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      Watch These 12 Titles Before They Leave Netflix in May

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      A ton of movies and TV shows are disappearing for U.S. Netflix subscribers next month. These are the ones worth catching before they’re gone.The erotic thriller, that bygone artifact of ’80s and ’90s sexual expression (and repression) is all the rage again — well, at least nostalgia for it is — and two prime examples of the form are leaving Netflix in the United States at the end of the month, so get them while you can. Also departing the service in May: two family favorites, a musical extravaganza, two beloved series and much, much more. (Dates reflect the final day a title is available.)‘Eye in the Sky’ (May 12)When this tightly wound political thriller hit theaters in 2015, it felt like a high-minded showcase for a handful of terrific actors (Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Aaron Paul) but not much more. Now it feels like a quintessential cinematic artifact of the Obama era, a thoughtful and knotty examination of the moral dilemma of drone warfare — and of 21st century military conflict in general. Mirren and Paul spar spiritedly as a no-nonsense colonel and the drone pilot who must execute her orders; Rickman, in one of his final performances, brings shading and nuance to his work as a military middle man.Stream it here.‘Chloe’ (May 31)Amanda Seyfried is earning (deserved) praise for her astonishing work in “The Dropout,” but those in the know have been watching her shine for years, even in less-acclaimed films like this 2009 erotic thriller. She stars as the title character, a call girl hired by a suspicious wife (Julianne Moore) to entrap her husband (Liam Neeson), which gets complicated when the wife and would-be mistress begin an affair of their own. If the cast sounds high-caliber for such a story, that’s because the film is directed by the acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”), who gives the story’s mind games and psychological ramifications as much attention as the breathy sexual encounters.Stream it here.‘Closer’ (May 31)In 1971, the director Mike Nichols scored one of his greatest critical and commercial successes with “Carnal Knowledge,” a savagely funny and brutally candid account of the war between the sexes, as seen through the broken relationships of two men and two women. In 2004, near the end of his career, Nichols revisited the subject matter with a similar cast makeup, adapting the play “Closer” by Patrick Marber into a tough four-hander of sexual desire and emotional betrayal. Jude Law, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman and Julia Roberts craft some of their best screen acting to date, playing a full range of ruthlessness, cruelty, sensitivity and brokenness. It’s a challenging movie, but a great one.Stream it here.‘The Devil’s Advocate’ (May 31)This mash-up of Grisham-esque legal thriller and “Rosemary’s Baby”-style occult horror from Taylor Hackford was met mostly with snickers upon its 1997 release, as critics complained it was too ornate, too over-the-top, too much. But in these timid times, it feels like a welcome balm, a reminder of a time when mainstream studio movies were willing to just go for it, good taste be damned (pardon the pun). Keanu Reeves, sporting a less-than-convincing Southern accent, plays a hotshot young lawyer recruited (rather aggressively) by a top New York law firm led by Al Pacino as “John Milton,” and yes, the rest of the reveals are about as subtle. Pacino chews on the scenery with the ravenous appetite of a starving man, but the performance of note here is that of Charlize Theron, then still an up-and-comer, with an unexpectedly subtle turn as the young lawyer’s increasingly disturbed wife.Stream it here.‘The Disaster Artist’ (May 31)Bad movies have attracted ironic (and unironic) cult followings for decades, but few have attracted the fascination given to “The Room,” the bizarre psychosexual drama from the enigmatic writer-director-star Tommy Wiseau that plays less like a low-budget film than like a dispatch from another planet, filled with creatures who talk and act almost like actual humans. Greg Sestero, the film’s co-star, turned that strange experience into a memoir, which was then adapted into this hilarious chronicle of cinematic incompetence. James Franco directs and stars as Wiseau, his work focusing on — and blurring the line between — badness and brilliance; Dave Franco is charismatic and sympathetic as Sestero, while an all-star supporting cast (including Alison Brie, Zac Efron, Ari Graynor, Seth Rogen and Jacki Weaver) brightens up the edges.Stream it here.‘Downton Abbey’: Seasons 1-6 (May 31)Sometimes Netflix is there for you in your time of need, and sometimes they yank away entertainment at exactly the moment it’s most necessary. Such is the case with the lapse of the full run of “Downton Abbey” barely two weeks after the release of “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” the latest feature film follow-up, to theaters. That means it’s time to begin that catch-up binge and to reacquaint yourself with the Crawley family and their various servants, interlopers and guests. The show’s origins lay in the creator Julian Fellowes’s Oscar-winning screenplay for Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park,” which found drama in the contrast between British aristocracy and those that serve them. He followed those contrasts and connections through six seasons with sharp wit and penetrating commentary.Stream it here.‘Free Willy’ (May 31)Everything was bigger in the ’90s, so while family entertainment of yore gave us countless stories of boys and their dogs, this 1993 hit from Simon Wincer told the story of a boy and his orca. Jason James Richter stars as an orphan boy headed down the wrong life path, whose probation period cleaning up graffiti at an amusement park leads him to strike up an unconventional friendship with the title character, a captive whale, whom he soon decides he should release into the wild. Lori Petty and Michael Madsen are likable as the stern (but swayable) grown-ups.Stream it here.‘Hairspray’ (May 31)The cult filmmaker John Waters made an unexpected (and unexpectedly successful) play for mainstream respectability with his 1988 film “Hairspray,” a PG-rated nostalgia comedy that was so family-friendly it was adapted into a Broadway musical comedy. And then it made its way back to the movies for the 2007 adaptation of the Broadway show, directed with theatrical flair by the choreographer-turned-director Adam Shankman. The musical numbers are inventively staged, the conventions of the form are slyly sabotaged, and the performances are top-notch — particularly John Travolta as the mother of the lead character, Tracy Turnblad (the terrific Nikki Blonsky), and Christopher Walken in fine, tender form as her father.Stream it here.‘Happy Endings’: Seasons 1-3 (May 31)It’s easy to get overly nostalgic for the good old days of network television, but you have to give them this: Networks were willing to give great but underseen sitcoms like “Seinfeld” and “Cheers” the time to build and find their audiences, resulting in record-high ratings. This uproariously funny and quietly inventive series (2011-13), by contrast, struggled mightily, barely surviving from season to season before getting the unceremonious boot after three seasons. This ensemble comedy, in which six friends (and sometimes lovers, and sometimes enemies) struggle to weather the storms of adulthood, is like a cross between “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” and the early, good years of “How I Met Your Mother.” And if it ended too soon, at least we got what we got.Stream it here.‘Happy Feet’ (May 31)George Miller has one of the more fascinating dual filmographies in all of cinema. On one hand, he created and directed the four “Mad Max” films, fiercely visceral and unapologetically violent action epics for a decidedly adult audience. On the other, he has given us some of the most enjoyable family movies of the ’90s and beyond, including the “Babe” films and this enchanting animated musical comedy, which was nominated for best animated feature Oscar and spawned a 2011 sequel. Elijah Wood voices the leading role of Mumble, an emperor penguin unable to attract a mate with his song, who decides instead to take up tap dancing. Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Brittany Murphy and Robin Williams are among the impressive voice cast.Stream it here.‘Wild Things’ (May 31)The impressive 1990s run of erotic thrillers was nearly at its end when the director John McNaughton (“Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”) directed this 1998 entry into the subgenre, which gleefully revels in the sordidness of its story while also slyly winking at its conventions — he has his sleazy cake and eats it too. Denise Richards became a star via her hubba-hubba turn as a rich bad girl who accuses a teacher (Matt Dillon) of assault, a charge echoed by a tough young woman from the wrong side of the tracks (Neve Campbell, turning her “Scream” image inside out). But that’s just the setup; the clever script is filled with reverses, reveals and double-crosses, resulting in a trashy delight that is equal parts Hitchcock and Cinemax After Dark.Stream it here.‘Zoolander’ (May 31)Ben Stiller co-writes, directs and stars in this giddily goofy 2001 comedy as Derek Zoolander, a delightfully dim male model who is pulled into a hilariously convoluted story of spies, political assassination and fashion industry exploitation. Owen Wilson is his rival, a fellow male model who becomes his unlikely partner; Will Ferrell is the dastardly villain of the tale, and he does not underplay the role. Stiller’s influences aren’t subtle (he’s shouting out everything from Bond to the Pink Panther), but his unique directorial style and inside knowledge of celebrity culture makes “Zoolander” a surprisingly pointed social commentary that’s also very stupid and very funny.Stream it here.Also leaving: “The Blind Side,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “Stardust,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Top Gun” (all May 31). More

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      ‘Macbeth’ Review: Something Wonky This Way Comes

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      Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga star in Sam Gold’s oddly uneasy take on the Scottish play.Macbeth, the character, is full of compunction, as well he should be, having murdered a king to get to his throne.But why should “Macbeth,” the play, be just as uneasy about its authority? Despite the star power of Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga, the overthought production that opened on Thursday at the Longacre Theater seems unsure of its welcome, as if a classic that has enjoyed nearly 50 Broadway revivals since 1768 might no longer find an audience willing to meet it halfway.I could understand that attitude if we were talking about the utterly unlovable “Troilus and Cressida.” But “Macbeth” is the most instantly accessible of Shakespeare’s tragedies: violent, elemental, familiar, short. No matter which way the story is bent, it maintains its recognizable human core of ambition and regret. Directors can emphasize its witchy aura, its bloodthirsty politics, its marital drama or critique of masculinity without endangering its essential stageworthiness.But this relentlessly analytical production, directed by Sam Gold, takes even that last quality apart, offering not so much “Macbeth” as a private inquest into it. To signal that, as the audience enters, it begins with the curtain half up, only timidly exposing the play to view. On a nearly empty black stage, the cast of 14 is milling about in what look like street clothes, seeming to make food at a communal table as if this were dinner theater, or not theater at all.Gold then softens the transition from real life to drama by having Michael Patrick Thornton, who otherwise plays Lennox and one of the assassins, deliver an amusingly potted prologue like a Catskills tummler. His largely improvised spiel explains the play’s origins in a time of plague — around 1605 — and under the influence of King James’s obsession with the supernatural.Revisiting the Tragedy of ‘Macbeth’Shakespeare’s tale of a man who, step by step, cedes his soul to his darkest impulses continues to inspire new interpretations. On Stage: Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga star in Sam Gold’s take on the play. Despite its star power, the production feels oddly uneasy, our critic writes. Onscreen: In the “Tragedy of Macbeth,” Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand embody a toxic power couple with mastery. Break a Leg: Shakespeare’s play is known for the rituals and superstitions tied to it. How does the supernatural retain its hold on the theater world? Beyond ‘Macbeth’: This spring, there’s an abundance of Shakespearean productions in New York City. Here is a look at some of them. Good information. How did generations of theatergoers get along without it?Craig, center, with Negga, left, and, sliding out from underneath the table, the ghost of Banquo (played by Amber Gray).Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIf you’ve seen enough of Gold’s Shakespeare — whether excellent (“Othello” at New York Theater Workshop, starring Craig and David Oyelowo) or inexplicable (“King Lear” on Broadway, starring Glenda Jackson) or in between (“Hamlet” at the Public Theater, starring Oscar Isaac) — you’ll know that he does not make idle or showy choices. His experimentation is always purposeful, even if, as here, it’s sometimes hard to know what that purpose is. For at least the first half-hour of “Macbeth” I thought he was trying to demystify the play by placing it in more familiar contexts.That kitchen, for instance. Or the scenes set in what looks like someone’s TV room. (The “thrones” in Christine Jones’s set are raspberry-upholstered chair-and-a-halfs.) At other times it seems we’re at a high-school pep rally; when Scotland’s mortal enemy, Norway, is mentioned, Gold has the cast mutter “Boo!” as if at an opposing basketball team.I’m not sure the play benefits from demystifying, though. Macbeth is no ordinary man, nor Lady Macbeth an ordinary woman. Their ambition and regret are extreme, and both alter extremely during the action. At first, when the witches tell Macbeth he will one day rule Scotland, he is horrified by the thought of what that means for the people in his way. But his wife is electrified; with her courage making up for his qualms, he kills Duncan (Paul Lazar) and takes the crown.That’s supposed to be the end of it but of course is not. As logic and a developing taste for blood demand, Macbeth now kills his comrade Banquo (Amber Gray). Though he goes mad with guilt, seeing ghosts over dinner and retribution in dreams, he nevertheless massacres the family of the suspicious Macduff (Grantham Coleman). It’s the macho Lady Macbeth who eventually quails and collapses; sucking renewed manliness from her death, Macbeth all but dares the world to incite his own.Negga, left, with Gray in the play. Like a feral cat, Negga can seem quicksilver and weightless or menacing and bristly, our critic writes.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesCraig, and especially Negga, hit these marks clearly. We see how their characters’ chemistry and symbiosis allow each to fill the gaps of the other, at first for their mutual gain and then to their detriment. Craig is at his best in physicalizing Macbeth’s transitions; you can see in his bearing the effects of flattery and finery on his balloon personality. Had it not been inflated it would never have burst.Negga, unrecognizable both emotionally and bodily as the actor who played Hamlet at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2020, is wonderfully physical, too; like a feral cat, she can seem quicksilver and weightless or, when enraged, menacing and bristly and twice her size. (The superb costumes by Suttirat Larlarb contribute to the effect, nearly telling the story on their own.) But Negga is also extraordinary with the verse, one of the few cast members who not only makes its meaning clear but also projects that meaning past the conceptual firewall Gold has erected.Though the production too often feels as if it were designed for the company’s own edification — an endless rehearsal rather than a Broadway revival — it is not without its outward-facing qualities, especially after the initial throat-clearing. There are beautiful, quietly observed moments: a glance between Craig and Negga, for instance, that says more about marriage than some entire plays on the subject. There are smaller characters crystallized in a flash: Lazar’s Duncan dainty and handsy, Maria Dizzia’s Lady Macduff heartbreakingly resolute.But the top note here is gore, the more so because most other notes are muted. We see slit throats, amputated legs, huge spouts of blood and, for good measure, a gun. Even that cozy food table from the start of the show turns out to be the witches’ workshop, where they brew their disgusting potions — some involving human body parts pulverized as if by Julia Child with an industrial stick blender.Craig, our critic writes, is at his best in physicalizing Macbeth’s transitions; you can see in his bearing the effects of flattery. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAll this is accompanied by effects that put yet another demystifying frame on the action, this one not from life or theater but from movies. The fog at the Longacre is thicker than in “Casablanca.” The foreboding aural effects (sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman) recall slasher flicks; the screeching violins (music by Gaelynn Lea) more specifically reference Bernard Herrmann’s score for “Psycho.”Perhaps to help us, or the cast, come down from all this, Gold concludes the show by having Bobbi MacKenzie, who otherwise plays a witch, sing a song by Lea called “Perfect” as the company slurps at what I hope to God is soup. The moment is lovely and would be fitting if this were, say, the finale of “Pippin.”Still, at the end of an often brutal Broadway season that was rightly concerned with harm and heartlessness — in which many shows, including this one, were bedeviled by illness and delays — I liked Gold’s showing us that in times of distress and violence people should remember to care for one another. If it has nothing to do with “Macbeth,” it has plenty to do with us.MacbethThrough July 10 at the Longacre Theater, Manhattan; macbethbroadway.com. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes. More

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      Jacques Perrin, French Film Star and Producer, Is Dead at 80

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      He was a heartthrob in the musical “The Young Girls of Rochefort,” a photojournalist in the thriller “Z,” and a world-weary director in the hit “Cinema Paradiso.”Jacques Perrin, a comely and soft-spoken veteran French actor — he didn’t smolder so much as twinkle — who went from starring in musical and dramatic films to directing and producing them, most notably the political thrillers of Costa-Gavras and his own poetic documentaries about the natural world, died on April 21 in Paris. He was 80.His son, Mathieu Simonet, confirmed the death. No cause was given.Mr. Perrin was a lonely and gallant teenager in the Italian melodrama “Girl With a Suitcase” (1961), in which he tries to rescue a down-and-out beauty played by Claudia Cardinale who has been ditched by his lout of an older brother.He was a dreamy sailor in Jacques Demy’s “The Young Girls of Rochefort,” a giddy, candy-colored 1967 French musical (now considered a camp classic) that starred Catherine Deneuve and her sister, Francoise Dorléac, as a pair of twins looking for love and finding it with Mr. Perrin, his hair bleached like straw (and looking rather like a young David Hockney) and Gene Kelly. (Ms. Dorléac died in a car crash shortly after the film was made.)That same year, Mr. Perrin and Natalie Wood appeared as chaste young lovers whose elders urge them to get on with it in “All the Other Girls Do,” an Italian farce.Mr. Perrin with Francoise Dorléac in “The Young Girls Of Rochefort,” a giddy, candy-colored 1967 French musical.Mary Evans/AF Archive/Cinetext Bildarchiv/Everett CollectionMr. Perrin went on to play an opportunistic photojournalist who discovers his conscience in “Z,” a 1969 political thriller by Costa-Gavras, the Greek-born director. Mr. Perrin also produced the movie, a feat of “accounting acrobatics,” as he put it, since no one else would touch the film. (It is about the real-life assassination of a Greek politician.) Altogether, Mr. Perrin appeared in some 100 films, and produced close to 40.To American audiences, however, he was best known for his role in “Cinema Paradiso” (1988). He played Salvatore, a world-weary film director who was once a wide-eyed 8-year-old nicknamed Toto. In flashback, Toto is seen in thrall to the movies he watches at a theater in a small postwar Sicilian village and under the wing of the father figure Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), the philosophical projectionist who slices out the naughty bits — the on-screen kisses — on the orders of the village priest.The final scene was a humdinger: Mr. Perrin, weeping gorgeously in a darkened theater, once more in thrall. Critics were dry-eyed, but audiences were not, and it was a smash hit that won all sorts of awards, including the Oscar for best foreign film and a Golden Globe.Mr. Perrin played a similar role in “The Chorus” (2004), which he also produced, about orphaned boys in a grim boarding school who are rescued by a singing teacher who helps them form a choir. It, too, was a hit, at least in France, inspiring a frenzy of amateur singing, just as “High School Musical” did a few years later in the United States. Mr. Perrin, speaking to The New York Times, described “The Chorus” as “a fragile and precious movie about childhood memories.”Other films were less successful. He produced and starred in “The Roaring Forties,” a 1982 drama about a sailor on a nonstop solo race around the world, based on the real-life adventures of Donald Crowhurst, a British sailor who disappeared while attempting a solo circumnavigation in 1969. Though Julie Christie, an otherwise reliable box-office draw, was his co-star, the film did so poorly — a “shipwreck,” as Le Monde put it — that it took Mr. Perrin 10 years to pay off the debt he accrued while making it.“He worked on what was interesting to him,” Mr. Simonet, who is also an actor, director and producer, and who often collaborated with his father, said in a phone interview. “His purpose was not to make blockbusters, even if some of his films have become blockbusters. He bet his life all the time. He followed his dreams, with no limit.”Jacques André Simonet was born on July 13, 1941, in Paris. His father, Alexandre Simonet, was the manager of La Comédie-Française, Paris’s centuries-old state run theater; his mother, Marie Perrin, was an actress, and Jacques took her last name as his stage name. He left school at 15 and worked as a grocery clerk before studying at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique.In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife, Valentine Perrin, who has also produced films; their sons, Maxence and Lancelot; and a sister, Janine Baisadouli. His first marriage, to Chantal Bouillaut, ended in divorce.Mr. Perrin with Eurasian cranes on the set of the documentary “Winged Migration” (2001), described as “a sweeping global tour from a bird’s-eye view.”Patrick Chauvel/Sony Pictures ClassicsMr. Perrin, an ardent environmentalist, made hypnotic films about the natural world. “Microcosmos” (1996), is all about insects. “Oceans” (2009) dives underwater. “Winged Migration” (2001) takes to the skies as it tracks a year in the life of migrating birds, like cranes, storks and geese, as they fly thousands of miles through 40 countries and all seven continents. In The Times, Stephen Holden called it “a sweeping global tour from a bird’s-eye view.”“Winged Migration” was made under extraordinary circumstances over three years, with 14 cinematographers flying with the birds in ultralight aircraft built for that purpose. Balloons, remote control gliders and other devices were also used to film among the birds, half of which were trained at Mr. Perrin’s house in Normandy.These birds were exposed to and imprinted with the aircraft as chicks — as Konrad Lorenz, the Austrian animal zoologist and ornithologist, once famously discovered, chicks will become attached to the first large moving object they encounter — so that once they took flight, the crews could accompany them, like members of the flock.“Birds don’t normally fly beside aircraft, nor can they be trained like circus animals,” Patricia Thomson wrote in American Cinematographer magazine in 2003. “So Perrin began what would become the largest imprinting project ever. Over 1,000 eggs — representing 25 species — were raised by ornithologists and students at a base in Normandy where Perrin also rented an airfield. During incubation and early life, the chicks were exposed to the sound of motor engines and the human voice, then were trained to follow the pilot — first on foot, then in the air. These birds would be the main actors, the heroes of flight. The rest of the footage would involve thousands of wild birds, filmed in their natural environments.”Mr. Perrin wanted moviegoers to feel as the birds did and to feel, as Mr. Simonet said, that they could reach out and touch them.The ultralight aircraft weren’t easy to fly, Mr. Perrin told James Gorman of The Times. Two crashed, leaving the pilot and the cameraman with minor injuries; no winged creatures were hurt.“Sometimes at 10,000 feet a bird would land on a cinematographer’s lap and have to be nudged off with one hand while he held a heavy 35-millimeter film camera in the other,” Mr. Gorman wrote. “One rule was absolute: No filmmakers with vertigo need apply.”The scientific consultants on the film were so moved by the experience of flying with the flocks that when they landed, many burst into tears.“They don’t say so splendid words,” Mr. Perrin told Mr. Gorman. “They cry.” More

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      In Echo of Soviet Era, Russia’s Movie Theaters Turn to Pirate Screenings

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      In a Cold War throwback, some venues are showing bootleg versions after Hollywood studios pulled films from the country. Still, viewer numbers have tanked.Since the invasion of Ukraine, Hollywood’s biggest studios have stopped releasing movies in Russia, and Netflix has ceased service there. But recently, some of the companies’ films have started appearing in Russian movie theaters — illegally.The screenings are reminiscent of the Soviet era, when the only way to see most Western films was to get access to a pirated version. Whereas those movies made their way to Russians in the form of smuggled VHS tapes, today, cinemas in the country have a simpler, faster method: the internet. Numerous websites offer bootleg copies of movies that take minutes to download.Some theaters in Russia are now openly screening pirated movies; others are being more careful, allowing private individuals to rent out spaces to show films, free or for a fee. One group, for example, rented out several screening rooms at a movie theater in Yekaterinburg, then used social media to invite people to buy tickets to watch “The Batman.”Theatergoers can also see “The Batman” in Ivanovo, a city about a five-hour drive from Moscow, in at least one venue. In Makhachkala, capital of the Dagestan region, in the Caucasus, a movie theater is screening “Don’t Look Up”; and in Chita, a city near the border with Mongolia, parents can take their children to watch “Turning Red,” the animated film from Disney and Pixar.Jennifer Lawrence as Kate Dibiasky and Leonardo DiCaprio as Dr. Randall Mindy in “Don’t Look Up.”Niko Tavernise/NetflixIn “Turning Red,” an animated Disney/Pixar feature, a teenager is transformed into a giant red panda.Disney+Robert Pattinson is the star of “The Batman.”Warner Bros.These surreptitious screenings are the latest attempt by movie theaters in Russia to survive after American studios like Disney, Warner Brothers and Paramount left the country in protest. Before the war in Ukraine, movies produced in the United States made up about 70 percent of the Russian film market, according to state media.But despite the attempts to draw viewers, last month, Russians barely went to the movies. Theaters saw ticket sales fall by about half in March, compared with the same period last year, according to the country’s Association of Theater Owners.Artem Komolyatov, 31, a video game producer in Moscow, noticed the shift when he and his wife went on a Friday date to the movies a few weeks ago. With everything that has been going on politically, the two of them wanted to spend a couple of hours in a relaxed environment with other people, Komolyatov said, “watching something together, maybe laughing and crying.”They chose “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” a film from the independent American studio A24, which stopped releasing films in Russia in mid-April.The scene they found when they arrived at the movie theater was bizarre, Komolyatov said. “Besides us, there were three other people,” he said. “We went at 8 p.m. on a weekend. Usually the theater is completely full.”The Cinema Park complex in Moscow on April 12. The poster on the right is for “Uncharted,” with Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, which came out just before the Ukraine war started.Nikolay Vinokurov/AlamyGiven the dearth of viewers and of content, the Association of Theater Owners predicted that at least half the movie theaters in Russia would go out of business in the next two months.Even if that prognosis is true, history has shown that films will reach audiences with or without legal channels. Decades ago, Soviet citizens gathered in empty office spaces, living rooms and cultural centers to view pirated copies of Western classics like “Rocky,” “The Terminator,” and “9 ½ Weeks” that had made their way behind the Iron Curtain.During the tumultuous years that followed the crumbling of the Soviet Union, piracy continued to be the main access point for Hollywood films in Russia. Movies recorded on VHS tapes that were sold at local markets were often clearly shot on a hand-held camcorder in a movie theater. Continuing a Soviet tradition, the movies were dubbed into Russian with a time delay by voice actors, often just one for all the male characters, and another for the women.Once the first Western-style movie theater opened in 1996 in Moscow, illegal distribution paths began to peter out, according to a study by the Social Science Research Council, a New York-based nonprofit. In the early 2000s, Russians flocked to theaters to see legally distributed global hits like “Avatar” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” Russia became the ninth-largest foreign box office market, according to the Motion Picture Association.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Biden’s speech. More

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      Watch Alexander Skarsgard Battle the Undead in ‘The Northman’

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      The director Robert Eggers narrates a scene that pits the star against a most unfriendly zombie.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.A quiet moonlit scene turns into a rousing fierce fight with an undead mound dweller in this scene from “The Northman.”Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard), the Northman of the title, is seeking to avenge his father’s death. But he requires a special sword that he must retrieve from a burial mound. He’ll just need to pry the weapon from the hands of the mound dweller buried there. Oh, and fight that undead figure when he is roused.Discussing the scene, the director Robert Eggers said that the barely visible moonlit shots in the film “are almost black and white, to the point where I wonder if my D.P. and I made a mistake,” he said, referring to the director of photography, Eggers’s longtime collaborator Jarin Blaschke. The stark glimmers of these moments are based on time Blaschke spent in remote parts of Africa, far from any light pollution. The images are enhanced by an ashen coloring the costume designer and production designer put on the clothing and set to enhance the visuals.Much of the fight with Skarsgard (6-foot-4) and Ian Whyte (7-foot-1) was shot in a vertically roomy space in long, unbroken takes. It became a way to help audiences be “more immersed in the fight,” he said. “And it’s also easier to follow each beat of the fight as a story.”Read the “Northman” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      ‘The Northman’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

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      ‘Bad Roads’ Review: A Wartime Anthology

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      The movie, with its four vignettes about Ukraine, was the country’s submission for best international feature film for the Oscars.When Natalya Vorozhbit’s modern war drama “Bad Roads” was selected as the Ukrainian submission for best international feature film for the 94th Academy Awards back in September, it failed to make enough of a dent with Oscar voters to earn a nomination. But times have changed, and the anthology film, playing now in theaters and on virtual cinemas, has garnered renewed attention for its wide release during the ongoing Russian invasion.Viewers looking for precise commentary on current events will be disappointed, though this is hardly Vorozhbit’s fault. Rather, the four wartime stories in “Bad Roads” fall short on delivering any meaningful insight into the nature of conflict, relying instead on moments of lackluster tension and shock value that greatly overstay their welcome.The most memorable vignette of the film, for better or worse, is its third, where a female journalist (Maryna Klimova) is held hostage by a sadistic soldier (Yuri Kulinich). The segment drags on interminably as the woman is beaten, tortured and humiliated by her captor while trying to appeal to his humanity, before the whole miserable ordeal is cut short by a brisk act of violence. The tidy ending makes the lead-up feel, regrettably, like a waste of time.The other stories in “Bad Roads” feel undercooked at best, even if they may present a compelling premise. The film’s opening vignette, which depicts a tipsy school headmaster (Igor Koltovskyy) trying to get through a road checkpoint without a passport, shows how the collision between war and civilian life can produce results that are both brutal and laughably nonsensical. If only the rest of the film dared to engage with the same complexity.Bad RoadsNot rated. In Ukrainian and Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas. More

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      Where’d All the Method Acting Go?

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      Elyssa Dudley and Listen and follow Still ProcessingApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicIn the 20th century, method acting was everywhere. Actors went to extreme lengths to inhabit the complicated psyche of a character, sometimes making audiences deeply uncomfortable. Think Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull” or Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now.” But in 2022, in our heyday of superhero blockbusters and bingeable story lines, the Method seems to be fading away.Wesley invites Isaac Butler — critic, historian and author of “The Method: How the 20th Century Learned to Act” — to dissect the Method. They discuss where it came from, its most legendary practitioners, and whether Hollywood has a place for it today.‘They are absolutely in two different movies’One of the examples of the Method that Wesley and Isaac break down is from “Supergirl” (1984). Helen Slater stars as Supergirl, alongside Faye Dunaway, who plays her archnemesis, Selena.Dunaway’s use of the Method “allows her to be so identifiably different and more intense than everybody else in that movie,” Wesley said. She has a “grand performance of this witch character,” Isaac added. “And she’s just, like, really going for it. And it’s big and embodied and really fun to watch.”In contrast to Dunaway, Slater is “much more unwashed” and has a “just-fell-out-of-the-costume-trailer kind of line delivery,” Isaac explained. It’s like they’re “in two different movies,” he said.Check out their differing performances in the clip below:Hosted by: Wesley Morris and Jenna WorthamProduced by: Elyssa Dudley and Hans BuetowEdited by: Sara Sarasohn and Sasha WeissEngineered by: Marion LozanoExecutive Producer, Shows: Wendy Dorr More