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      10 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week

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      Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.Critic’s PickA wordless cartoon to love.The happy dog-robot pair in the animated film “Robot Dreams.”Arcadia Motion Pictures, Lokiz Films, Noodles Production, Les Films du Worso‘Robot Dreams’A dog and his robot friend explore 1980s New York in this wordless cartoon written and directed by Pablo Berger and adapted from the graphic novel of the same name.From our review:It’s marvelous how the film is able to sketch so much soul from such simple lines. The characters are drawn bluntly, just as they are in the book. Yet Berger, directing his first animated feature (but not his first silent film), already boasts the creativity of a master. He frames images from inside a grimy microwave, or looking up from the bottom of a candy bowl as it’s being filled with jelly beans. One dizzying shot comes from the point of view of a snowman who’s popped off his own head and hurled it like a bowling ball.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickThe sulking dead.Renate Reinsve in “Handling the Undead.”Pal Ulvik Rokseth/Sundance Institute, via Neon‘Handling the Undead’After the dead are spontaneously reanimated, three families wrestle with the personal ramifications.From our review:Director Thea Hvistendahl wisely takes her time getting to any real action. Instead, with a slow-moving camera and plenty of filtered sunlight, she conjures a dreamlike state, the sense of hanging between planes of existence that tends to accompany those who grieve. There are times when the film veers too near the maudlin for comfort, but it always finds its way back to something spare and meaningful. What would you do, the story gently asks, if your fondest and most impossible wish was granted, and you realized it wasn’t at all what you’d hoped it would be?In theaters. Read the full review.Swimming with the clichés.Daisy Ridley as the real-life competitive swimmer Trudy Ederle in “Young Woman and the Sea.”Vladisav Lepoev/Disney‘Young Woman and the Sea’This Disney drama is inspired by the true story of Trudy Ederle (played by Daisy Ridley), who in 1926 battled sexism and became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.From our review:This is one of those movies that proves, when they’ve got a mind to, they can still make them like they used to. Which is to say, its production values are top-notch, the cast uniformly competent or better (Ridley is particularly winning), and the filmmaking language — the director here is Joachim Ronning, whose last at-bat with Disney was the 2019 critical misfire “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” — is meticulously calculated to deliver a rousing climax and an appropriately heartwarming coda. It’s also rather rich in cliché.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickJessica Lange, stealing the show.Jessica Lange in “The Great Lillian Hall,” with Jesse Williams, standing behind her, reflected in the mirror.HBOWe 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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      ‘Jim Henson Idea Man’ on Disney+ Offers Lessons for Young Artists

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      This Ron Howard documentary doesn’t ignore the Muppet mastermind’s faults, but the tribute has a lot to teach creators everywhere.I don’t need to tell you that Jim Henson’s work is ubiquitous and beloved, foundational to childhood across several generations of “Sesame Street” watchers and stretching far beyond. It’s so important to us that when one of his creations, Elmo, “asked” an innocuous question about people’s mental state on social media this winter, the responses seemed … well, it was a lot.Clearly, his puppets and Muppets and stories and sense of humor do not lose their power with time. But to everyone other than Muppet obsessives, Henson the artist is still a bit shadowy. Good news: Now we have “Jim Henson Idea Man” (on Disney+), a tribute to the artist and a treasure trove of archival footage and interviews about his work and life. Though it borders on hagiography, it’s not blind to Henson’s faults, and it boasts a flair for the unexpected. The film, directed by Ron Howard, starts with Henson and two of his Muppet friends, Fozzie Bear and Kermit the Frog — Henson’s alter ego — being interviewed on TV by none other than Orson Welles. In his sonorous baritone, Welles calls Henson “Rasputin, as an Eagle Scout.” The movie sets out to show what he meant.A few years ago, Marilyn Agrelo’s documentary “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street” (for rent on major platforms) — also very much worth watching — filled in some of the story, with digressions to illustrate the zany, hilariously violent sense of absurdist humor that Henson brought to his early commercial work. “Jim Henson Idea Man” spends longer in the same territory, while focusing on Henson’s life (he died in 1990 at 53), his creative collaborations (including those with his wife, Jane, and with Frank Oz) and his insatiable need to keep pushing his boundaries.There’s so much to love here: old, gut-splitting commercials; behind-the-scenes footage and stories from “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show”; and explorations of “The Dark Crystal,” “Labyrinth” and “The Muppet Movie.” But what struck me especially was that Howard has made a movie that every young artist should watch (and older ones, too), whether they’re making puppets, paintings, music, movies or anything that requires creative labor.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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      How Stop-Motion Yetis Emerged From Film Hibernation

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      “The Primevals,” a movie in the lineage of “Jason and the Argonauts,” was filmed 30 years ago. It has finally been released.Movies like “Dune: Part Two” and “Challengers” arrived in theaters later than expected because of last year’s actors’ strike, and Hollywood experienced significant production setbacks during the coronavirus pandemic.But “The Primevals,” about a group of researchers who discover gigantic yetis and other prehistoric creatures, made those movie delays look minuscule when it was released in theaters in March.It was filmed in 1994.The live-action movie, which was delayed because of funding woes and then the death of its director, David Allen, incorporates a stop-motion animation technique in which puppets are painstakingly photographed and brought to life through a series of frames, as with a children’s flipbook. The retro look conjures up an earlier era of filmmaking, before computer-generated imagery took over visual effects.“It’s like an archaeological find,” said Juliet Mills, who plays one of the movie’s researchers. “It’s like entering a time machine watching this film.”Mills and the other actors had doubted that the movie would ever reach theaters. Even before Allen died, the film’s development had been plagued by outsize expectations and financial challenges.David Allen, left, and Chris Endicott working behind the scenes on “The Primevals.” Allen conceived the movie in the 1970s and began directing it in the 1990s.Full Moon FeaturesWe 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 Dead Don’t Hurt’ Review: A Foursquare Western From Viggo Mortensen

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      Mortensen gives his film a nested, at times unnecessarily complicated structure, but with performances this good, it’s hard to mind much.In making an honest go at reviving the movie western, Viggo Mortensen — who directed, wrote and stars in “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” in addition to composing its score — delivers a few different westerns in one.Not counting a deathbed prologue, the film initially seems to be staking out a claim in the law-and-order corner of the genre. Mortensen, as a bereaved sheriff named Holger Olsen, appears skeptical when a town dullard stands accused of six murders and apparently claimed not to remember any of them. The local courthouse — a makeshift affair cobbled together in the saloon — is not the most forgiving place for the wrongfully accused, or for anyone. (At one point, in lieu of slamming a gavel to call for order, the judge fires a gun upward twice, then glances toward the ceiling to make sure it won’t cave in.)We’ve already seen the killer. Weston Jeffries (Solly McLeod), the entitled and vicious son of the area’s leading rancher, Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt), is introduced mid-spree: He is first seen emerging from the saloon and casually shooting two people in a single take before the title card appears, dangling above a corpse.But before “The Dead Don’t Hurt” can become a film about a good sheriff’s efforts to correct a miscarriage of justice, it flashes back to tell the story of another character, Vivienne Le Coudy (played as an adult by Vicky Krieps). A brisker, more classically mounted western might have kept her offscreen, relegating her to the sheriff’s back story.Painting on a bigger canvas, Mortensen gives his film a nested, at times unnecessarily complicated structure. (Vivienne’s French Canadian childhood gets somewhat superfluous flashbacks of its own.) Once the grown Vivienne meets Olsen — she prefers calling him by his last name — they set out to build a life together. Olsen is an able carpenter; Vivienne has a knack for shooting fowl. She cleans up his dusty, drab parcel of land and inspires him to add some greenery.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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      Albert S. Ruddy, 94, Dies; Producer Won an Oscar for ‘The Godfather’

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      A creator of the sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” he went on to win a second Academy Award for “Million Dollar Baby,” the boxing film starring Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood.Albert S. Ruddy, who found early success in television as a creator of “Hogan’s Heroes,” the situation comedy about Allied prisoners outwitting their bumbling Nazi captors in a P.O.W. camp, and then became a movie producer who won Oscars for “The Godfather” and “Million Dollar Baby,” died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 94.His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his wife, Wanda McDaniel, and his daughter, Alexandra Ruddy.Mr. Ruddy was a gravelly-voiced former systems programmer and shoe salesman who, by the time Paramount Pictures was preparing to film “The Godfather,” had become known for the unlikely success of “Hogan’s Heroes” and for producing a couple of movies that had come in under budget.“Ruddy is a tall, thin, nervously enthusiastic man who sees himself as a shrewd manipulator,” Nicholas Pileggi wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 1971 about the making of “The Godfather,” an adaptation of the Mario Puzo novel about the Corleone crime family. “Ruddy had always been able to talk his way through obstacles.”Among the many hurdles he faced as “The Godfather’s” producer was the animosity toward the prospective film shown by Italian Americans, civic-minded ethnic groups like the Sons of Italy and members of Congress, who thought the movie would perpetuate gangster stereotypes. Paramount feared economic boycotts.The person who concerned Mr. Ruddy most was Joseph Colombo Sr., the reputed Mafia crime boss who had founded the Italian American Civil Rights League. He had persuaded the F.B.I. to stop using the terms Mafia and Cosa Nostra in its news releases.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 Man Behind the Muppets

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      As his company grew, Henson minted his leadership style. “I called him a gentle anarchist,” Erickson said.Oz added, “He never criticized, ever. He never told us what to do. He was the boss, but he was the boss as a brother, almost.”Making Henson laugh was the goal.On “The Muppet Show,” Erickson said, “even when the cameras were off and they called ‘Cut,’ everybody stayed in character and played jokes on Jim, or teased him or each other.” More

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      ‘Young Woman and the Sea’ Review: Fighting Sexism and Rough Waters

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      Daisy Ridley plays Gertrude Ederle, who persuades her father to pay for swim lessons, and then goes on to be a pioneer.In a brassy set piece from the 1952 classic “Singin’ in the Rain,” its star, Gene Kelly, impersonates a newbie hoofer seeking fame on the Great White Way. “Gotta dance!” he exclaims to anyone he meets. In “Young Woman and the Sea,” Trudy Ederle is fond of singing the 1921 hit “Ain’t We Got Fun.” First loudly, with a ukulele, to convince her early-20th-century immigrant dad to spring for swimming lessons; later, softly, to herself as she prepares to become the first woman to swim across the English Channel. It’s her way of proclaiming “Gotta swim!”The real-life Gertrude Ederle was so utterly compelled that she put her hearing, already damaged by a childhood bout with the measles, at serious risk with her immersions. Based on a biography by Glenn Stout that contains some pretty provocative and reasonably well-supported theories about the ups and downs of her career, this Disney movie runs with those theories hard. Ederle, played by Daisy Ridley, runs up against not just the garden variety sexism of her time, but some male sponsors and coaches who actively sabotage her sporting efforts.This is one of those movies that proves, when they’ve got a mind to, they can still make them like they used to. Which is to say, its production values are top-notch, the cast uniformly competent or better (Ridley is particularly winning), and the filmmaking language — the director here is Joachim Ronning, whose last at bat with Disney was the 2019 critical misfire “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” — is meticulously calculated to deliver a rousing climax and an appropriately heartwarming coda.It’s also rather rich in cliché. When Trudy is tempted to give up her sport, three angelic little girls show up as if on cue and one tells her, “It’s because of you I was allowed to swim.”Young Woman and the SeaRated PG for intense swimming maybe. Running time: 2 hours 9 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle’ Review: Drama on the Court

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      This film extends the story told in an anime series about high school volleyball teams.For someone unfamiliar with “Haikyu!!,” the anime adaptation of a slice-of-life manga about a high school volleyball team, the premise may seem a bit niche. And yet the series, which continues in the form of the film “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle,” has always excelled at making its wholesome sports drama accessible to every kind of audience — especially those who may not know anything about volleyball.The series focuses on Shoyo Hinata, a short teenager who dreams of becoming a volleyball champion like his idol, a small-statured ace called the Little Giant. He enrolls at the Little Giant’s former high school, Karasuno, and joins the volleyball team with his middle school nemesis, Tobio Kageyama. The two boys form a superhuman pair that helps revitalize the team and offers Karasuno the opportunity to return to its former glory.Directed by Susumu Mitsunaka, “The Dumpster Battle,” which feels like more of an extended episode than a stand-alone film, picks up during Karasuno’s heated competition at the spring nationals. They are set to go against Nekoma, another team with which they’ve been caught for years in a friendly rivalry. The match takes up the entire movie, with flashbacks and series callbacks fully contextualizing the relationships and stakes at work in the game.As in every match in the series, the Dumpster Battle uses imaginative visual metaphors to depict each team’s offensive and defensive strategies and overall playing philosophies. Karasuno is the crow, with Hinata’s awe-inspiring leaps above the court represented by a crow making an airborne attack. Nekoma is the cat, grounded with solid defense, stalking and manipulating its prey until it can find the right moment to clip the crow’s feathers. And both of these underdog squads want to earn respect and fight their way out of the dumpster.Leading Nekoma is Kenma Kozume, an apathetic teen with no stamina and little athletic prowess who would rather play video games than volleyball. But Kenma, whom Hinata befriended at a training camp earlier in the series, is also Nekoma’s mastermind, meticulously planning their attacks while his teammates make up for the athleticism he lacks.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