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      ‘The Legend of Ochi’ Review: The Great, Familiar Adventure

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      A 1980s throwback movie about a teenager who sets out on a journey with a mysterious being.There was a pleasing kind of weirdness and danger to a lot of children’s entertainment in the 1980s. Extraterrestrials and fantastical creatures populated the waking dreamscapes of children in those movies, teaching them lessons and helping them to find the courage to face more pedestrian real-life monsters. And because effects hadn’t gotten all digital, even the best of those nonhuman creatures often felt a little janky, like souped-up versions of puppets you might create out of the random bits of craft supplies from your grandma’s closet.It’s very clear that “The Legend of Ochi,” Isaiah Saxon’s debut feature as a writer and director, is an elaborately designed and very effective nostalgia piece for the movies of that time, starting from the title design, which renders each letter in a kind of glowing orange yellow. The movies you’ll think of while you’re watching it are the ones that stuck with you most: For me, “The Neverending Story” and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.” Here the creatures are a little more smoothed out, but the Frank Oz influence is obvious.Those creatures are the Ochi, which look like a cross between tree monkeys and Yoda. In the world of this movie, they are secluded creatures that live in the woods, keeping away from human civilization. The people of Carpathia fear them, hunt them and teach their children to do the same. One man, Maxim (Willem Dafoe), trains the local boys — including the orphaned Petro (Finn Wolfhard), whom he’s adopted as his own son — in the best ways to find and kill the Ochi.But Maxim won’t allow his own daughter, Yuri (Helena Zengel), to join in, for reasons that have a lot more to do with him than with her. Angry and disaffected, Yuri seethes mostly alone, and longs to talk to her mother, who left the family a long time ago. It doesn’t help that Petro idolizes Maxim and is rude to Yuri in front of the other boys. Then, one night, Yuri discovers a baby Ochi who seems lost and injured. Determined to return the creature to its home, she sets off on a great adventure, with Maxim soon hot on her trail.It is not hard to spot the derivative nature of this plot, with all its classic ’80s movie elements: the creatures the humans would rather kill than understand; the divorced parents; the disaffected young person; the hero’s journey. I don’t mean that in a bad way, though: “The Legend of Ochi” is designed to pay tribute to a kind of movie that rarely gets made anymore, even though the success of the similarly derivative Netflix show “Stranger Things” suggests that there’s an appetite for it. Echoing tropes of that era is one way to remind us of what we used to see down at the multiplex.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Invention’ Review: Patent Pensive

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      In this strange experimental feature from Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez, a grieving daughter investigates the mysterious gadget her father left behind.“Invention” is the sort of D.I.Y. project that’s tough not to admire, even if its aims remain stubbornly private. This strange, personal movie is a mind meld between the experimental filmmaker Courtney Stephens (“Terra Femme”) and the actress Callie Hernandez (“Alien: Covenant”). Stephens is credited as director, while the two share a “film by” credit.Hernandez plays a barely disguised version of herself, “Carrie Fernandez,” who has just lost her father and is now contending with the logistics. The father character, inspired by Hernandez’s own dad, trained as a doctor but later turned to hawking crackpot treatments. He also had a “different” way of handling personal finances, an executor (James N. Kienitz Wilkins) tactfully reminds Carrie. For a start, he conducted business under multiple names.Carrie’s father has bequeathed her the patent for an “electromagnetic healing device,” a contraption that we’re told the Food and Drug Administration has left in legal limbo. Much of “Invention” consists of scenes between Carrie and her father’s associates as she weighs whether the machine was legit — and what to do about it even if it was. “Did you ever use it?” she asks one of the investors (Tony Torn). “Ah, no,” he replies. “I got a stent.”Video clips of Hernandez’s real father pitching treatments on TV and theorizing on how “cells are like your cellphone” are interspersed throughout. The dialogue and the imagery allude to transcendental writers. (“Invention” was shot on 16-millimeter film in Massachusetts.) Periodically, Stephens will cut to moments in which she and the actors break the fourth wall. Whether these meta elements should mean much to those who weren’t involved may be beside the point. “Invention” is committed to finding its own wavelength.InventionNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 12 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Michael B. Jordan, Ryan Coogler and a Dozen Years of Collaborations

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      Of all the storied bonds between visionary directors and their movie star alter egos — Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Pedro Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas, Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams — few have been as seamless as the one between Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan.Since their first meeting, during casting for “Fruitvale Station” (2013), Jordan has starred or appeared in all five features Coogler has directed, including two “Black Panther” movies and “Creed.” Their latest film, “Sinners,” in theaters April 18, raises the ante by assigning Jordan not one part but two — he plays the twin brothers Smoke and Stack, enterprising gangsters who encounter supernatural resistance to the juke joint of their dreams in Jim Crow-era Mississippi.Coogler, a former college football athlete, said he learned the value of a consistent partnership from playing wide receiver.“I knew he was going to be great in the movie,” Coogler said of Jordan in their first collaboration, “Fruitvale Station.”Dana Scruggs for The New York Times“Sometimes I’d have four or five different quarterbacks in a season, and that was always tough,” he said. “It gave me a real appreciation for how important chemistry is when you can find it.”In a joint interview earlier this month, at a cocktail lounge in New York City, Coogler and Jordan broke down their career-long working relationship, film by film. The conversation took an emotional turn during the discussion of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which was made after the death of Chadwick Boseman, star of the original “Black Panther.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Voyeurs,’ ‘Cyrano’ and More Streaming Gems

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      Exciting new riffs on 1990s genre movies are among the highlights of this month’s recommendations on your subscription streaming services.‘Cyrano’ (2022)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.Edmond Rostand’s late-19th-century play “Cyrano de Bergerac” has proved to be quite a durable text, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise; few things translate as well, no matter the period or genre, than the feeling that the person you love could never feel the same. This adaptation by the director Joe Wright (“Pride & Prejudice”), first presented onstage by the New Group in 2019, changes the source of the title character’s low self-image: Instead of an oversize nose, he is of undersize height. Peter Dinklage is marvelous in the starring role, finding the cockiness and bluster that Cyrano uses to compensate, while showing the beating heart just under that hard surface. He also provides a pleasant baritone for the songs by members of the National, which are the film’s other key deviation from Rostand’s original. They’re a masterstroke, beautifully conveying the longing and regret of this tragic tale.‘The Last Stop in Yuma County’ (2024)Stream it on Paramount+.Three cheers for this A+ premise: The pumps are empty at the last gas station for 100 miles and the truck with the refill is running late, so stranded motorists are killing time at the diner next door — among them, two crooks who made off with a trunkful of bank loot. The writer and director Francis Galluppi works from his own Swiss watch of a script, equally influenced by “The Desperate Hours” and the dusty neo-noirs of the 1990s, where the turns are unpredictable yet organic and precise, and there are chances for every one if its character actors to shine. Snappily paced, delightfully stylish and refreshingly bleak, this movie is an assurance that we’re going to hear much, much more from this gifted first-time filmmaker.‘The Voyeurs’ (2021)Stream it on Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Joan Chen: Exacting Artist, Cool Mom

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      When Joan Chen was in her early 20s she met with the director Ang Lee about starring in his 1993 film “The Wedding Banquet,” a New York-set rom-com about a Taiwanese American in a relationship with another man who marries a woman in need of a green card. Chen was a star in China but had recently moved to Los Angeles, and was intrigued.“Getting married for a green card was something we all kind of thought about,” she said during a recent video interview from her home in San Francisco. “I had such a wedding myself. So it’s a great story.” (She has since remarried.)But it took years to get the funding and Chen never ended up playing the role of the bride. The actress, who turns 64 this month, plays the bride’s mother in the remake directed by Andrew Ahn, in theaters April 18.“I feel like it’s some sort of a karma, it’s some sort of a closure,” she said, her voice growing almost wistful. “It’s also interesting, time passing yet we’re all still here. So fortunate. What a wonderful thing.”Joan Chen in San Francisco. “I’m, in a way, becoming a character actor,” she said.Amy Harrity for The New York TimesThe details of her character, May Chen, are a sign of the changing times: Rather than denying the sexuality of her daughter Angela (Kelly Marie Tran), May is a vocal L.G.B.T.Q. ally who gets down with lion dancers and a drag queen. Angela agrees to marry the boyfriend (Han Gi-chan) of her best friend (Bowen Yang) when the groom agrees to pay for in vitro fertilization treatments for the bride’s girlfriend (Lily Gladstone), in exchange for a chance to stay in the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Betsy Arakawa, Gene Hackman’s Wife, Asked About Flulike Symptoms Before Deaths

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      Videos, photographs and police reports released by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico offered a look into the days before Betsy Arakawa and Mr. Hackman died.Days before she and her husband, the actor Gene Hackman, died at their home, Betsy Arakawa repeatedly searched online about flu- and Covid-like symptoms, according to records released on Tuesday by New Mexico authorities.The records — including witness interviews, photographs of the scene and police body camera footage — provided some new insights into the final days of the couple at their home near Santa Fe in February.After his wife’s death, Mr. Hackman, 95, lived alone in the home for nearly a week before dying of heart disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a contributing factor.Ms. Arakawa, 65, died from hantavirus, which is contracted through the exposure to excrement from rodents and can cause flulike symptoms before progressing to shortness of breath, as well as cardiac and lung failure.Police records released in the case on Tuesday included Ms. Arakawa’s Google searches a couple of days before her death, including “can Covid cause dizziness?” and “Flu and nosebleeds” on Feb. 10.The next day, she emailed her massage therapist to cancel an appointment, writing that her husband woke up that morning with “flu/cold-like symptoms” but had tested negative for Covid. That day, she ordered oxygen canisters from Amazon for “respiratory support.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Marvin Levy, Oscar-Winning Publicist to Spielberg, Dies at 96

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      For 42 years, Mr. Levy strategized behind the scenes to promote Steven Spielberg’s movies and ensure that the director was seen as Hollywood’s de facto head of state.Reporters trying to get interviews with Steven Spielberg would sometimes grouse that his publicist’s job amounted to speaking a single word: “No.”But Marvin Levy, who served as Mr. Spielberg’s publicist for 42 years, was responsible for much more than body blocking the fifth estate (which he usually did with a gentlemanly grace). Mr. Spielberg did not become Mr. Spielberg because of his filmmaking alone: For 42 years, Mr. Levy was behind the scenes — promoting, polishing, spinning, safeguarding, strategizing — to ensure that his boss was viewed worldwide as Hollywood’s de facto head of state.In addition to representing him personally, Mr. Levy helped devise and lead publicity campaigns for 32 movies that Mr. Spielberg directed, including several with sensitive subject matter, like “The Color Purple” (1985), “Schindler’s List” (1993) and “Munich” (2005).Mr. Levy died on April 7 at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 96. His death was announced by Mr. Spielberg’s production company Amblin Entertainment.Mr. Levy with his wife, Carol, and Steven Spielberg in 2014.Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, via Amblin EntertainmentOver Mr. Levy’s 73-year entertainment career — an eternity in fickle and ageist Hollywood — he worked on more than 150 movies and TV shows. He helped turn “Ben-Hur” (1959), “Taxi Driver” (1976) and “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979) into hits.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nicky Katt, Actor Known For ‘Dazed And Confused,’ Dies at 54

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      He began his career as a child actor and later played tough guys and henchmen. He was best known for “Boston Public” and “Dazed and Confused.”Nicky Katt, an actor known for playing wild cards and tough guys on TV shows like “Boston Public” and in films like “Boiler Room” and “Dazed and Confused,” has died. He was 54.His death was confirmed by his lawyer, John Sloss, who did not provide any further details.Mr. Katt began his career as a child actor and later became a character actor specializing in unsympathetic henchmen, working with acclaimed directors like Richard Linklater, Christopher Nolan and Steven Soderbergh.Mr. Katt was regularly cast as a pushy, temperamental man whose virtues, if any, were not immediately self-evident.In “Dazed and Confused,” he is a nerd-shoving high school taunter who grits his teeth while pummeling a fellow teen. “I only came here to do two things, man: kick some ass and drink some beer,” Mr. Katt, as Clint Bruno, said with cocky bravado. “Looks like we’re almost out of beer.”In “Boston Public” (Fox, 2000-2004), a show about an urban high school, Mr. Katt played Harry Senate, a geology teacher and charismatic rule breaker who brings his class to attention by firing blanks out of a pistol, but who also successfully disarms a student threatening another teacher with a gun.Mr. Katt, third from left, with the cast of the television show “Boston Public.”Everett CollectionIn a 2002 interview with The Los Angeles Times, Mr. Soderbergh described Mr. Katt’s performances as “dangerously out of control” but rigorously studied.“He’s absolutely fearless,” Mr. Soderbergh said. “No idea is too outrageous. He’ll try anything.”Nicky Katt was born in May 1970 in South Dakota. He appeared on several TV shows, including “Fantasy Island” and “CHiPs,” as a preteen.Complete information about his family and survivors was not immediately available.Talking to The Los Angeles Times, Mr. Katt said he found most actors to be either desperate or frustrated. To cope with the vagaries of the profession, Mr. Katt amassed a wide repertoire of quotes and anecdotes from celebrated figures of the past.One piece of advice: “You should never name-drop,” he said. “De Niro told me that.” More