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      ‘Speak No Evil’ Review: He Seemed So Nice

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      In this horror remake, James McAvoy plays an aggressively friendly British stranger who extends a dubious invitation to an American couple. Suckers!Given the travel horror stories that fill the news — cruise-ship contagion, passengers trying to open plane doors mid-flight — the movies have some serious competition when it comes to fear mongering. Yet filmmakers keep trying to top reality with familiar stories about the terrors that await you when you venture into the world. Characters keep heading down dark roads. They visit weird hotels and isolated cabins (come on!), invite creeps into their homes and enter those of people they scarcely know (as if!). These travelers don’t ask for trouble; they beg for it.The first time that Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and Ben (Scoot McNairy), an American couple, really notice Paddy (an exhaustingly over-the-top James McAvoy), he’s taking a splashy leap in a pool. They’re on vacation in Tuscany and having a good time, and meeting new people is fun (unless you’re in a horror movie, that is). Paddy seems excitable, a bit over-eager — for attention, certainly — but he and his wife, Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), are friendly, attractive and British, so they’re easy to talk to. Like Louise and Ben, they have a boy, Ant (Dan Hough), so they must be nice. They’re like us, you can almost hear Louise and Ben thinking.For reasons that never make any sense — rationality is often in short supply in horror cinema — it isn’t long before Louise and Ben take up Paddy and Ciara’s invitation to visit them at their house in the English countryside. First, though, the writer-director James Watkins stirs up some marital tension for Ben and Louise, who have moved to London, upturning their lives. (Davis and McNairy starred in the great AMC show “Halt and Catch Fire,” and are persuasively cozy together.) She seems to be just fine, but Ben is unhappily unemployed, a divide that Watkins also uses to feed the story’s themes, chiefly masculinity and middle-class norms.Red alarms have already begun blinking by the time that Louise and Ben and their 11-year-old daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler), an anxious child who self-soothes with a stuffed bunny, pull up to Paddy and Ciara’s house one portentously dark night. Once inside, the alarms start flashing faster. Louise tries to put on a good game face, but she’s visibly put off by the house, an uncomfortable, ramshackle warren of cluttered rooms with low ceilings that boxes them in. Soon, Paddy is slaughtering a goose (uh-oh) and pushing a forkful of cooked bird at Louise — a vegetarian — and the atmosphere has appreciably soured. Things only get worse because they have to.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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      ‘My Old Ass’ Review: If She Could Turn Back Time

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      A buoyant comedy with a big heart follows a teen girl who meets her older self the summer before college.That summer before college can be strange, a moment suspended between life stages, and Elliott (Maisy Stella) is right in the thick of it. She’s turning 18 in the tiny picturesque community in Muskoka, Ontario, where her family has farmed cranberries for generations. She has a janky little motorboat, two best friends and a massive crush on the girl behind the counter at the local coffee shop. And she’s looking forward to heading to Toronto in a few short weeks to start the next chapter of her life.Sounds familiar. You might even relate. But “My Old Ass,” written and directed by Megan Park, does not go in expected coming-of-age directions. It’s as much about reframing middle-aged regrets as it is a story about youth, love and possibility — and thus the emotional heft it wields is two-pronged.Elliott belongs to a newish and very welcome variety of teen girl movie protagonist. For decades, these characters were mostly siloed into vapid types, the better for us, I guess, to “understand” them: Goths, cheerleaders, ditzes, bookish wallflowers, cool girls, bullies. Elliott, on the other hand, is funny, capable and comfortable in her own skin. She can drive a tractor and steer a boat, and also forgets to show up for her own birthday dinner with her family. She is very thoroughly 18, with as strong a sense of self as you can really have at that age, while also being kind of a jerk at times to her parents and brothers. She loves them. She just finds them kind of annoying, though she’s not above apologizing for her behavior.Elliott’s characteristics aren’t markers of being a Strong Female Lead so much as just an actual teen girl, the kind you probably know, or maybe were. I found myself thinking of various characters played by stellar young actresses in recent films: Haley Lu Richardson in “The Edge of Seventeen,” Emilia Jones in “Coda,” Lily Collias in “Good One,” Saoirse Ronan in “Lady Bird.”With this complexity in mind, it makes sense that on Elliott’s 18th birthday, she and her friends Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) decide, with age-appropriate recklessness, that it’s time to have a transcendent experience. They obtain psychedelic mushrooms and head to a little wooded island to camp out and experience their trips, whatever they might be like. Elliott is at first disappointed that the shrooms don’t seem to have any effect on her, but then the unimaginable occurs: Her older self suddenly appears at the campfire. (You see now where the film’s title comes from.) Elliott at age 39 (Aubrey Plaza) is a Ph.D. student and, perhaps relatedly, more cynical than she was as a teenager. But she seems delighted to meet her younger self, and offers a load of advice, including warnings to stay away from someone named Chad who might turn up soon. And though the mushrooms wear off, the connection between younger and older self outlasts the drugs’ effect, to both Elliotts’ surprise.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 Song That Connects Jackson Browne, Nico and Margot Tenenbaum

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      Browne wrote “These Days” at 16. Now 75, he and some famous admirers reflect on his unexpected mainstay: “If a song is worth anything, it’s about the life of the listener.”When he was 16, Jack Browne sat down at his parents’ kitchen table in Fullerton, Calif., and started picking out a tune on an old Kay guitar.It was the fall of 1964, and the fledgling songwriter and high school junior — inspired by books, records and his own suburban disaffection — began weaving together an existential number about loss and regret called “These Days.”It would be a year until he finished the song, nearly a decade before he recorded it properly. By the time Jackson Browne, as he would be known professionally, cut it for his 1973 album “For Everyman” — which will be reissued on Sept. 20 — it had already been done in two distinct, definitive versions: the first by the German chanteuse and Velvet Underground collaborator Nico, then later by the Southern rocker Gregg Allman.“These Days” has proved a remarkably durable composition, reinterpreted by Cher, St. Vincent, Glen Campbell, Miley Cyrus, Paul Westerberg and Drake, to name a handful. It inspired Wes Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and more recently has become the unlikely soundtrack to a series of TikTok trends.While Browne has had bigger hits as an artist (“Doctor My Eyes,” “Running on Empty”) and as a writer (Eagles’ “Take It Easy”), “These Days” has rambled through the decades, morphing musically, changing lyrically and taking on added layers of meaning. “In that regard, it’s sort of like a folk song,” Browne said on a late August afternoon, sitting in the control room of his Santa Monica recording studio, Groove Masters.“I come from folk music, that was my school,” continued Browne, somehow still boyish and bright-eyed at 75. “You’d learn several versions of the same song and adapt the parts of it that you liked and it’d become something else. That’s what’s happened with ‘These Days.’”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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      Edward Johnson, C.I.A. Hero in Iran Hostage Crisis, Dies at 81

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      He was a secret partner who helped rescue six American diplomats in 1980 by passing them off as a film crew. The caper inspired the movie “Argo.”Edward B. Johnson, who as an anonymous C.I.A. officer in 1980 helped rescue six American diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis by casting them as a Hollywood crew scouting a Mideast location — an audacious escape that itself became grist for an Oscar-winning movie — died on Aug. 27 at his home in Fairfax, Va. He was 81.The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son Harold said.Documents detailing the Iran rescue were declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1997, and another C.I.A. officer, Antonio J. Mendez, who had masterminded the scheme and recruited Mr. Johnson, wrote a book about the episode, “The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the C.I.A.” (1999).The caper became the basis of “Argo,” a film directed by and starring Ben Affleck (as Mr. Mendez), which won the 2013 Academy Award for best picture.Mr. Mendez died in 2019 without ever revealing his colleague’s name. Mr. Johnson was identified in the book only by his cover name, Julio, and wasn’t referenced in the film at all. And even at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., in a painting depicting the two C.I.A. officers forging visas for the diplomats, Mr. Johnson remained faceless, seen from behind.“Argo: Rescue of the Canadian Six,” a 2012 oil painting on canvas by a C.I.A. artist, Deborah Dismuke. It depicts the C.I.A. officers Antonio Mendez, top, and Mr. Johnson forging fake visas for six American diplomats who were trapped in Tehran during the hostage crisis in Iran. Mr. Johnson’s role in the escapade was not disclosed publicly until last year.Deborah Dismuke/C.I.A, via Associated PressNot until a year ago, in the season finale of “The Langley Files,” an official agency podcast, was Mr. Johnson’s pivotal role revealed publicly.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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      Fashion True Crime Documentaries to Stream

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      Four picks across television, film and podcasting that examine dark stories about some of the most trendy clothing brands.In recent years, several popular apparel brands have made news for troubling reasons. Most often, they have been accused of corporate greed, having predatory practices that exploit young women, and propagating abusive systems at all levels of production, promotion and distribution. These headlines have, in turn, inspired a string of documentaries, docuseries and podcasts.Here are four picks that explore the stories of such companies, all of which have been marred by corrupt leadership or sudden tragedy.Documentary“Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion”Having barely heard of the Brandy Melville brand, I wasn’t particularly eager to watch this documentary that was released in April on Max. But as it turns out, that is kind of the point. This film from director Eva Orner not only is a searing examination of the toxic culture at this Gen Z-targeted, social media-fueled label, but it also manages to expose the many unethical systems endemic to the global fast-fashion industry. Footage from Ghana, where mountains of clothing waste from the United States blanket towns and shorelines, chilled me to the bone.As for Brandy Melville itself — maybe most famous for selling only tiny clothing with disingenuous “one size fits most” labels — the film highlights many of the takeaways from the journalist Kate Taylor’s Business Insider investigation, including scores of allegations of racism and of widespread predatory practices by the brand’s shadowy leaders, Silvio and Stephan Marsan. It all becomes that much more grim with a rape allegation against a manager by an employee.Documentary Series“Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons”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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      Will Jennings, Oscar Winner for ‘My Heart Will Go On,’ Dies at 80

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      As an in-demand lyricist, he won a shelf of awards for hits with Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton and Dionne Warwick, as well as for the theme song for “Titanic.”Will Jennings, an English professor turned lyricist whose 1998 Academy Award for “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song from the movie “Titanic,” capped a long career writing hits for musicians like Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton and Dionne Warwick, died on Sept. 6 at his home in Tyler, Texas. He was 80.The office of his agent, Sam Schwartz, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.Mr. Jennings won the Oscar for best song twice: for “My Heart Will Go On,” which he wrote with James Horner and which was performed by Celine Dion; and in 1983 for “Up Where We Belong,” from the film “An Officer and a Gentleman”; written with Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie, it was performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes.Mr. Jennings, right, in 1998 with James Horner and Celine Dion, with whom he collaborated on “My Heart Will Go On.”Frank Trapper/Corbis, via Getty ImagesMr. Jennings, right, in 1983 with Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie when they won an Oscar for “Up Where We Belong.”ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesIn most of his hits, Mr. Jennings wrote the lyrics while his collaborators wrote the melodies — an unsurprising division of labor, given that Mr. Jennings came to songwriting after a career teaching poetry and English literature.He was known for his disciplined work ethic, his subtle references to classical literature tucked into seemingly airy pop tunes and his insistence on getting to know an artist or film to inhabit their perspectives.“With Will, his personality broke down all the barriers and got to what’s real,” said Mr. Crowell, who wrote several songs with Mr. Jennings, including “Many a Long and Lonesome Highway” (1989) and “What Kind Of Love” (1992).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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      Film Noir Was All About Ticking Clocks and Checking the Time

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      Experts say the genre was all about suspense, and what better way to convey that to audiences than an obsession with time?The race against the clock — to solve a crime, to outwit a villain, to escape one’s fate — has propelled the plotlines of dozens of the movies that define Hollywood’s golden age of noir, the dark movies that dominated screens from the 1930s to the ’50s.“Time and film noir go together like ham and eggs,” said Alan Rode, an author and a director of the Film Noir Foundation, which sponsors Noir City, a continuing series of film festivals that this month has been scheduled in Chicago, Detroit, Washington and Philadelphia. “Time is a continuum not only of our lives, but also in film noir.”That foreboding sense of time defines film noir — in English, “dark film” — a phrase that was coined in 1938 by Lucien Rebatet, the French author who wrote under the pseudonym François Vinneuil, but is most closely associated with the French film critic Nino Frank. He used it in 1946 to define the cynical films of postwar America.The genre itself, however, has not been defined anywhere near as clearly.Some film scholars have said it describes detectives or private eyes caught up in a world of crooks and femme fatales who lead them astray. But a broader definition has been the immoral journey of a protagonist caught in downward spiral, all of it being clocked somehow in the shadowy black-and-white of film.“Film noir is replete with time moments, partly because the driving mechanism of its stories is suspense, and partly because the lost chances and missed deadlines of noir lends a strong mood of regret and pathos,” Helen Hanson, an associate professor of film history at the University of Exeter in England and the author of several books on noir, said by email.“Perhaps because film noir existed in an era defined by time and life lost during World War II, it featured a heightened sense of how quickly life can go haywire.”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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      James Earl Jones Movies: From Darth Vader in ‘Star Wars’ to Mufasa in ‘Lion King’

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      A look at standout movies featuring the actor, who died on Monday at the age of 93.James Earl Jones died on Monday at the age of 93. Like his contemporary Sidney Poitier, Jones helped change the perception of Black actors in Hollywood, creating indelible movie and TV characters who defied the prevailing stereotypes.Born in Mississippi and raised in Michigan, Jones spent much of his early career in New York, working in theater, TV and radio, where he trained his deep, booming voice. Because of his rich vocal tones and authoritative air, the actor was in high demand throughout his professional life, as both a narrator and as someone who could bring a sense of seriousness to supporting parts.The 12 movies below predominantly showcase Jones’s voice and his skills as a character actor. But the few leading roles show that if he had been given the same kind of opportunities as Poitier, Jones might have been just as big a star.‘Dr. Strangelove’ (1964)Rent on Apple TV or Amazon.Not many actors have the good fortune to make their big-screen debut in one of the greatest films of all time. Jones only appears in a handful of scenes in Stanley Kubrick’s grim nuclear war comedy “Dr. Strangelove,” but he does a lot with those few minutes, playing a bombardier whose consummate professionalism leads him to follow the orders of any crackpot commander or incompetent politician who barks in his ear.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