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      Bob Wall, Martial Arts Master Who Sparred With Bruce Lee, Dies at 82

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      He taught thousands of senseis how to run a dojo, all the while trading kicks onscreen with Lee and Chuck Norris.Bob Wall, a martial arts master who with quick business wits and even fleeter fists propelled disciplines like karate, aikido and Brazilian jiu-jitsu into the American mainstream, along the way making friends and sharing the screen with the likes of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, died on Jan. 30 in Los Angeles. He was 82.His wife, Lillian Wall, confirmed the death but did not provide a cause.For the millions of fans devoted to 1970s martial arts movies, Mr. Wall was best known for his role in the 1973 film “Enter the Dragon,” in which, as the thug O’Hara, he torments a vengeful undercover agent named Lee, played by Mr. Lee.At 6 feet 1 inch tall, with a full tuft of hair and a scraggly beard, Mr. Wall towered over the wiry, diminutive Mr. Lee, who, in the film, nevertheless overpowers his adversary by kicking him to the ground and crushing his chest. It’s an indelibly grisly moment, and a sharp contrast to the close bond the two men shared in real life.They had met in 1963, at a kung fu demonstration in Los Angeles’s Chinatown neighborhood, where Mr. Wall had withstood the instructor’s blows without dropping his beer.“At that point reality hit that I’d blown this guy’s demo, so I started walking toward the door,” Mr. Wall recalled in a 2011 interview. “I saw this tough-looking guy walking toward me, so I said, ‘This guy, I’m gonna clock,’ and he walks up close to me and says, ‘Hey that was funny. I’m Bruce Lee!’”They ended up talking in the parking lot for three hours.Mr. Lee was still an unknown martial arts instructor in Oakland who, like Mr. Wall, was drawn to Los Angeles’s budding combat-sports scene. Mr. Wall was a student of another instructor, Mr. Norris, an Air Force veteran and martial arts champion.The three became fast friends, and in 1967 Mr. Wall and Mr. Norris went into business together, running a series of studios in the San Fernando Valley, a part of Los Angeles that two decades later would provide the setting for “The Karate Kid.”Martial arts was an exclusively male domain at the time, fought without padding and producing more than a few broken noses and cracked teeth. But entrepreneurs like Mr. Wall saw an opportunity to make studios more professional and family friendly. Through manuals and seminars that he took around the country, he taught thousands of aspiring senseis how to run a dojo.“There were a lot of people who would open a school and start teaching and it would all fall into place or not,” Roy Kurban, a taekwondo champion who was inspired by Mr. Wall to open his own studio in Fort Worth, Texas, said in a phone interview. “He built a business system.”Mr. Lee, meanwhile, had begun his steady rise to global stardom. An appearance at the 1964 International Karate Championships in Long Beach, where he demonstrated his signature moves like the two-finger push up and the one-inch punch, led him to a role as Kato, the sidekick on the 1960s TV show “The Green Hornet,” and later to a series of movie deals.From left, Chuck Norris, Mr. Lee and Mr. Wall. The three became fast friends and Mr. Wall and Mr. Norris ran a series of martial arts studios together.via Wall familyMartial arts movies were huge in Asia but largely unknown in the United States. Mr. Lee decided to change that, in part by incorporating roles for Black and white actors, including Mr. Wall, who won a part alongside Mr. Norris in Mr. Lee’s first major film released in America, “The Way of the Dragon” (1972).Mr. Wall could take a hit, which put him in good stead with Mr. Lee, who insisted on doing his own stunts and refused to pull punches during fight scenes. Mr. Wall recalled that before they started filming “Enter the Dragon,” Mr. Lee told him, “Bob, I wanna hit you, and I wanna hit you hard.”Even the broken bottles that O’Hara wields against Lee were real — which presented a problem when Mr. Lee, a perfectionist, insisted on shooting that part of the scene nine times, with Mr. Wall repeatedly falling back on shards of glass. At another point Mr. Lee kicked him so hard that he flew back into a row of extras, breaking a man’s arm.“It’s one thing to get hit that hard once or twice, but try it eight times in a row,” Mr. Wall said. “Let me tell you, about the fourth time, you know what’s coming, you’re going to get popped real hard, and you just have to say, ‘Hey, I’m here to do a job. Make it real.’”That commitment to combat vérité paid off. “Enter the Dragon,” made for just $850,000 (about $5.3 million in today’s dollars) grossed $350 million worldwide (about $2.2 billion today), making it one of the most profitable movies of all time. It helped establish martial arts as an indelible part of American pop culture.But Mr. Lee did not get to enjoy the success. He died, at 32, just before the film debuted, of undiagnosed swelling in his brain. By then he had begun filming “Game of Death,” featuring an iconic fight scene with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (the film, in which Mr. Wall also had a role, was released in 1978). And he was planning even more movies, including at least one with a prominent role for Mr. Wall, who would play a sidekick to Mr. Lee’s hero, a C.I.A. agent.“Hey Bob,” Mr. Wall recalled him saying a few weeks before his death, “you get to be a good guy in the next one!”Mr. Wall in 2008. Later in life, he found a second career in real estate as a residential and commercial developer.AlamyRobert Alan Wall was born on Aug. 22, 1939, in San Jose, Calif. His father, Ray Wall, worked in construction and his mother, Reva (Wingo) Wall, was a nurse.He was drawn to martial arts as a young teenager who had suffered beatings at the hands of his abusive, alcoholic father. He wrestled in high school and at San Jose State University, where he left without graduating to join the Army. After he was discharged, he moved to Los Angeles to begin his martial arts education under Mr. Norris.Mr. Wall held an advanced black belt in several disciplines, and he regularly placed first or second at competitions around the country in the late 1960s and early ’70s.After Mr. Lee’s death, he worked as a fight coordinator on several martial arts movies, including “Black Belt Jones” (1974), starring one of his protégés, Jim Kelly, one of the first Black karate champions. He also gave private lessons to celebrities interested in martial arts, including Steve McQueen and Elvis Presley.By the mid-1970s Mr. Norris had decided to go into acting full time, and he and Mr. Wall sold their business in 1975. Mr. Wall turned his attention to real estate, launching a second career as a residential and commercial developer. He didn’t leave the world of martial arts, though. In addition to writing books and teaching seminars, he had a long-running and very public beef with Steven Seagal, another martial arts expert turned action star.In a series of interviews in the mid-1980s, Mr. Seagal, who had taught aikido in Japan, insulted American martial arts, and Mr. Norris in particular. In response, Mr. Wall challenged him to a fight; they never came to blows, and eventually they worked it out, but Mr. Wall refused to watch any of Mr. Seagal’s movies.Mr. Wall also remained close friends with Mr. Norris. He took small roles in several of his movies and on the series “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which starred Mr. Norris and ran from 1993 to 2001.It was just the right amount of fame for Mr. Wall.“I’m famous enough that people who know martial arts or know Bruce Lee films know me,” he said. “But I’m not so famous that I can’t walk down a street. I can go in and out of a restaurant. I don’t lose my privacy.” More

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      ‘The In Between’ Review: Love Never Dies

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      A teenage girl thinks that her dead boyfriend’s spirit is reaching out from the Great Beyond.Like its foremother, “Twilight,” “The In Between” depicts a pedantic girl in a supernatural world who’s willing to die for her boyfriend. But where the “Twilight” films at least culminated in a decapitation or two, this feature, from the director Arie Posin and the “Serendipity” screenwriter Marc Klein, focuses solely on its fatal romance.The lead in question is Tessa (Joey King), who wakes up in the hospital after a car crash damages her heart and kills her boyfriend, Skylar (Kyle Allen). As Tessa starts to suspect that Skylar’s spirit is reaching out from the Great Beyond, we see their whirlwind summer romance through a series of flashbacks.This mawkish plot might be tolerable if its characters were more likable; instead, they are pretension personified. Tessa meets Skylar at a screening of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 1986 psychological drama “Betty Blue,” where he offers to translate the French for her. He describes them both as “analog,” because they like film photography and ’80s pop hits and don’t post on social media.Spoiler alert: As Skylar’s spirit contacts Tessa through phones and computers (not very analog of him), she embarks on a suicide mission to see him one last time. The film unambiguously romanticizes this self-sacrifice, joining a parade of sexist schlock where girls choose love over life. These depictions are harmful and beyond tired, especially after other entrants in the teen genre, like Ry Russo-Young’s “Before I Fall,” have already managed to explore death and girlhood through the eyes of relatable, independent young women.The film’s tagline, “love never dies,” sums up its treacly climax. Maybe not, but teenage girls still can.The In BetweenRated PG-13 for teenage lovemaking and near death experiences. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      ‘Bigbug’ Review: Rise of the Machines

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      A squabbling family is locked in its home by robots in this overlong artificial-intelligence comedy on Netflix.In Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s futuristic farce, “Bigbug,” a suite of loyal domestic robots moves to protect a suburban family from bigger, badder androids. As the film progresses, though, it becomes clear that these particular humans might not be worth saving.As written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, “Bigbug,” filmed on a single stage set, delivers artificial-intelligence comedy with a doomy vibe. When a militaristic breed of androids, the Yonyx, attempts a political takeover, the bickering, blended family — chiefly a ditsy wife (Elsa Zylberstein), her randy suitor (Stéphane De Groodt), her boorish ex-husband (Youssef Hadji) and his younger-model fiancée (Claire Chust) — finds itself trapped in unwilling lockdown by its mechanical servants.A candy-colored, sociopolitical cartoon featuring all-too-believable grotesqueries — like a reality-TV show in which Yonyx hosts treat humans like animals — “Bigbug” is at once relentlessly busy and oddly static, a Peloton ride to nowhere very interesting. A filmmaker with a toymaker’s heart, Jeunet delights in seeding his movies with eccentric, often menacing gadgets, so it’s no surprise that his wayward androids are more enjoyable than his self-involved human characters. There’s the Yonyx leader, brought to leering life by François Levantal and a fearsome set of dentures; the chillingly cheerful housekeeper (Claude Perron); and a pleasure model, wonderfully played by Alban Lenoir, overcome with devotion to its owner.Despite some snappy ideas (an aggressive advertising drone pushing products as answers to the family’s every problem), “Bigbug” is overdressed, overlong and diminishingly amusing. The sequence where the robots attempt to become more human might be played for laughs, but it inevitably prompts the question: Is an android with a soul any scarier than a human without one?BigbugNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Playground’ Review: A Creation Story

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      In this stunning Belgian drama, a little girl and her brother go to school, read, write, fight and learn some brutal lessons about life.In a perfect hour and 12 minutes, “Playground” tells the sweeping, intimate story of a child’s coming into consciousness. Set almost entirely within the confines of an elementary school and its grounds, it takes place in an unidentified Belgian neighborhood at an institution that’s as colorless, generic and unwelcoming as any educational sausage factory. There, girls and boys are turned into students, playmates, friends, adversaries, future citizens and dutiful workers. They study and obey but sometimes they also resist.It’s the first day of school when you meet Nora (an astonishing Maya Vanderbeque), a plaintive 7-year-old with short hair and worried eyes. She’s hugging her brother, Abel (Günter Duret, a heartbreaker), who’s slightly older and a touch taller, her eyes beginning to flood as her father (Karim Leklou) silently stands by. Her face is bunched in a knot of anxiety and her grip is tenacious, unyielding. As the children clutch at each other, their bodies fused and foreheads touching, Abel whispers words of comfort. “Don’t worry,” he gently tells Nora, just before a supervisor pulls them apart. “I’ll see you at break time.”This reunion never occurs. Instead — as happens recurrently in this fierce, intelligent movie — grown-ups get in the way, blinkered by their obeisance to rules, regulations and pedagogical imperatives. Forced to eat lunch separately from Abel, Nora sits down with some other girls; in time, she also settles into school. She makes friends and expands her horizons: She learns how to tie her shoes. “Good job,” a girl says, expressing support with a tinge of adult condescension. But school also brings harrowing trouble when Abel becomes the target of vicious bullying — for Nora, it is a devastating introduction to the larger world.This is the first feature from the writer-director Laura Wandel, and it’s a knockout, as flawlessly constructed as it is harrowing. By the time the first scene has ended, Wandel has set the anxious mood, introduced her characters, established the visual design and created a richly inhabited world that’s disturbingly familiar. (If you don’t flash on your childhood with at least a few pangs while watching it, you are made of stronger stuff than I am.) From the sights and sounds of Nora being escorted into school — the image darkens as the sound of children’s voices rise to a roar — you are already primed for the worst.You’re also firmly in Wandel’s grip. The image of distressed children can’t help but seize your attention (and quickly stoke your sympathies), but the scene’s tenderness also holds you. In “Playground,” the camera never points down at Nora, but is positioned at her eye level, as if it were another child. This creates an immediate, palpable intimacy, a gentleness that’s accentuated by the tightness of the shot, the soft light and Nora’s tears. You’re at her side, and that’s where you remain. You see what she sees in her immediate orbit, but you also see how she sees, allowing you to step into her limited sphere and experience her narrow sightlines.In “Playground,” Nora is the narrative pivot, and because she’s most often positioned in the center of the frame, she is also the movie’s visual center point, its lodestar. But what she understands about her new, uncharted world is sharply circumscribed. She sees but doesn’t always know, and while you may grasp the situation, Wandel also shrewdly withholds information, which puts you on the same uncertain existential level as Nora. Because Nora is so tiny there are moments when you don’t even see the faces or upper bodies of the adults, a vantage that recalls the few peeks of grown-ups in early Charlie Brown comics.The story gathers momentum as the bullying dangerously escalates amid short scenes of Nora’s everyday school life. She goes to class, reads and writes, and endures time on a balance beam and in a swimming pool. She watches, and she learns. In one scene, a teacher orders her and other girls to circle their arms in different directions, an exercise mostly in submission. The school is shaping minds, but Wandel reminds you that it’s also disciplining bodies. On the playground, the children — through their play and their sadism — mimic these adult lessons in power, creating a different educational regime.A work of striking integrity and force, “Playground” owes a debt to the influential Belgian filmmaker brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, both in its formal and thematic concerns. As in their movies, Wandel is charting a moral awakening and focusing on the questions that many movies rarely engage. How do we love, and why? How do we become, who do we become? Wandel is telling the story of one child, a tiny planet spinning in a mysterious, often confusing, unsettled universe. (The original title is “Un Monde.”) But she’s also telling a story that in its piercing, sensitive detail and life-shaping arc is as familiar as yours and mine.PlaygroundNot rated. In French. Running time: 1 hour 12 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Hear Lata Mangeshkar in These Four Streaming Films

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      Because Mangeshkar lent her voice to several generations of Bollywood stars, these movies double as a highlight reel for Hindi cinema.They called her the Queen of Melody.Lata Mangeshkar, the Bollywood singer who died on Sunday at 92, left behind a monumental body of work in a career that began in 1942, when she was just 13. Her singing for films, which continued until 2015, spanned numerous regional-language industries, but she defined mainstream Hindi cinema in a way few artists have. (Another artist who did, Mangeshkar’s sister Asha Bhosle, is also a playback singer.)Mangeshkar lent her angelic voice, with its four-octave range, to several generations of stars, from Madhubala in the horror classic “Mahal” (1949) and the historical epic “Mughal-e-Azam” (1960) to Hema Malini in the crime comedy “Dream Girl” (1977) to Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor in the romantic drama “Dil To Pagal Hai” (1997). In “Dil To Pagal Hai,” her recognizable voice emanates from both actresses, sometimes in the same scene, but this double duty isn’t distracting. With thousands of songs to her name, she was as common to Indian audiences as close-ups and scene transitions, accepted as a crucial element of cinematic language.Four of her most successful films are available to stream. Given the breadth of her career, they effectively double as a highlight reel for the history of Hindi cinema. An introduction to its riches would be nearly impossible without her.‘Awaara’ (1951)Stream it on MUBI; buy or rent it on Amazon Prime.Raj Kapoor’s “Awaara” straddles the line between art house and blockbuster. It was both a Grand Prix nominee at the Cannes Film Festival and an enormous financial success, a huge hit not only in India, but also in China and the Soviet Union.A false-imprisonment story with social reform on its mind, “Awaara” cemented Hindi cinema’s lasting theme of romance across economic lines, told here through Kapoor’s trenchant mix of gritty melodrama and lavish musical scenes. Mangeshkar, who provides the singing voice for the actress Nargis, captures the giddy excitement of new love in “Jab Se Balam Ghar Aaye” (“Ever Since My Beloved Returned”), which she deepens into intoxicating passion in “Dam Bhar Jo Udhar Munh Phere” (“If You Turn Away for a Moment”), an intimate duet with the renowned singer Mukesh.Mangeshkar’s vocals are just as suited to the story’s dreamlike turn in “Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi” (“My Stranger Came Home”), in which she projects an operatic longing. The film runs the stylistic gamut, and her dynamic voice aids in its transformations.‘Sholay’ (1975)Buy or rent it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play and YouTube.Ramesh Sippy’s musical “western” “Sholay” had a fabled theatrical run of nearly six years. Its box office success is partially owed to its musical set pieces composed by R.D. Burman.“Holi Ke Din” (“On the Day of Holi”), a colorful explosion set during the Hindu spring festival, is both a celebratory respite between violent action scenes and a romantic tête-à-tête between the roguish Veeru (Dharmendra), whose singing is voiced by Kishore Kumar, and the feisty Basanti (Hema Malini), voiced by Mangeshkar. Basanti struck a chord with audiences not only for her fast-talking bravado, but also for a memorable act of sacrifice: To save Veeru from a callous bandit, she agrees, in an act of heroism distinct to the Indian musical, to dance on broken glass in “Haa Jab Tak Hai Jaan” (“As Long As I Live”), which Mangeshkar sings lovingly and fearlessly.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      ‘The Sky Is Everywhere’ Review: Amid Grief, Blossoms of Joy

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      Josephine Decker unlooses a slipstream of adolescent passion and anguish in this radiant drama about a musician grieving the loss of her big sister.In Josephine Decker’s glorious young adult drama “The Sky Is Everywhere,” Lennie (Grace Kaufman) is a high school clarinetist who relearns to embrace life’s joys after the sudden loss of her big sister, Bailey (Havana Rose Liu).Lennie begins the story anguished and withdrawn. She commiserates with Bailey’s taciturn boyfriend, Toby (Pico Alexander), and the pair find comfort in shared suffering. But then Lennie meets Joe (Jacques Colimon), an alluring bandmate eager to engage her. The young men seem to signify possible paths for Lennie: Toby offers solace and a safe link to Bailey; Joe means new ecstasies, a moving on from the torment.“The Sky Is Everywhere” (on Apple TV+) is based on a novel by Jandy Nelson, who also wrote the screenplay, and she renders this adolescent story with rare respect. Too many works aimed at younger age groups ooze with sentimentality or buckle under a condescending tone. Here, in figurative voice-over full of imagery, we receive Lennie’s unbridled imagination and worldview.Those meditations are fertile ground for Decker, an empath with a divine gift for using chaotic visuals to conjure emotion. As she did in “Madeline’s Madeline” and “Shirley,” Decker unlooses in this movie a slipstream of female passion, rage and distress.But don’t confuse this with an oppressive teen weepy tinged gray. Instead, Decker gets crafty with a tactile aesthetic. Cutout rain clouds hover in the sky. A teen’s inadvertent erection cues a cartoonish “boing.” And in the most enchanting scene, Lennie and Joe listen to Bach as they lie amid a rose garden embodied by dancers festooned in blossoms. The viewer revels in this moment, and so does Lennie, a ray of raw feeling anchoring a radiant melding of music and image.The Sky Is EverywhereRated PG-13 for language and raging hormones. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters and on Apple TV+. More

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      ‘I Want You Back’ Review: Scheming Hearts

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      Jenny Slate and Charlie Day play strangers who team up to win back their exes in this pleasantly run-of-the-mill rom-com.Directed by Jason Orley, “I Want You Back” is a throwback rom-com about the love lives of straight people, and its jokes hit about as much as they miss. The story is mediocre and formulaic, yes, but pleasantly so. And it shows not only ladies dealing in blubbering heartbreak, but guys going through it as well.Peter (Charlie Day), a manager at a nursing home company, is dumped by Anne (Gina Rodriguez), his English-teacher girlfriend of six years. In the throes of a quarter-life crisis, Anne finds him complacent and shacks up with the alluringly bohemian Logan (Manny Jacinto), who dreams of Off Broadway fame but settles for directing school plays.Meanwhile Emma (Jenny Slate), a flighty receptionist living with college students, is given the boot by Noah (Scott Eastwood), a personal trainer who has fallen for a more emotionally mature pie shop owner.Commence the weepy despairing and Instagram stalking.A commiseration-and-karaoke-filled friendship unfolds between Emma and Peter, prompting some mutually beneficial scheming to break up their exes’ new relationships: Peter will pull Noah back into bachelorhood and Emma will seduce Logan. It sort of works, though primarily as a conduit for self-discovery. High jinks also ensue, as when Emma, endearingly delusional (Slate’s forte), volunteers for Logan’s new production and takes the stage for a bizarrely sincere rendition of “Suddenly, Seymour.” Or when the paternal Peter, high on MDMA, goes diving into a hot tub off a rooftop with girls half his age.Orley and the screenwriters Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger (the duo behind “Love, Simon”) build out a not entirely shallow ensemble story, even if they rely on new archetypes for their modern lovers, like the late-blooming messy woman or the sensitive guy with baby fever. “I Want You Back” isn’t particularly clever or emotionally stirring, but it does briskly deliver on the corny promises of the genre, navigating relatable relationship issues by the least relatable means.I Want You BackRated R for some rear-end nudity, brief sex scenes, drug use and language. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. Watch on Amazon. More

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      ‘Indemnity’ Review: Fires Everywhere

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      This South African thriller trades plausibility and originality for a worthy substitute: a great deal of fun.A South African thriller haunted by the ghosts of many Hollywood blockbusters past, “Indemnity” trades plausibility and originality for a worthy substitute: a great deal of fun.In this feature debut by Travis Taute, a brooding firefighter with PTSD (reminiscent of innumerable troubled action heroes), is accused of murdering his wife (à la “The Fugitive”) and goes on the run to uncover a complex techno-political conspiracy (bearing pointed parallels to “The Manchurian Candidate”).The script is a patchwork of tropes, but Taute’s eye for sleek, surprising action sequences and the leads’ movie-star charisma make this an eminently entertaining watch.Jarrid Geduld plays Theo Abrams, a star of the local fire department who is placed on mental health leave after witnessing the deaths of two colleagues in a blaze they were fighting. He wakes up one morning to find his investigative-journalist wife, Angela (Nicole Fortuin), strangled to death, just hours after she receives a scoop about a sinister government plot. Given Theo’s recent spate of binge-drinking and manic outbursts, the authorities deem him the prime suspect in her death. So off he goes zigzagging across Cape Town, dodging both the police and some mysterious bald baddies.Taute overstuffs “Indemnity” with subplots about police corruption, Theo’s past traumas and pan-African deep-state intrigue. But there’s an endearing sincerity to the film’s commitment to all this elaborate narrative scaffolding (including some fascinating real-world commentary on South Africa’s racial politics) for what is essentially a string of “Mission Impossible” — style escapades. Taute contrives clever spatial set pieces — playing off the architectural possibilities of elevators, skyscrapers, a labyrinthine chemical factory — while Geduld, performing his own stunts for the most part, shows off a grungy physicality that feels rare in today’s plastic, CGI-driven actionverse.IndemnityNot rated. In Afrikaans and English, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More