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      ‘Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain’ Review: Influential Rappers, Still Smokin’

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      This documentary by Estevan Oriol chronicles the rise of a group that he has been around since its inception.In 1991, just a few years after Public Enemy released the single “Bring the Noise,” Cypress Hill, a hip-hop trio out of South Gate, near Los Angeles, released a debut that followed that exhortation to astonishing effect. The rapper B-Real delivered his anti-cop, pro-weed rhymes in a taunting, nasal tone, countered by the abrupt barks of Sen Dog. DJ Muggs created beats that were inventively off-kilter and put high-pitched whistles and sirens under and around hooks that were more than earworms — these tracks got under your whole skin.Directed and narrated by Estevan Oriol, a photographer and filmmaker who’s been around the group since its inception, “Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain,” named for one of its signature songs, is an often engaging chronicle of the group (which has sold more than 20 million albums), one that is probably best appreciated by fans. B-Real has harrowing tales of his experiences in gangs as a teenager. As he and his cohorts started to make music, they imposed an impressive discipline on themselves, doing two or three years of woodshedding at DJ Muggs’s home before seeking out a recording deal.Their early music was suffused with threat. One of the group’s first hits was titled “How I Could Just Kill a Man,” and its debut album kicked off with an anti-police song titled “Pigs.” Their stance morphed to some extent as they rapped about what they were in favor of — which is prodigious marijuana use. Whatever the mode, the exhilarating abrasiveness of the Cypress Hill sound held true. And in the contemporary interview segments here the members are modest, soft-spoken, thoughtful and hardly at all burned out.Cypress Hill: Insane in the BrainNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. Watch on Showtime. More

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      Why Those Moments of Care for Liza Minnelli and Joni Mitchell Felt Different

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      Awards shows are a natural setting for honoring aging legends. It’s reassuring when they don’t try to hide the frailty that aging can bring. The first 53 minutes of music’s biggest night rolled along smoothly. This year’s Grammys had centerpiece performances from Olivia Rodrigo and BTS, plus a big reception for the newly minted Oscar winner Questlove; Trevor Noah, the host, told jokes that offended nobody’s spouse. It was only after Rodrigo accepted the award for Best New Artist that something unexpected happened. Noah introduced the celebrated singers Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell, to a surge of applause. When the camera cut away from him, the two artists were already standing at a nearby lectern, having skipped the ceremonial walk from backstage. Both are in their 70s, and both were honored this year: Raitt earned a lifetime-achievement award, while Mitchell won a Grammy for Best Historical Album (awarded before the main broadcast) and was named Person of the Year by the Grammy-affiliated nonprofit MusiCares. Raitt still tours and is set to release a new album this month, but Mitchell’s appearance was more exceptional. After suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015, she receded from public life during her recovery. Now her every appearance is treated as a seismic event by legions of grateful fans.The Grammy crowd greeted them with a standing ovation. Some camera angles revealed a cane gripped firmly in Mitchell’s right hand. “Overwhelming,” she whispered to Raitt, before the applause died down. Then she stood by as Raitt did much of the talking, reacting to a lavish compliment about her work with exaggerated deflection. Raitt set Mitchell up to introduce the next performer, about whom she was meant to say: “Please welcome an extraordinary artist and beautiful human being — a stunning, brave and truthful voice, my brilliant friend and ambassador, Brandi Carlile.” But when it came to the word “truthful,” Mitchell stopped. Without missing a beat, Raitt leaned over and smoothly filled in the missing word, gently cuing Mitchell to find the rest of the line.One columnist wrote that Gaga’s behavior ‘turned me to a puddle.’The moment recalled another interaction, just a week earlier, at the Academy Awards. That entire evening has been overshadowed by a single event, but even when that gossip was fresh, some attention still lingered on a surprise appearance by Liza Minnelli, who presented the award for Best Picture alongside Lady Gaga. They, too, simply materialized at the side of the stage. Minnelli was using a wheelchair, and as their own standing ovation ebbed, Gaga said: “You see that? The public, they love you.”“Oh, yes, but what am I — I don’t understand,” Minnelli responded brightly, her hands trembling as she shuffled through the cards she was meant to read. “I got it,” Gaga said. She took Minnelli’s hand, lauding her as “a true show business legend” and recognizing the 50th anniversary of “Cabaret,” for which Minnelli won Best Actress. When it was time for Minnelli to speak again, she seemed to falter at the task of introducing nominees. Again, Gaga leaned over: “I got you,” she whispered, her voice audible over the telecast even as the camera cut away. “I know,” Minnelli responded.I wasn’t the only one to feel moved by these small acts of care, aimed at quietly helping an older person through a potentially overwhelming experience. Each moment was widely praised on social media. A columnist for The Colorado Sun wrote that Gaga’s behavior “turned me to a puddle,” while a writer for The Cut called it “profoundly moving.” The sheer vigor of people’s approval might say something about how rare it is to see ordinary gestures of support in contexts like awards shows, which tend to be stiff, scripted and spotlit, always highlighting the confidently glamorous and the glamorously confident. These casual gestures of assistance would be unremarkable if you saw them in daily life. And yet they took on, in these otherwise plasticine habitats, a special dramatic weight.To watch Minnelli is to marvel at the genuine artistry that still might bloom from an impossibly screwed-up entertainment industry.Awards shows are a natural setting for honoring aging legends; this is why lifetime-achievement awards exist. Still, America retains a broad uneasiness with the blunt realities of getting older. Our most sprightly legends — the Jane Fondas, Warren Beattys and, until recently, Betty Whites — are invited onstage and praised for how great they look, but the actual frailty that accompanies aging tends to be hidden. Ailing celebrities often disappear from public life; only after they die do we learn about their health challenges.In this sense, Mitchell’s and Minnelli’s appearances carried slightly different emotional valences. Mitchell’s felt like a public reassurance that she was doing well. While accepting her preshow Grammy, she thanked her physical therapist, who accompanied her to the stage; days earlier, she sang her 1970 hit “Big Yellow Taxi” onstage with Carlile and others at a MusiCares ceremony. The reaction to Minnelli was more explicitly reverential, as if viewers were suddenly realizing that she would not be with us forever. The Oscars worship the amorphous concept of “the movies,” and Minnelli — daughter of Judy Garland, a fixture of culture across seven decades — is bona fide movie royalty. And unlike the (relatively) youthful Grammys, the Oscars ceremony loves to bow at the altar of old Hollywood. In 1996, Kirk Douglas received an honorary award, shortly after a stroke that affected his speech; in 2011, he showed up at age 94 to announce the Best Supporting Actress award. Nobody seemed to mind that he hit on one of the hosts (Anne Hathaway) and the winner (Melissa Leo); they were happy to pay tribute while they could. But seeing Minnelli, physically weakened yet immortally bright-eyed, stirred something in me that I am not used to feeling while watching these idolatrous shows. To say that Minnelli is Hollywood royalty is not mere book-jacket copy; to learn about her life, and to watch her in movies like “Cabaret” or shows like “Liza With a Z,” is to marvel at the genuine artistry that still might bloom from an impossibly screwed-up entertainment industry. We are so used to seeing her move with unbelievable energy that it was difficult to see that energy restrained. But I was grateful to see her on her own terms, rather than reading conspiratorial guesses about her health, and happy that the academy invited her to present. And, like so many others, I was endeared by the reassuring presence of Lady Gaga; much as she has in her work with the 95-year-old Tony Bennett, she seemed intuitively prepared to act as companion to a legend.Perhaps it’s not just the televisual rarity of moments like these that affects people. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a particular phrase being used often on social media: “give them their flowers.” The idea is that we should honor the figures important to us while they’re still around to cherish it — a notion I’ve seen repeated more and more during the pandemic, as hundreds of thousands have died, public figures included. Seeing Mitchell and Minnelli receive their flowers was heartwarming, sure; the magnitude of their work cannot be overstated. But many of us very literally have not been able to see older loved ones in years. The most vulnerable still remain at a distance, unsure if it will ever feel entirely safe to go out in public again. Maybe that’s why so many reacted so strongly to seeing elderly figures offered a little support as they participated in these grand events. What we see here is a communal tenderness we might all better will into existence, so we can welcome one another back into a world where fragility is increasingly hard to ignore.Source photographs: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images; screen grabs from YouTube.Jeremy Gordon is a writer in Brooklyn whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation and other publications. More

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      Alfie Allen Gets in the Zone with Gospel Music and Pineapples

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      Known for portraying the luckless Theon Greyjoy on “Game of Thrones,” the British actor shares the items that are helping him prep for his Broadway debut.In the Martin McDonagh play “Hangmen,” set in the 1960s, a mysterious fellow named Mooney turns up out of the blue in a London pub. He describes himself as “vaguely menacing,” but he is also rather coolly charismatic: This is a “spiffy young devil,” as The New York Times’s Ben Brantley put it in his review of the play’s Off Broadway premiere in 2018.It’s a juicy role and you can see why Alfie Allen chose it for his American stage debut — the play is currently in previews at the Golden Theater. And as dark and twisted as Mooney’s psyche is, the part should feel like a vacation compared to Allen’s eight seasons as Theon Greyjoy, one of the most tragic characters on “Game of Thrones.”“There is a freedom to Mooney that can be perceived and performed in so many different ways, such is the brilliance of Martin’s writing,” Allen, who had seen a production at London’s Wyndham’s Theater, said in a recent video chat.Something that came up a lot was music, though Allen laughed when asked if he would ever do a musical. “If somebody thought my musical talents were adequate, then I would definitely give it a thought,” he said. “I think I can sing and I think I can act, but I’m not sure I can dance.”From the New York apartment that’s his home base for the run of the show, Allen went over 10 items he deems essential as he focuses on withstanding the physical demands of a Broadway schedule. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Massage Gun I have quite tight muscles, so I purchased one of those at Christmas in anticipation of being onstage in New York. There’s definitely physical aspects to playing this part in “Hangmen” — his posture is sort of upright and slightly rigid so I need my muscles to be in good working order. Theragun is what a 35 year-old-man needs.2. “Nobody Knows,” T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir I usually create a playlist of music for each character I play. I have a portable Marshall speaker — they’re really good quality. I listen to “My Ever Changing Moods” by the Style Council, it just rang true for the character for some reason. And to get out of it I’ve been listening to Pastor T.L. Barrett, whose records kind of resurfaced in the last 10, 15 years. There’s a track called “Nobody Knows” that I’ve been listening to quite a lot.3. Pineapple Chunks I keep them in the fridge when I’m doing anything onstage. The acidity helps with the throat and the vocal cords, to kind of clear them. Plus I like pineapple. Quite nice.4. A Photo of His Daughter I’ve got framed pictures that I take with me when I go away for a shoot or to be onstage. I’ve got one downstairs, one up here. I’ve got loads of photos. [Moves camera to show them.] I’ve brought mostly family pieces, nothing I’ve collected — that’s all at home.5. Apple AirPods If I’m out in the street or on the tube in London — I haven’t done the subway yet in New York — it’s a way of zoning out. I enjoy podcasts but I’m definitely more of a music guy. I don’t really go out to bars and clubs anymore so I just find out about it through other people. Friends will send me music a lot, and just hearing it online, on telly. Spotify is always great.6. A Painting of His Dog My auntie Maureen did a painting of my dog and gave it to me. She asked me for a picture of him — he’s a French bulldog. She’d already done a small sketch for me and then she did a proper oil painting, which is great. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring my dog here with me so he is in London, being looked after by a family member.7. One-gallon Water Bottle I try to drink a gallon of water every day. It’s not easy but it makes me feel so much better. I’ve been trying to be quite militant about that, especially being onstage. I just saw these water bottles online, they tell you which hour of the day you need to drink your water by. And when we get into tech, we’ll be in the theater for 12, 13 hours of the day. When you’re onstage and you’re waiting around for a long time, you don’t want to keep asking people to get you bottles of water.8. “Just Kids” by Patti Smith “I have only just started reading it. A friend of mine suggested I read it while I was here. I’m definitely a fan of punk and what it represents (or did) but I’m not an expert on Patti Smith’s music. Soon to be, I hope!9. Ian Wright Arsenal Jersey I’m a big Arsenal fan, and Ian Wright was a legendary striker that we had. He was definitely my hero back then. There’s been a bit of resurgence in the interest in classic football tops so I thought I’d dip into that market and I got one from the 1997-98 season. Hopefully I can pass it down to my daughter, when she’s old enough.10. Steaming I’m trying to look after my vocal cords and I got this thing called a DoctorVox — one of the other cast members suggested it to me, and it’s brilliant. It looks like a big glass bowl-ish type thing. Then there’s a contraption you put over part of your face, then breathe in and breathe out. I’m yet to really master it. More

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      ‘The Runaways,’ ‘Brigsby Bear’ and More Streaming Gems

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      This month’s outside-the-box streaming recommendations include quirky comedies, an uncommonly rich music biopic and genre movies that are a cut above.‘The Runaways’ (2010)Stream it on Hulu.Floria Sigismondi’s chronicle of this all-female 1970s rock band is not immune to the clichés of the period music biopic. But it amounts to far more — a celebration of the punk scene and D.I.Y. spirit, along with the expected (though generous) helpings of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. Dakota Fanning is terrific as the lead singer Cherie Currie, a role that proves an ideal vehicle for her hypnotic brittleness, while Kristen Stewart is in fierce form as Joan Jett, and Michael Shannon nearly steals the show as their sleazy manager and producer, Kim Fowley. Best of all, Sigismondi’s throwback aesthetic and Super-16 mm photography keenly evoke the look and feel of the era; it plays less like a period piece than a contemporaneous coming-of-age movie that was locked away for a few decades.‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ (2014)Stream it on HBO Max.Plenty of authors and filmmakers have explored the day-to-day logistics of living one’s life as a vampire, but perhaps only Jim Jarmusch could’ve looked at the undead and marveled at how much more time they’d have to read great books, watch wonderful movies and listen to cool albums. There is, to be clear, an actual plot in “Only Lovers,” in which the chic bloodsuckers Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston find their elegant existence erupted by her wild-child sister (a potent Mia Wasikowska). But it’s mostly a vibe, a mood, a breezy hangout movie that also spills gallons of blood.‘A Walk Among the Tombstones’ (2014)Stream it on Netflix.A scene from the film.Universal PicturesIt’s a real shame that Liam Neeson had already burned off the good will of his third-act man-of-action career resurgence with too many “Taken” sequels and retreads by the time this taut thriller hit theaters — because it’s far superior to any of his other pictures of the time. That’s partly thanks to the personnel; it’s based on one of a series of crackerjack novels by Lawrence Block, and adapted and directed by Scott Frank (who would later perform the same duties on “The Queen’s Gambit”). But Neeson is also at his best, imbuing cop-turned-private-eye Matthew Scudder with a mixture of soulful regret, unwavering faith and righteous indignation.‘Compliance’ (2012)Stream it on Amazon.Craig Zobel, the writer and director of “Compliance,” narrates a scene from his film.Magnolia PicturesThis Sundance sensation from the writer and director Craig Zobel tells a story so unbelievable, it had to be true: a man calls a fast-food restaurant, claiming to be a police officer, and instructs the manager to interrogate an employee on suspicion of theft. With the caller’s explicit instructions, the manager proceeds to humiliate and assault the young woman, because that’s what a (supposed) person of authority said to do. Zobel crafts his film as both a morality play and a steadily tightening noose, its escalating discomfort complemented by the credible performances of Ann Dowd as the manager, Dreama Walker as the victim and Pat Healy as the caller.‘The Personal History of David Copperfield’ (2020)Stream it on HBO Max.The director and co-writer Armando Iannucci exhibits a light touch — even when dealing in matters of misery, poverty and death — with this merry adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic novel, in which he juices up the jokes, speeds up the pace and cheerfully indulges in colorblind casting. The result is a delightful mash-up of Dickens’s style and Iannucci’s own. Dev Patel is charming and charismatic in the title role, Hugh Laurie and Tilda Swinton shine in their juicy supporting roles and Peter Capaldi is a pitch-perfect Micawber. It’s all refreshingly silly, delightfully high-spirited and gently layered with just enough pathos.‘Brigsby Bear’ (2017)Stream it on Hulu.The “Saturday Night Live” regular Kyle Mooney co-wrote and starred in this funny, strange and sad comedy-drama as a young man whose idyllic but isolated world is punctured dramatically when his parents are arrested — and he discovers that they kidnapped him as an infant and raised him in captivity. Most shockingly, he discovers that the title character, star of a children’s show that was the center of his little universe, was produced by his “parents” for his own entertainment and education, so he makes a Brigsby Bear movie to tie up its loose ends. It sounds insufferably twee, but the director Dave McCary finds an approach that works, indulging in flights of fancy and peculiarity that are grounded by reality and sincerity.‘Downfall: The Case Against Boeing’ (2022)Stream it on Netflix.The director Rory Kennedy explores the crashes of two brand-new Boeing 737 Max airliners in late 2018 and early 2019, which killed hundreds and cast a harsh light on the company’s factory conditions and safety procedures. With the help of the Wall Street Journal reporter Andy Pasztor, Kennedy brilliantly breaks down the specific mechanical failures that caused the tragedies, rendering those investigative aspects in a way that is clear and upsetting. But she also dives deep into the company’s history, and how a giant merger and shift in corporate culture, favoring speed and stock price over safety, led to what Pasztor calls “a widespread pattern inside Boeing of deceitful behavior.” The evidence is damning and the story is infuriating; this is a piercing commentary on much more than just these two plane crashes.‘Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine’ (2015)Stream it on Amazon.When the Apple mastermind Steve Jobs died in 2011, the documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney observed “the grief of millions of people who didn’t know him,” and wondered why. So he sought to make a movie about who Jobs was, what he did and why it meant so much to so many. Eschewing the customary cradle-to-grave approach for a “Citizen Kane”-style thematic exploration, Gibney ends up with a corrective to the common Jobs hagiography — from personal missteps to sketchy business practices — and a thoughtful indictment of the personal moral choices we all make in the name of convenience. More

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      Father Doesn’t Know Best at New Directors/New Films

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      Returning to an in-person event, this year’s adventurous festival is filled with discoveries that use families to explore contemporary life.In a springy sign of optimism — illusionary or otherwise! — this year’s New Directors/New Films is returning to theaters full throttle. New York’s Covid numbers are creeping up again, but the festival, a joint venture of Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, has ditched the virtual for the physical. So, if you would like to check out the selections at the 51st edition, which runs through May 1, you will need to do so in person. And while masks are not required, they are recommended by the organizers.From its inception, New Directors has focused on younger or at least less-established filmmakers, many grappling with social and political issues. In a bad year, that means the event is little more than a grab bag of nice tries and misses. In a good year, though — and this is one — the event can feel like the unrulier, at times more adventurous younger sibling of the New York Film Festival. The strength of this year’s lineup is heralded by the strong opening-night selection, Audrey Diwan’s “Happening,” a gutsy, smart, involving French drama about a college student’s agonizing effort to secure an abortion in 1963, when the procedure was illegal. I’ll have more to say about the movie when it opens May 6.As usual, most of the slate has been culled from other festivals, including a half-dozen standouts from Sundance. Among these is Nikyatu Jusu’s “Nanny,” about a young Senegalese woman working for a white Manhattan family with an adorable daughter and the kind of nice, agonizingly polite, broadly smiling parents who, if they were any weirder, could have featured roles in a sequel to “Get Out.” With firm directorial control, an expressionistic palette and a transfixing lead turn from Anna Diop, “Nanny” shrewdly draws from African folklore and old-school Hollywood horror freak-outs to tell an emotionally engaging, up-to-the-second story of class, gender and race — which means it’s also about power.A scene from “Nanny,” which borrows from African folklore and Hollywood horror alike.Blumhouse ProductionsUnlike “Nanny,” most of the selections lack American distribution. That may change, of course, though it’s doubtful that most will secure a theatrical release given the fragile condition of foreign-language distribution in the United States. That makes an event like New Directors all the more necessary, and also gives it an air of quiet urgency. To that end, try to see Laurynas Bareisa’s “Pilgrims,” an eerie, impeccably controlled Lithuanian nail-biter about a man and woman revisiting the horrific murder of a beloved. As they retrace the crime, doggedly uprooting the past, exploring darkened cellars and confronting unwelcome bright faces, they exorcise personal demons, and the long shadow of World War II closes in on them.Another must-see is Sierra Pettengill’s “Riotsville, USA,” a mesmerizing documentary essay that tracks American anti-Black racism through a wealth of disturbing, at times super-freaky 1960s archival footage. The title refers to several strange Potemkin-like towns that the United States military constructed in the wake of the civil unrest of the era. There, against rows of cardboard storefronts with generic names, military personnel — some in uniform, others in civilian clothing — engaged in pantomimes of violence, exercises that were observed by local politicians who took lessons from these war games back to the home front. As the Johnson administration publicly grappled with the fires at home, including with the Kerner Commission that investigated the roots of the unrest, it was also stoking future conflagrations.There are predictable letdowns, too, notably “The Innocents,” from Eskil Vogt, who’s best known for the scripts that he’s written with Joachim Trier, including “The Worst Person in the World.” In theme and spooky vibe, “The Innocents” skews closer to one of their earlier collaborations, “Thelma,” about a woman with telekinetic powers. Set in a sinister, isolated housing complex next to one of those forests where the wind always blows ominously through the trees, “The Innocents” — the title seems to nod at the 1961 psychological horror film with Deborah Kerr — tracks the very, very bad things that happen to several children. The results are unnerving, pristinely crafted and altogether unpleasant.The documentary “Riotsville, USA” looks at “towns” the military built in the 1960s to stage exercises in the wake of civil unrest.CineticLike “Nanny,” some of the most memorable selections in New Directors use families to explore a constellation of ideas about contemporary life, its pressures and thorny complexities. In movies as distinct as “Father’s Day” (from Rwanda), “The Cathedral” (the United States) and “Shankar’s Fairies” (India), the family is at once an intimate unit and a microcosm of larger cultural and social relationships. An appreciable number of titles in the program are female-driven and, not coincidentally, patriarchy also looms — openly and otherwise — as a means of domestic control, as an arm of the state, as a virulent presence or as a structuring absence. Whatever the case, father definitely doesn’t know best.One of the most exciting discoveries, Kivu Ruhorahoza’s “Father’s Day” knits together three loosely connected stories that explore the anguished toll of historical and generational traumas. In one story, a hollow-eyed masseuse mourns the abrupt, outwardly random death of her son and the loss of her business to the pandemic as her wastrel husband dreams and schemes. Elsewhere a daughter takes painful stock of her dying father and his hold on her. In the brutal third story, a petty thief cruelly schools his young son (and be warned, some of these scenes can be difficult to watch). An unspoken malignancy, genocide haunts this movie, and while men trouble the present, women — hopefully, movingly — look to the future.Ricky D’Ambrose’s slow-boiling, visually striking drama “The Cathedral” tracks the coming-of-age of a boy — played by separate actors — who grows up in a lower-middle-class family that gradually falls apart year by year, one loss and disappointment at a time. Beginning in the 1980s, the story charts the family’s bleak disintegration through a series of precisely framed and staged chronological scenes in which nothing much seems to happen or everything does. With uninflected acting, explosions of fatherly violence and occasional nods at the outside world (the gulf war, a Kodak commercial), D’Ambrose brings together the personal and the political with lacerating cool and a boldly deployed anti-aesthetic.“Shankar’s Fairies” focuses on the daughter (Shreeja Mishra) of a wealthy family in 1960s India.Asian ShadowsBy vivid contrast, Irfana Majumdar’s quietly piercing drama, “Shankar’s Fairies,” uses beauty to sharp critical effect. Set inside the lush grounds of a sprawling estate in India, the story centers on the daughter of a wealthy family and one of its many servants. As news of the 1962 Sino-Indian war periodically drifts in, the movie charts the bonds and radically unequal lives of this child, with her British school and manners, and of her loyal, exploited caretaker. With scant exposition, flashes of breathtaking cruelty and banal moments bristling with meaning — a servant cuts the crusts off white-bread sandwiches while listening to Prime Minister Nehru on the radio — Majumdar takes measure of colonialism and neocolonialism alike.The tonally and visually distinct “Dos Estaciones” and “Robe of Gems” both take place in a contemporary Mexico consumed by violence. In “Dos Estaciones,” the director Juan Pablo González tethers the travails of the owner of an artisanal tequila factory to the ferocity of global capitalism: Her family’s legacy and her future are existentially imperiled by foreign competitors. In “Robe of Gems,” the director Natalia López Gallardo focuses on women from different classes whose lives are undone by shocks of barbarism, mostly domestic. Gallardo is too indebted to some of her art-cinema influences, Carlos Reygadas included. But she — like a number of this year’s other new and newish directors — is nonetheless a talent to watch.New Directors/New Films runs Wednesday through May 1. Go to newdirectors.org for more information. More

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      ‘White Hot’ Review: A Retailer Whose Reputation Went Down in Flames

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      This documentary, subtitled “The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch,” is a new film that dresses up old headlines about the clothing company.Pitching yesterday’s fashions as today’s news, the documentary “White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch” charts the onetime popularity and subsequent public disgrace of the clothing retailer, which in the 1990s positioned itself as the avatar of aspirational frattiness. In the early aughts, the brand came under fire for selling racist T-shirts and for its hiring practices. Sued for race and sex discrimination, the company settled a class-action case in 2004. In 2015, the Supreme Court revived a lawsuit against Abercrombie in another case, which involved a Muslim refused employment because she wore a head scarf.In this documentary from Alison Klayman (“The Brink”), the “rise” part of the story is patronizing and tedious. Subjects offer inflated descriptions of Abercrombie’s centrality in American life and explain the ’90s in comically condescending terms. “MTV, the Video Music Awards and the ‘House of Style’ television show gave flyover country access to the things that they wouldn’t see ordinarily,” says Alan Karo, a marketing executive. Patrick Carone, a former editor at Abercrombie’s quarterly magazine, enlightens viewers on the concept of a mall: “Imagine, like, a search engine that you could walk through.”The documentary gets more substantive when the “fall” component kicks in. Former employees share descriptions of encountering more or less open racism working at the company, whose advertising courted white, wealthy consumers. But these stories aren’t new (multiple interviewees were among the class-action plaintiffs). And while the movie provides encouraging evidence of how much societal sensibilities have changed, it is fundamentally dressing up well-worn material.White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & FitchNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘See You Then’ Review: The More Things Stay the Same

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      Former lovers reconnect, litigating the past and present, in this drama from Mari Walker.The golden glow that halos around the two former lovers reconnecting in “See You Then” is tinged with melancholy. More than a decade has passed since the sudden breakup of Kris (Pooya Mohsen) and Naomi (Lynn Chen). Some things have changed, some things stayed the same. That such an aphorism is easily applied to any number of “Before Sunrise”-style movies of people reminiscing and litigating what once was sets Mari Walker’s film at a disadvantage. But the chemistry of its stars gives the movie a curious magnetism that is almost enough to forgive its flaws.In the time since the two parted, Kris has transitioned, has a job in network security and is visiting Los Angeles from Phoenix. Naomi is an art professor at their alma mater and is married with two children. After a nervous start, they ease into a familiar rapport. Dinner turns into drinks, small talk gives way into how they really are, becoming a vortex of past and present.The script, co-written by Walker and Kristen Uno, ebbs and flows in the specificity of its central characters’ lives and the rhetorical approach to their conversation topics. But while this screenplay lacks a verve or poetry in its language, Mohsen and Chen are able to work through it and find gestures that make their awkward and erotic energy feel sincere.Chen gives Naomi an easy naturalism, her sense of regret textured and real. Mohsen’s line readings feel, at first, presentational, but her gaze is astonishing in its ability to convey longing and a mask of contentedness. Through their performances, they make it known, with brittle clarity, why the two were together and why they broke apart.See You ThenNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 14 minutes. Rent or buy on Vudu, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      How ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Helps to Heal Generational Trauma

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      For me, it was a scene about two rocks. For the actress Stephanie Hsu, it was taking her mom to the Los Angeles premiere.When I was 13, I asked to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.I was racked with debilitating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (O.C.D.), forced to write each individual letter against a straightedge, hellbent on perfection. It was messing with my seventh grade mojo.The perfectionism, in turn, shredded my sleep schedule. I spent countless hours, belly on the floor, struggling with my math homework, pressing mechanical pencil to ruler. Parabolas? Forget about it. O.C.D. combined with sleep deprivation and overmedication led to an angsty, early teenage flavor of nihilism — arguably the worst kind.When my mom came to visit, we sat in her car in the hospital parking lot and I told her about it. Head swirling with brain fog, I tried to explain that nothing mattered and how that was pressing me toward a mental brink. She got it.She told me, for the first time, that when she was 25, close to the age I am now, life was too much for her, too, and she tried to leave it. She saw me, understood me and sat there with me — a golden moment between generations.That incandescent memory surfaced a couple of weeks ago, when my roommate and I went to see “Everything Everywhere All At Once” — a sci-fi action adventure about the emotional implications of the multiverse — at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Manhattan’s Financial District.Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert narrate a sequence from their film starring Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan.Allyson Riggs/A24Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is a Chinese American immigrant who just wants to host a Chinese New Year party at her family’s failing laundromat, but a suave alter ego of her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), arrives to warn her that the multiverse is in danger. So Evelyn learns to “verse jump” — hop between parallel universes to access skills from other versions of herself — then realizes that the dark force threatening the multiverse is inextricably linked to her estranged daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu).Evelyn follows a nihilist alter ego of her daughter through infinite universes, trying to figure out why she’s hurting. Then she’s transported to a cliff. Two rocks — one tan and one dark gray — sit side by side, overlooking a ravine and mountains in the distance. It’s silent for a while. Then captions appear — white for Joy, black for Evelyn. This, apparently, is one of the many universes where the conditions weren’t right for life to form.“It’s nice,” reads Evelyn’s text.“Yeah,” reads Joy’s text. “You can just sit here, and everything feels really … far away.”“Joy,” Evelyn’s rock says, “I’m sorry about ruining everything —”“Shhhh,” Joy’s rock says. “You don’t have to worry about that here. Just be a rock.”Inside the World of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’In this mind-expanding, idiosyncratic take on the superhero film, a laundromat owner is the focus of a grand, multiversal showdown. Review: Our film critic called “Everything Everywhere All at Once” an exuberant swirl of genre anarchy. The Protagonist: Over the years, Michelle Yeoh has built her image as a combat expert. For this movie, she drew on her emotional reserves. Lovelorn Romantic: A child star in the 1980s, Ke Huy Quan returns to acting as the husband of Yeoh’s character, a role blanding action and drama. Anatomy of a Scene: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the film’s directors, discuss an action sequence built around … a fanny pack.“I just feel so stupid — ” Evelyn says.“God!” Joy says. “Please. We’re all stupid! Small, stupid humans. It’s like our whole deal.”Later, Joy asks Evelyn to let her go. Evelyn nods slowly and whispers, “OK.” In our universe, Evelyn lets go of Joy’s waist. In the rock universe, the tan rock slides off the edge of a cliff, rolling down it. But then, in one world, Evelyn turns back to face Joy.Maybe there is, Evelyn says, “something that explains why you still went looking for me through all of this mess. And why no matter what, I still want to be here with you. I will always, always want to be here with you.” The dark gray rock scoots to the edge of the cliff and tips off over it, rolling after her daughter.The scene shattered me, then glued the pieces back together. And it reminded me of the importance of understanding intergenerational trauma — when the effects of trauma are passed down between generations — and addressing it.“Everything Everywhere All At Once,” wrote its directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, on Twitter, “was a dream about reconciling all of the contradictions, making sense of the largest questions, and imbuing meaning onto the dumbest, most profane parts of humanity. We wanted to stretch ourselves in every direction to bridge the generational gap that often crumbles into generational trauma.”When the 31-year-old breakout star Stephanie Hsu took her mom to the L.A. premiere, her mom cried. Then her mom, who is from Taiwan, pointed to the screen and said, “That’s me.” For Hsu, it was an aha moment: Her mom related to Evelyn’s character, who faces her own trauma in her relationship with her father, Joy’s grandfather, or Gong Gong (James Hong).“Life is so messy, and life is more than a two-and-a-half-hour movie,” Hsu said in a video interview from New York. “Life is a long time, if you’re lucky. We don’t get a script that helps us succinctly metabolize our sadness.”When she first saw the screenplay, Hsu couldn’t believe what she was reading: The mother-daughter relationship was that poignant and relatable. She knew in her bones how complicated and precious that relationship was. And the transference of energy from the screen to the audience, she said, is very real.“When you break open like that, you can’t help but look into yourself and say, ‘OK, that pained me, and I need to look at that,’” Hsu said. “‘Something in me is wanting to heal, and something in me is wanting to take that leap of faith.’”Hsu thinks that’s what art is for: to hold space for trauma and offer catharsis. There’s a generation of women, she thinks, whose idea of strength hinges upon toxic masculinity, bravado and impenetrable toughness.“Our generation and the younger generation is now exploring different types of strength and what it means to be strong when you’re compassionate,” she said. “And how, actually, empathy and radical empathy and radical kindness are also a tool.”Peggy Loo, a licensed psychologist and the director of the Manhattan Therapy Collective, saw the movie on the Upper West Side. She believes that the film can serve as an exercise in imagination for those who have experienced trauma.Trauma can shrink the imagination, she said, if your main reference points for life’s possibilities emerged out of traumatic experiences. To heal, we need to be able to see farther than what we’ve known and been exposed to.“There’s this, ‘We know who we are, we know who we want to be,’” Loo said by phone. “And then the gap between the two. How do we get there?”To Loo, part of the strength of the movie lies in its sci-fi genre, which requires the viewer to suspend reality simply to keep up with the plot. It’s the perfect counterpoint, she said, and a great way to flex the imagination.Rather than neatly tying up loose ends, as movies typically do, “Everything Everywhere” mimics realistically what change can look like, by letting its protagonist make mistake after mistake. Wil Lee, 31, is a software engineer based out of San Francisco. “Not to be reductive,” he tweeted, “but Everything Everywhere All At Once is the generational trauma slam dunk film this season.”The way it fluidly weaves three different languages — Cantonese, Mandarin and English — he continued, is a spot on reflection of how many immigrant households actually communicate.“It shows the linguistic barrier as a core component of this intergenerational misunderstanding,” Lee said in a phone interview, adding, “The divide is so huge that you struggle to even find the right words to explain yourself to your family.”Hsu as Joy with Tallie Medel, who plays her girlfriend, Becky, in the film.Allyson Riggs/A24In one early scene, when Gong Gong arrives at the laundromat, Joy tries to introduce her girlfriend, Becky (Tallie Medel), to him for the first time. Joy fumbles with her Mandarin, and Evelyn jumps in in Cantonese, introducing Becky to Gong Gong as Joy’s “good friend.” Joy’s face falls.When Shirley Chan, a 30-year-old freelance illustrator based in Brooklyn, watched the movie in Kips Bay, it felt like the universe deliberately sent it her way, she wrote in a Letterboxd review, to let her know her own efforts were seen and to give her the courage to live as her most authentic self.A week before she saw the film, Chan came out to her immigrant mother in Cantonese and spoke honestly for the first time about how her upbringing affected her. Some of the Cantonese dialogue, Chan wrote, was uncannily almost word for word what she said to her mom.“But in my actual life, where this verse jumping doesn’t happen,” Chan said in a phone call, “I can see the moments in which she is trying, like asking me if a friend that I’m talking about is my girlfriend or telling me that she’s happy for my career.”The sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, who specializes in pop culture, sees the universality in the specificities of “Everything Everywhere.” Everybody can relate to a dysfunctional family, regrets, transformation, laundry and taxes.Evelyn is “like our parents, but seen through our lens,” Yuen said by phone. “If our parents could evolve, that’s who Evelyn would be.”I asked my own mom to see the movie, and she did, in Chicago’s West Loop — her first time in a movie theater in two years. She texted me a screenshot of an explainer (I needed an explainer, too) with one line circled in black:“When Evelyn reveals she always wants to be with Joy, no matter where they are, it is the start of a healing process for both characters.” More