments in Art and Technology, or E.A.T., in the fall of 1967, aiming to develop new collaborations between artists and engineers.The New York Times published an article about the event the next day, including a picture of Dr. Knowlton’s image of the nude woman, titled “Computer Nude (Studies in Perception I).” It was believed to be the first full-frontal nude printed in the pages of The New York Times. A year later, the picture was part of a landmark exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art called “The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age.”Dr. Knowlton remained at Bell Labs until 1982, experimenting with everything from computer-generated music to technologies that allowed deaf people to read sign language over the telephone. He later joined Wang Laboratories, where, in the late-1980s, he helped develop a personal computer that let users annotate documents with synchronized voice messages and digital pen strokes.In 2008, after retiring from tech research, he joined a magician and inventor named Mark Setteducati in creating a jigsaw puzzle called Ji Ga Zo, which could be arranged to resemble anyone’s face. “He had a mathematical mind combined with a great sense of aesthetics,” Mr. Setteducati said in a phone interview.In addition to his son Rick, Dr. Knowlton is survived by two other sons, Kenneth and David, all from his first marriage, which ended in divorce; a brother, Fredrick Knowlton; and a sister, Marie Knowlton. Two daughters, Melinda and Suzanne Knowlton, also from his first marriage, and his second wife, Barbara Bean-Knowlton, have died.While at Bell Labs, Mr. Knowlton collaborated with several well-known artists, including the experimental filmmaker Stan VanDerBeek, the computer artist Lillian Schwartz and the electronic-music composer Laurie Spiegel. He saw himself as an engineer who helped others create art, as prescribed by Mr. Rauschenberg’s E.A.T. project.But later in life he began creating, showing and selling art of his own, building traditional analog images with dominoes, dice, seashells and other materials. He belatedly realized that when engineers collaborate with artists, they become more than engineers.“In the best cases, they become more complete humans, in part from understanding that all behavior comes not from logic but, at the bottommost level, from intrinsically indefensible emotions, values and drives,” he wrote in 2001. “Some ultimately become artists.” More

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      How Alton Mason Went from ‘Male Model of the Year’ to ‘Elvis’

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      Once known for doing back flips on the runway, the 24-year-old makes his acting debut playing Little Richard.Name: Alton MasonAge: 24Hometown: PhoenixNow Lives: A hotel room on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, although he is usually traveling. “I live in Terminal 2 in Delta,” he said, jokingly. “It’s just me and my suitcase!”Claim to Fame: Mr. Mason is an actor, filmmaker and model known for doing back flips and other acrobatic moves down the runway for Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Versace, Valentino and other major labels. In addition to being named Model of the Year by Models.com for four years in a row, Mr. Mason was the first Black male model to walk in a Chanel show. “Now, I represent so many people that may identify with my story, my vision, my culture and me,” he said. “It’s a privilege to be able to open doors.”Mr. Mason did a backflip at the Louis Vuitton men’s wear show in Paris in 2019. Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesBig Break: Mr. Mason was studying acting at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Los Angeles and interning for the choreographer Laurieann Gibson when he was discovered by a modeling agent on Instagram in 2015. He went to New York City for the first time that year and landed a major show: Yeezy Season 3, held at Madison Square Garden. “This show felt transcendental,” he said. “I left that show, got a dollar slice of pizza, and flew back to L.A. with a clearer vision of levels I could reach.”Latest Project: In January, Mr. Mason walked in Virgil Abloh’s final collection for Louis Vuitton in Paris. “Virgil was like a brother to me in this industry,” he said. “He gave a platform for me to shine and believed in me, and being in that tribute really hit home.” Mr. Mason recalled how Mr. Abloh encouraged him to perform his signature runway move at a 2019 show in Paris. “Backstage, after I got off the runway, he came up to me and said, ‘I want you to go out there and do something,’” Mr. Mason said. Dressed in a purple silk suit, he executed a series of back flips. “Virgil walked back in and said, ‘You killed that!’”A scene from “Elvis,” in which Mr. Mason plays Little Richard.Warner Bros.Next Thing: Mr. Mason makes his acting debut in the Baz Luhrmann biopic “Elvis,” in which he plays Little Richard. Mr. Luhrmann met Mr. Mason at a 2019 GQ Australia awards show, where Mr. Mason gave a speech that impressed the director. They struck up a conversation at the after-party and Mr. Mason was soon cast in the movie. “I’m paying tribute to such a legend, such an icon — someone that I embody the essence of,” he said.Moves Like Michael Jackson: “I grew up with a bunch of Black cousins in the South and we would always be in the living room dancing and watching Michael Jackson,” he said. “A lot of the moments you see me moving on the runway are really spontaneous; it’s improvised, never choreographed. These are just feelings that come to me and I let them all free.” More