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      SAG Awards 2022: Updating List of Winners

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      The prizes are being handed out Sunday night. Check back here for live updates.Will the Screen Actors Guild Awards being broadcast on Sunday evening bring clarity to the Oscar race? As Kyle Buchanan, The Projectionist columnist, has pointed out, because the Hollywood actors’ guild, SAG-AFTRA, votes on the prizes, they are considered by many to be the strongest precursor when it comes to predicting Oscar momentum in the acting races.The awards will be handed out at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., and televised simultaneously on TBS and TNT beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific. You can also watch the following day on HBO Max.Stars from the original Broadway run of “Hamilton” — Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr. and Daveed Diggs — are expected to open the show. And Kate Winslet is due to present a lifetime achievement award to Helen Mirren.Check back here for live updates of the winners. More

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      ‘Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming’ Review: Tyler’s Hard Lemonade

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      Tyler Perry revives his signature character — this time for Netflix — in a fast, nonsensical new Madea movie.Midway through “Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming,” there’s a gag that captures the humor of Perry’s multimedia Madea franchise. Perry halts the plot for a black-and-white flashback where his short-tempered, unfiltered titular matriarch tells the story of how she kick-started the Civil Rights movement by threatening her man’s mistress, Rosa Parks, who then took sanctuary on a Montgomery bus. As proof, Madea brandishes a photo she took in the moment on her smartphone. “My aPhone,” she says, “because they didn’t have iPhone back then — it was A before I.” It’s unapologetic, irreverent nonsense — but it should get a laugh, so why not? Perry, who claimed that he would retire his signature character after 2019’s “A Madea Family Funeral,” has resurrected Madea, it seems, in that same spirit: simply because he can.This installment finds Madea hosting her great-grandson’s (Brandon Black) college graduation party. The event is really a pretext for a dozen family members to bust each other’s chops; to cackle when Mr. Brown (David Mann) sets himself on fire. It also gives Madea an audience to which she can voice her conflicting feelings about the Black Lives Matter movement: She’s annoyed that her granddaughter Ellie (Candace Maxwell) became a police officer, threatening Madea’s weed stash, but she’s equally irked at the idea that protesters could burn down her corner liquor store.The script has plot twists so cuckoo they make soap operas look cowardly. Perry has even worked in a visit from his across-the-pond cross-dressing counterpart, the Irish comic actor Brendan O’Carroll, who plays the bosomy Agnes Brown on the Irish sitcom “Mrs. Brown’s Boys.” As the film speeds to a slapdash resolution, you might miss Perry’s one good speech about love — “Stop building them walls and build you some fences” — which can’t counterbalance a half-dozen hopelessly ridiculous ones. He’s apparently in a rush to get to the end credits sequence, where he changes into short-shorts and a blonde wig to lampoon the 2019 Beyoncé concert film “Homecoming.” Is there a reason this happens? Probably just because he can.Tyler Perry’s A Madea HomecomingNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Bappi Lahiri, India’s ‘Disco King,’ Dies at 69

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      He helped popularize the genre with some of the country’s biggest hits of all time, including “I Am a Disco Dancer.”Bappi Lahiri, an Indian film composer who combined the melodrama of Bollywood film plots with the flamboyance of disco’s electronic orchestra sound, setting off a pop craze in India that earned him the nickname “Disco King,” died on Feb. 15 in Mumbai. He was 69.The cause was obstructive sleep apnea, said his son, Bappa, who was his arranger, manager and bandmate.Mr. Lahiri was an up-and-coming pop musician in 1979 when he traveled to the United States to play a series of gigs for Indian American audiences. While there, he toured nightclubs in San Francisco, Chicago and New York and caught the final months of American disco fever. In New York, he bought a Moog synthesizer, multiple drum machines and so much other music equipment that it filled two taxis.On returning home, his experiments with those instruments culminated with a career-making soundtrack to a hit movie, “Disco Dancer” (1982). It was a musical in a disco style — insistent bass lines under soaring horns and strings — and a declaration of love to the genre. In one scene, a frenzied crowd and the protagonist, a superstar disco musician, spell out the word “disco” and chant it.“Disco Dancer,” which traces the rise to stardom of a young street urchin named Jimmy and his fights with a family of thuggish plutocrats, became the first Indian movie to earn 1 billion rupees (about $230 million in today’s dollars), and its soundtrack helped fuel disco mania in India.It also supercharged the career of its sad-eyed, bouffant-wearing star, Mithun Chakraborty, and produced two of the catchiest dance tunes in the history of Indian pop, each sung by Mr. Chakraborty onscreen: “I Am a Disco Dancer” and “Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja.”Long after the movie was shown in theaters, those songs endure across India. At weddings they’re known to inspire everyone from aging aunties to pals of the groom to boogie onto the dance floor.Mr. Lahiri would undergird many of his disco songs with a recognizably Indian melody, and he soon realized that he had hit on a winning formula, leading to 1980s hits like “I Am a Street Dancer,” “Super Dancer” and “Disco Station Disco.” He earned a place in the Limca Book of Records, which notes worldwide achievements by Indians, by recording the soundtracks to 37 movies in 1987 alone.He also developed a mega-celebrity’s fashion sense inspired by his boyhood reverence for Elvis. The look included tinted sunglasses worn indoors and out, velvet track suits and shiny jackets swaddling his pillowy bulk, and a mound of gold jewelry hanging from his neck.“I remember once a man refused to accept that I am Bappi Lahiri,” he once told The Times of India, “because I was wearing a coat to protect myself from cold and he couldn’t see my gold chain.”Bappi Lahiri was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on Nov. 27, 1952. His parents, Aparesh Lahiri and Bansur (Chakravarty) Lahiri, were singers who met while performing for the public broadcaster All India Radio. As a child Bappi showed talent playing the tabla, a traditional Indian drum, and, at the recommendation of the popular singer Lata Mangeshkar, he studied with the tabla master Samta Prasad.His family moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) when he was a teenager to further Bappi’s career. There he found a powerful ally in the family’s spiritual guru, Amiya Roy Chowdhury, who gave him a letter of introduction to the Bollywood star Dev Anand.Mr. Lahiri’s decades-long composing career ranged beyond disco to encompass Indian classical forms like ghazal as well. In all, he is believed to have composed about 9,000 songs that appeared in 600 or so movies. In his most productive periods he would book four studios in a single day and use as many as 100 musicians for one song.The funeral parade for Mr. Lahiri in Mumbai earlier this month. By the end of his life, he is believed to have composed around 9,000 songs for 600 or so movies.Vijay Bate/Hindustan Times via Getty ImagesIn addition to his son, Mr. Lahiri is survived by his wife, Chitrani (Mukherjee) Lahiri, whom he married in 1977; his mother; a daughter, Rema Bansal; and two grandsons.Though interest in disco had faded in the United States by the time Mr. Lahiri gained fame, he became a central part of the disco phenomenon elsewhere, particularly the Soviet Union. “Disco Dancer” was among the most popular films in the U.S.S.R., and Mr. Lahiri’s songs still serve as standards in musical shows on Russian television.During the 2018 soccer World Cup in Russia, a journalist with India’s Express News Service found the country full of “Jimmy” fans.“Everyone knows him where I come from,” one local fan, identified only as Yuri, was quoted as saying as he took out his phone. “Let me show you which of his songs is my favorite.” More

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      Foo Fighters Made a Horror Film. Because Why Not?

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      Dave Grohl shares how the band went from filming funny music videos to making “Studio 666,” due Feb. 25, and discusses a coming album.In the three decades that Dave Grohl has been a rock star, he has recorded with the likes of Stevie Nicks and Paul McCartney, directed documentaries, performed for presidents and been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, twice.But this month presents a first: On Feb. 25, Foo Fighters are releasing “Studio 666,” a horror-comedy directed by BJ McDonnell (“Hatchet III”) and starring, well, Foo Fighters.Why?“For fun,” Grohl said in a recent video interview. As he explained, “It was never our intention to enter the Hollywood game with this big horror film. It just happened.”In the film, which also features Whitney Cummings, Will Forte and Jeff Garlin, the band moves into a mansion, where Grohl himself once actually lived, to work on their 10th album. But songwriting proves challenging. Hoping to dig himself out of a creative rut, Grohl wanders around the house and discovers a secret that infuses him with creativity — and blood lust.The movie has been in the works since 2019, with production paused because of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s unlikely to rack up awards — “We’re not ordering tuxes for the Oscars,” Grohl said — but it does offer nuggets of hard rock and gore.Chatting from his home studio in Los Angeles over a cup of coffee, Grohl discussed the making of the film, his thoughts on rock ‘n’ roll and a new album. These are edited excerpts from the interview.Why did you decide to make a movie?Three years ago, a friend went to a meeting with a film studio, and our name came up. They said, “We’ve always wanted to make a horror with Foo Fighters.” He texts me, and I said, “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” and thought nothing of it.We were writing music for our last record. Usually when we make a record, I’ll go into my home studio or a demo studio by myself and just write melodies and instrumentals. So I started looking for houses to rent where I could build a temporary studio. At the same time, my landlord from 10 years ago emailed me and said, “Do you want to buy some property?” I said, no, but if I could rent it, that would be great.I started writing and was sending demos to our producer, and he’s like, “This sounds great. Let’s record there.” So I started thinking, we could make a horror film in this creepy, old house. I came up with this concept, presented it to the band, and they just laughed. It snowballed from there. We never imagined we were going to make a feature.Clockwise from front left, Foo Fighters bandmates Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee, Chris Shiflett, Grohl and Taylor Hawkins in “Studio 666.”Open Road FilmsAre you a horror fan?I’m no aficionado. Although I did grow up loving a lot of the classics. I remember reading the “Amityville Horror” book in 1979 and then going to see the movie. And I grew up outside of Washington, D.C., where they filmed “The Exorcist.” I was obsessed with the house and those steps. That’s where all the punk rockers would hang out in the ’80s. We would sit at the bottom of those steps and drink beer.Foo Fighters: A Rock InstitutionFor 25 years, Dave Grohl and his bandmates have ruled rock, and they’re still finding new ways to grow. Latest Album: For “Medicine at Midnight,” the Foo Fighters experimented with dance and funk rhythms — a subtle but distinct pivot. ‘Studio 666’: In the horror-comedy they star in, the Foos try to record some new music, when evil takes over Mr. Grohl. Grohl’s Memoir: How does a musician become a best-selling author? For the band’s frontman, the evolution started in an unlikely place. Drum Battle: Here is what happened when the Foo Fighters leader struck up a competitive friendship with a 10-year-old prodigy.“Studio 666” is also a band movie, which there don’t seem to be that many of out there. Why do you think that is?I don’t know. I grew up watching rock ‘n’ roll movies. “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.” The Ramones in “Rock ’n’ Roll High School.” It used to be something that went hand-in-hand with an ensemble cast.I think the band has to not only be willing to do it, but be capable of making fun of themselves. We’ve been doing that for 26 years, so this is just a long-form version of us poking fun at being a rock band.We’ve talked about a sequel and how [“Studio 666”] can be handed from band to band. Would Coldplay do a horror movie? Would Wu Tang? That would be amazing.Grohl grew up watching movies like “Rock ’n’ Roll High School,” with the Ramones and P.J. Soles.  Shout! Factory and New Horizons PicturesYou wrote in your memoir that you once lived in a house that you believed was haunted. Did you have that in mind while making the movie?I don’t think it crossed over into this idea. But that house was definitely haunted. Before then, I never had any fascination with paranormal activity. After then, I do believe this type of thing can happen. But I also remember thinking, so I shared a house with a ghost. Is it going to kill me? No. Do the lights go on every once in a while and you hear footsteps? Yeah. I’ve had worse roommates.Like most groups, Foo Fighters have had tensions in the past. Did that inspire the plot?No, it didn’t. But the screenwriter came to hang out with us while we were recording [“Medicine at Midnight,” the band’s 10th album,] to get a feel for the dynamic. She just overplayed it.Like any band, we’re like a family. It’s a relationship that teeters on disaster in every creative situation, because there’s vulnerability and insecurity. It’s not easy staying a band for 26 years. Of all that we’ve been through, I don’t think anyone would want to kill another member. We love each other too much.The movie makes fun of rock in general, but it also pokes fun at you: you can’t write new songs; Lionel Richie yells at you. Was that fun?There are so many clichés in this movie. It’s part “The Amityville Horror.” It’s part “The Shining.” It’s part “The Evil Dead.” On the musical side, there’s the controlling lead singer that’s torturing the band, the struggle of writer’s block.The funniest cliché, I think, is the clapping in the living room. Whenever an engineer or producer walks into a room before you record, they always clap to listen to the acoustics. I’m here to say it’s [expletive]. That makes no difference.Whitney Cummings, with Jaffee, is among the guest stars. Open Road FilmsDo you have a favorite scene?I did like the round table scene with Jeff Garlin. Doing improv take after take, you felt like you were in “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”There have been allegations that Jeff Garlin behaved inappropriately on the set of “The Goldbergs.” What was it like working with him?Jeff’s really into music. So most of our interaction off-camera was just talking about the bands we love. I didn’t know about any of that stuff. We just sat around talking about Wilco all day.There’s a scene where your manager says that rock hasn’t been relevant for a long time and it needs an infusion. Do you think that’s true? If so, what could revitalize it?I believe it’s partially true. I don’t think rock needs more Satan, but I do think it needs another youth-driven revolution. My oldest [daughter] is almost 16. I watch her discover music and write songs, and this is where [the action is].I think that the next rock revolution will look nothing like the one that we’ve seen before. And I’m not entirely sure what that is. But it’s coming. There’s so much to appreciate. I find a new favorite artist once a week, so it’s not like the well’s run dry.In 2021 alone, you released two albums, a documentary, a documentary series, a memoir, a few singles and you went on tour. What drives you to do so much?Coffee. [Smiles.]No — I just appreciate all the opportunity I have. I appreciate the people that help facilitate these ridiculous ideas, and I surround myself with people that have the same energy. And I hate vacations. I’m just restless. I feel this strange sense of guilt when I do nothing. I’m like a shark. If I stop swimming, I’ll die.You know what I’m doing now? I’m making the lost album by the band Dream Widow, from [the movie], like the “Blair Witch” tapes.Is the main song from the movie going to be on it?It is. It’s this crazy opus instrumental. I grew up listening to metal, so I started taking from my favorite bands as influences. For a metal record, it’s really good.So you’ve gone from covering the Bee Gees to metal.Listen, what do you get the guy that has everything?Right. Is there anything else coming?Yeah … you’ll see. More

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      Why Is ‘Cyrano’ Still So Potent? Ask Anyone Who’s Loved at All.

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      The 19th-century French play is quite adaptable, as numerous stage and film versions have shown, including the latest musical starring Peter Dinklage.When the French playwright Edmond Rostand penned “Cyrano de Bergerac” in the late 19th century, he couldn’t have imagined its durability — translations into countless languages, stage productions across the world and several high-profile film adaptations. The newest of those, “Cyrano” (opening in theaters Feb. 25), supplements Rostand’s beloved story with musical numbers by members of the rock band the National — a decidedly contemporary touch. But this is nothing new; Rostand’s has proved a malleable text, and its film adaptations tell us much about the kind of stories audiences were responding to when they were made.The 1950 “Cyrano de Bergerac” (streaming on Paramount+) starred José Ferrer, who had played the title role on Broadway in the mid-1940s, winning a Tony for his turn. It’s a classical approach, presentational (the proscenium arch of the stage isn’t visible, but it may as well be), with little attempt at realism in its playing or setting.Though greatly abridged, the script is quite faithful to the story beats of the original play. Cyrano de Bergerac is, we are told, a “soldier, poet, philosopher, magician, playwright … and the best swordsman in Paris.” He is also blessed (or, he believes, cursed) with an enormous, lengthy nose. He’s boisterously self-confident, except in matters of love. Self-conscious of his appearance (“Me, whom the plainest woman would despise”), he keeps his affections hidden from his beloved cousin, Roxane (Mala Powers), and his fears are confirmed when she asks him to set her up with the handsome Christian (William Prince), “because you have always been my friend.”But when Cyrano discovers that Christian is clueless in the ways of romance and hopelessly tongue-tied in the company of the fairer sex, Cyrano comes up with a solution: He’ll write love letters for Christian, providing an outlet for his own affection while giving Roxane the perfect man she desires. “Together we could make one mighty hero of romance,” Cyrano assures Christian, writing a flurry of letters and even standing in for him (vocally, that is) when Christian stands under Roxane’s balcony late one night, barely out of her sight, to woo her.The film and the original play end in tragedy. Christian and Roxane are wed just before he and Cyrano are sent to war, and when Christian dies in battle, his secret dies with him; Roxane enters a convent in mourning, and Cyrano only confesses to authoring the letters just before his own death years later.The 1950 “Cyrano de Bergerac” was mainly a showcase for the performance of José Ferrer (opposite Mala Powers as Roxane). John Springer Collection/Corbis, via Getty ImagesThe film won Ferrer an Oscar for best actor but scored no other nominations, which sounds about right: Michael Gordon’s direction is competent and Dimitri Tiomkin’s music is inspired, but this “Cyrano” serves mostly as a record of a masterful performance. (A 1990 film version, starring Gérard Depardieu, is a more satisfying “traditional” take.)Yet the film was striking enough to make an impression on Steve Martin, who saw it on television at the age of 12 and never forgot it, spending the next several decades quietly harboring a desire to play the role.“I had no intention of writing the script myself,” he told The Times in 1987; at that point, he had only penned “The Jerk” and other broad comedies. “I was afraid of it. You’re playing with fire when you tamper with a classic. So I went looking for a writer. But it was such a personal idea, and anyone I would give it to would make it his own. It’s hard to ask Neil Simon to write your idea.”So Martin spent four years writing it himself, soliciting suggestions for updates and modifications from everyone from former collaborators Carl Reiner and Herbert Ross to the author Gore Vidal. In “Roxanne,” released in 1987 (and streaming on Hulu), Cyrano de Bergerac has become C.D. Bales (Martin), a firefighter, a wit, an “encyclopedia,” an acrobat, a chef and (obviously) a writer. The movie is filled with markers of the era: a saxophone-heavy jazz score, copious casual drug references, a gender flip for our hero’s best friend. Roxanne (Daryl Hannah), now spelled with another “n,” is a brainy astronomer; Christian is now “Chris” (Rick Rossovich), a hunky firefighter.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      ‘No Exit’ Review: Who’s Bluffing?

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      In this diverting thriller, a young woman discovers a kidnapping in progress while snowed in at a rest stopIn “No Exit,” the director Damien Power gets straight to business: Darby (Havana Rose Liu) is stuck in rehab and groaning her way through another group therapy session when she gets a call about her mother, who has suffered a brain aneurysm. Darby — edgy and impetuous — hot-wires a nurse’s car and zooms off toward the hospital where her mother is. Unfortunately, Darby is foiled by a massive snowstorm, which keeps her stranded at a remote rest stop with four strangers and no cellphone service.Then, Darby discovers a little girl chained up in the back seat of someone’s van.Adapted from a 2017 novel by Taylor Adams — the kind of fast-burning read you might find in an airport newsstand — “No Exit” mostly comes across as a diverting boilerplate thriller. Imagine a compressed, significantly downgraded, true-crime-adjacent version of “The Hateful Eight,” another snowy chamber drama that devolves into gunplay and brutal bloodshed.Early on, the five marooned characters sit down to play B.S., a card game built around bluffing that clumsily mirrors Darby’s big question: Who among her new companions is responsible for the kidnapping?Most seemingly trustworthy is an older couple: Sandi (Dale Dickey), who is a retired nurse, and Ed (Dennis Haysbert), a former Marine. Lars (David Rysdahl), a twitchy Gollum-esque weirdo, would seem to fit the bill, but there’s also Ash (Danny Ramirez), a dashing jock, to consider.“No Exit” drops an arsenal of twists and rug-pulls at a machine gun’s pace, though Power, the director, doesn’t quite know how to milk the tension, and the perfunctory script (written by Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari) tries and fails to give the events a greater resonance. For her part, Liu makes an unusually complex final girl when she’s the only one left standing in a closing act showdown that makes crafty use of Darby’s drug addiction. And at least Power knows how to end things — that is, in ridiculous, flame-swept fashion.No ExitRated R for bloody violence, drugs, kidnapping, strong language and forced intimacy. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      Sally Kellerman, Oscar-Nominated ‘MASH’ Actress, Is Dead at 84

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      The actress, who broke through as Margaret (Hot Lips) Houlihan in “MASH,” was known for her self-effacing comedy, a velvety voice and an ability to toggle between sultry and silly.Sally Kellerman, the willowy, sultry-voiced actress and singer whose portrayal of Maj. Margaret (Hot Lips) Houlihan in the 1970 dark comedy “MASH” earned her an Oscar nomination, died on Thursday at an assisted-living facility in Los Angeles. She was 84.Her son, Jack Krane, said the cause was heart failure.In her decades-long career in film and television, she was best known for her role as the strait-laced but alluring Army nurse in “MASH,” which also landed Ms. Kellerman rave reviews and a Golden Globe Award.The film, directed by Robert Altman, broke ground with its irreverence and graphic depiction of a group of hotshot surgeons struggling to save horribly wounded soldiers at an Army surgical unit during the Korean War. (When “MASH” was adapted into a TV series, Ms. Kellerman’s character was played by Loretta Swit.)Ms. Kellerman went on to appear in several other films directed by Mr. Altman, including “Brewster McCloud” (1970) and “Welcome to L.A.” (1976). Like other actors, she was attracted to working with Mr. Altman because of the leeway he allowed in interpreting scripts and improvising scenes.After her star-making role in “MASH,” Ms. Kellerman sought to revive her career as a singer, performing her cabaret act at nightclubs like the Grand Finale in New York City.On the nightclub circuit, her performances garnered mixed reviews. Though she had “an intriguingly husky voice” and “the makings of an effective pop singer,” as The New York Times said in 1977, she was criticized for some of the same qualities she was known for as an actor, such as her “breezy superficiality.”In an interview with The Times in 1981, Ms. Kellerman reflected on the break she took to focus on singing, calling it a “great experience” that made her return to acting feel “fresh.”Sally Kellerman was born on June 2, 1937, in Long Beach, Calif., to John Helm Kellerman and Edith Kellerman.In Ms. Kellerman’s 2013 memoir, “Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life,” she described wanting to be a performer from an early age, when she was a “skinny little kid growing up in Granada Hills in the San Fernando Valley.”“I must have come out of the womb singing and acting,” she wrote.As a tall, chubby teenager, she harbored dreams of performing onstage that she held secret until she was a senior in high school, acting in Hollywood High’s production of “Meet Me in St. Louis.”At 18, then a self-described “jazz groupie,” she was offered a singing contract with the prominent jazz label Verve Records, Ms. Kellerman told The Times in 1981. It was severed by her debilitating stage fright.Her acting career began in musical comedy in productions like the Broadway musical “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1966).In addition to her son, she is survived by a daughter, Claire Kellerman Krane. Another daughter, Hannah Krane, died in 2016. Ms. Kellerman’s husband, Jonathan Krane, also died in 2016. A previous marriage to Rick Edelstein ended in divorce.Jesus Jiménez More

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      ‘The 2022 Oscar Nominated Short Films’ Review: Small Tales, Big Ideas

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      From near-future nightmares to inspirational sports narratives, this year’s shorts are an eclectic bunch.This year, the Oscar-nominated short films are being presented in three programs: live action, animation and documentary. Each program is reviewed below by a separate critic.Live ActionRarely is it the case that every nominee in a particular Oscar category feels equally deserving of attention, but this year’s program of live action shorts is particularly strong. All show situations range from mildly uncomfortable to downright terrifying, yet the quality of the filmmaking takes center stage.Anchored by a wise and wonderful lead performance from Anna Dzieduszycka, the Polish film “The Dress” follows Julia, a motel maid with dwarfism, as she tries to ease her loneliness and lose her virginity. A date with a handsome truck driver promises to do both, with troubling consequences. Filmed in beautifully soft light and directed by Tadeusz Lysiak in artful close-ups, this affecting and upsetting look at sex and disability reminds us that tall, dark strangers aren’t always a romantic prize.“On My Mind,” the sad-sweet entry from the Danish director Martin Strange-Hansen, doesn’t at first seem at all romantic, but just wait. When a strange, mournful man (Rasmus Hammerich) walks into a bar and begs to sing one special song on the karaoke machine, his deceptively simple request will soon be revealed as, quite literally, a matter of life or death.In the darkly humorous dystopia of “Please Hold,” a 19-minute nightmare set in a near-future world almost completely controlled by artificial intelligence, a young man (Erick Lopez) is arrested by a police drone and pressured to take a plea deal for an unknown crime. While he fumes in a hellscape of touch screens and disembodied voices — “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that!” — the Mexican American director KD Dávila delivers a shockingly clever satire of the privatized prison system and the elusiveness of justice.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.The Hosts: The comic actresses Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall are in final talks to take on the highly scrutinized role as a trio.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.Dreams of an education are dashed when Sezim (a terrific Alina Turdumamatova), the young Kyrgyz woman at the center of “Ala Kachuu (Take and Run),” is kidnapped and forced into marriage with a stranger. With empathy and energy, the German-Swiss director Maria Brendle uses Sezim’s youthful resilience as a cudgel against the repressive customs of rural Kyrgyzstan, a region where so-called bride kidnapping is believed to be a common practice.Preparations for a more joyful wedding open “The Long Goodbye,” Aneil Karia’s visceral film accompaniment to the actor and musician Riz Ahmed’s 2020 concept album of the same name. In a slight 12 minutes, Karia whisks us from scenes of happy chaos to abject horror, finally settling on fury as Ahmed, playing a brother of the bride, weaponizes his words and music to attack British racism. Powerful and tensely edited, this tiny movie says more in those few minutes than some movies manage in hours. JEANNETTE CATSOULISAnimationA scene from “Bestia,” a stop-motion chiller directed by Hugo Covarrubias.ShortsTV“Animation is not just for children,” Paul McCartney once said on an awards stage. “It is also for adults who take drugs.” The caution is apropos for the 2022 animated program of Oscar Nominated Shorts, although the “Yellow Submarine” star probably imagined more fun than what a doctor would prescribe for these anxiety-inducing films about heartbreak, resentment, torture and despair.“Bestia,” by Hugo Covarrubias, is a brutal and beautifully executed bit of payback against Chile’s Íngrid Olderöck, a paramilitary major who, according to survivors, trained dogs to sexually violate opponents of the dictator Augusto Pinochet. Made of deceptively cuddly felt, Covarrubias’s stop-motion chiller follows Olderöck and her German Shepard into her nightmares, revealing her as a husk of a human hiding under a tight-lipped ceramic mask. Note the hairline crack at the temple of Olderöck’s near-expressionless face — a nod to a 1981 assassination attempt.The Russian illustrator Anton Dyakov clearly admires “Rocky.” A poster of the Sylvester Stallone Oscar-winner pokes into the frame of Dyakov’s “Boxballet,” a simple, bittersweet tale about a declining boxer with a crush on a Swan Lake dancer under the thumb of a predatory male director. In this expressionistic fable, creeps have claws, limbs stretch like linguine noodles, and the would-be lovebirds must settle for much less than seven glitzy sequels.The chain-smoker at the start of Alberto Mielgo’s restless stunner “The Windshield Wiper” resembles the artist himself, a visual consultant on “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” whose streaks of color and startling use of light position him as one of the foremost artists designing digital animation’s future. “What is love?” the man asks. In response, the film races through cynical vignettes scattered across the globe, and in one case, on a satellite above it.For nearly 35 years, Joanna Quinn has pencil-sketched the adventures of Beryl, a raucous British factory worker who here reveals she always fancied herself an artist. “Affairs of the Art” finds Beryl stark nude and painting herself blue. But the spotlight is on Beryl’s macabre childhood and a string of dead pets. Yes, McCartney — even kids can be creeps. As a balm, Aardman Animations offers “Robin Robin,” the one cartoon suitable for families. This musical trifle celebrates an orphaned baby bird who must learn to use her wings. It’s saccharine fluff — and Oscar prognosticators have it as their front-runner. AMY NICHOLSONDocumentaryThe high school football player Amaree McKenstry in “Audible.” His senior year is eventful beyond the gridiron.ShortsTVWith three out of five nominees, Netflix is almost bigfooting this year’s documentary short category, but one of those three is a standout. “Audible,” directed by Matt Ogens, observes the high school football team at the Maryland School for the Deaf, zeroing in on one player, Amaree McKenstry. His senior year is eventful beyond the gridiron, as he navigates a tentative relationship and reconnects with the father who left him.McKenstry says that while he cannot hear cheers, he is able to feel vibrations from running. The players approach football with a different perspective. (“A lot of the hearing teams don’t want to play us,” the coach says. “And most coaches don’t like to lose to deaf coaches.”) Ogens, without overdoing it, finds ways to appeal to viewers’ other senses, looking for tactile moments, like teenagers dancing to booming bass lines or team members slamming locker doors and flicking a light switch as they rev themselves to return to the field.School memories also suffuse “When We Were Bullies.” In the early 1990s, the filmmaker, Jay Rosenblatt, had a random encounter with a former fifth-grade classmate from the 1965-6 school year. Both had remembered an incident when they and others had ganged up on an ostracized student. Years later, haunted that he had been a bully, Rosenblatt seeks out other classmates and their 92-year-old teacher. Not all remember the dust up, and Rosenblatt consciously leads the movie into a dead end. Still, “When We Were Bullies” plays with structure and animation in ways that leaven it.Less successfully empathetic is “Lead Me Home,” a documentary on homelessness shot in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle from 2017 to 2020. It is simply too diffuse at this length; few of its 15 featured subjects emerge with clarity, although it has heart-rending moments, like when a mother explains why she shops for groceries and makes dinner for her children instead of accepting meals. The many aerial shots of encampments inadvertently call attention to the distant perspective of the filmmakers, Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk, whose overuse of time-lapse photography and unfortunate deployment of Coldplay’s “Midnight” suggest it’s easier to lyricize poverty than explore it.“Three Songs for Benazir,” from the directors Gulistan and Elizabeth Mirzaei, follows a father-to-be in a displaced-persons camp in Kabul who yearns to join the Afghan National Army, but others are convinced his place is in the poppy fields. A poignant epilogue set four years later confirms a downbeat fate, while also hinting at a great unrealized feature that might have been.Finally, the New York Times Op-Doc “The Queen of Basketball,” directed by Ben Proudfoot, puts a spotlight on Lusia Harris, who died in January. In close-up, she recalls her career as a pathbreaking basketball player, the first woman to be officially drafted by an N.B.A. team. Released before Harris’s death, the movie now makes for a simple but moving memorial, interspersing Harris’s recollections with clips of key games and headlines. BEN KENIGSBERGThe 2022 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live ActionNot rated. In English and several other languages, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 1 minute. In theaters.The 2022 Oscar Nominated Short Films: AnimatedNot rated. In English and several other languages, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters.The 2022 Oscar Nominated Short Films: DocumentaryNot rated. In English and several other languages, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 39 minutes. In theaters. More