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      ‘The Price of Freedom’ Review: Guns Across America

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      Judd Ehrlich’s documentary charts the increasing radicalization of the National Rifle Association’s rhetoric.The title “The Price of Freedom” refers to the death toll that the gun lobby would dismiss as simply the cost of Second Amendment rights. Bill Clinton, among other interviewees in this documentary, disputes that idea. If the deaths of innocents are necessary for people to exercise their freedom, the former president says, the logical conclusion is “that we don’t really have mutual responsibilities to each other. It’s a very high price.”The movie, directed by Judd Ehrlich, takes viewers through the history of the National Rifle Association, explaining competing factions in the 1970s and charting the increasing radicalization of the organization’s rhetoric. Ehrlich interweaves images of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and commentary from Mary Anne Franks, a law professor, who says there’s now a version of Second Amendment thinking that encourages people to believe they can “stop democracy itself” and are “honoring the Constitution by doing so.”Muckraking documentaries often conclude with declined-to-comment disclaimers, but David Keene, a former N.R.A. president, is here. Toward the end, he chillingly cautions anyone who thinks the N.R.A. might disappear.Parents like Nicole Hockley and Fred Guttenberg, whose children were killed in school shootings, offer powerful testimony. So does Representative Lucy McBath of Georgia, whose son’s shooter, ultimately convicted, claimed self-defense in a case that put further scrutiny on Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. But Ehrlich also provides a note of optimism from the hunting enthusiast Wes Siler and the gun-owning academic Cassandra Crifasi, who suggest that a warped political dialogue has obscured gun owners’ widespread support for safety measures.The Price of FreedomNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      In ‘Monsters at Work,’ the Scary Part Is the New Business Model

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      Twenty years after Pixar debuted the original “Monsters, Inc.,” Disney+ is bringing a cast of new monsters to the small screen — and putting Mike and Sulley in the managers’ office.You’ve got to feel sorry for Tylor Tuskmon.After finishing at the top of his university class and receiving the business career offer of his dreams, Tylor arrives for his first workday to find that the company’s chief executive has just been jailed. The new leaders have adopted a radically novel approach and no longer need his furiously studied, exquisitely honed talent. He’s going to have to start at the bottom — literally — with the basement maintenance crew. More

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      They Resurrected MGM. Amazon Bought the Studio. Now What?

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      Paul Thomas Anderson and Michael De Luca are film geeks with a shared history. As a studio executive, Mr. De Luca championed Mr. Anderson’s “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia,” films that established the director’s reputation as a creative force. So when Focus Features said it would postpone the production of Mr. Anderson’s new film because of the pandemic, it was Mr. De Luca, in his new role as chairman of MGM’s Motion Picture Group, who swooped in and pledged to get the movie into production in Los Angeles when Mr. Anderson wanted to shoot.And being that the two men can’t resist the pull of old Hollywood, Mr. De Luca made sure to amp up the nostalgia associated with his efforts to reinvigorate MGM, the once mighty studio that in recent decades has been reduced to a financial Ping-Pong ball, volleyed back and forth by various investors eager to turn the company’s 4,000-film library into a cash cow.“I said, ‘This will be fun. Come make your movie at Metro,’” Mr. De Luca recalled with a laugh, referring to the studio’s former moniker of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.Mr. Anderson was game.“If Mike says something will happen, it happens,” he said. “It’s hard not to stress how rare of a quality that is.”The question now is, in light of Amazon’s decision last month to acquire MGM in an $8.45 billion deal, will Mr. De Luca still be able to keep his promises? Or will he simply be part of a corporate hierarchy less prone to taking chances on films and filmmakers?In the past 15 months, MGM has experienced a resurgence, led by Mr. De Luca, a one-time brash and reckless young executive who introduced filmmakers like Mr. Anderson and David Fincher to the culture when he was president of production at New Line Cinema, and now, after 36 years in the business, is seen as one of its most reliable statesmen. His deputy, Pamela Abdy, produced “Garden State” when she was at Jersey Films and amplified the career of Alejandro González Iñárritu, among others, during her time as a Paramount executive and later at New Regency.At MGM, the two have compiled a heady mix of A-list directors and compelling material they hope hearkens back to the days when Fred Astaire and Judy Garland roamed the once-hallowed studio’s hallways. The next six months will show if their strategy pays off. Mr. Anderson’s movie will debut on Nov. 26. It will follow Ridley Scott’s pulpy drama “House of Gucci,” starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver. In December, Joe Wright’s musical adaptation of “Cyrano,” with Peter Dinklage and featuring music from The National, will be released.Daniel Craig as James Bond in “No Time to Die,” which is scheduled to be released Oct. 8.Nicola Dove/MGMAnd then there is “No Time to Die,” the long-awaited 25th installment of the James Bond franchise and Daniel Craig’s swan song in the role, which is scheduled for theatrical release on Oct. 8.“Mike and Pam understand that we are at a critical juncture and that the continuing success of the James Bond series is dependent on us getting the next iteration right and will give us the support we need to do this,” Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the sibling producing team who have long overseen the Bond franchise, said in a statement.They added that “Amazon has assured us that Bond will continue to debut” in movie theaters. “Our hope is that they will empower Mike and Pam to continue to run MGM unencumbered,” they said.Still, Amazon’s priorities are inherently different from a traditional studio’s.In 2019, Amazon Studios, under the leadership of Jennifer Salke, shifted away from exclusive theatrical windows, opting instead to make movies available in theaters and on Amazon Prime the same day, the strategy preferred by the prominent streaming platforms. The pandemic turbocharged that approach. Ms. Salke was able to buy films like “Coming 2 America” and the recently released “The Tomorrow War” from studios looking to offload their movies because theaters were largely closed. Viewership on Amazon Prime skyrocketed and movies, which had previously taken a back seat to television shows, suddenly became a much more attractive opportunity. Anemic overall film output would no longer do.Mr. De Luca and Ms. Abdy stress that even in light of the pending acquisition, which still needs government approval, their philosophy of movie theaters first will remain.“There is theatrical in our near future, there will be theatrical after the deal closes,” Mr. De Luca said. “There will always be theatrical at MGM.”It’s not clear how the management of MGM will be handled once the acquisition is complete. Amazon declined to comment on the record for this article. There are some in Hollywood’s film community who are hopeful that Mr. De Luca and Ms. Abdy will oversee Amazon’s movie business once the merger is complete.“Flag Day,” directed by Sean Penn, will mark MGM’s first release under its new executive leadership.Allen Fraser/MGMMs. Salke has led both divisions for the past three years, managing an $8 billion annual content budget, and Amazon has made no indication that will change. Before joining Amazon, Ms. Salke spent seven years as president of entertainment at NBC. (In an interesting twist, Ms. Salke’s biggest bet is a $450 million television adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” which Peter Jackson previously adapted into a series of blockbuster films at New Line when Mr. De Luca was an executive there.) Her upcoming films include the Cannes Film Festival opener “Annette”; Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos,” about Lucy and Desi Arnaz; and George Clooney’s “The Tender Bar,” starring Ben Affleck.The producer Matt Tolmach, who has two projects in the works at MGM, including the horror film “Dark Harvest,” set for release on Sept. 23, said Mr. De Luca’s passion for good stories is infectious. “He read the script and he called me, and we had an hourlong conversation just about the possibilities and how amazing it would be and how we can push the boundaries,” he said of “Dark Harvest.” “That’s what he does. He makes your movie better.”As Mr. De Luca sees it, the new MGM is about “treating the filmmakers like the franchise,” he said. When he and Ms. Abdy first joined forces, the duo compiled a list of 36 directors they were hoping to lure to the studio. In 15 months, they’ve nabbed 20 percent of them, including Darren Aronofsky, Sarah Polley, Melina Matsoukas and George Miller.“We don’t mind taking big swings and gambling because I think it’s either go big or go home,” he added. “I think the audience rewards you if you are really original, innovative, bold and creative.”In a shareholder meeting last month Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and executive chairman, called the reason behind the acquisition “very simple.” He said MGM had a “vast, deep catalog of much beloved” movies and shows. “We can reimagine and redevelop that I.P. for the 21st century.”That runs counter to the approach Mr. De Luca and Ms. Abdy have primarily taken.“Mike and I did not sit down and say let’s raid the library and remake everything,” Ms. Abdy said. “Our focus is original ideas with original authorship and real filmmakers, but you know every once in a while something will come up that’s fun and we’ll pursue it if we think it makes sense.”Those ideas include a hybrid live action/animated remake of “Pink Panther”; Michael B. Jordan directing the third installment of the “Rocky” spinoff “Creed”; and “Legally Blonde 3” with Reese Witherspoon and a script co-written by Mindy Kaling.“Our focus is original ideas,” Ms. Abdy said of the approach she and Mr. De Luca have taken.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesOf course, all of MGM’s success is hypothetical, as none of the projects initiated by Mr. De Luca and Ms. Abdy have been seen yet. The company’s recent acquisition of Sean Penn’s directorial effort “Flag Day,” which is set to debut at the Cannes Film Festival before opening on Aug. 20, will mark the regime’s first release. The studio also has high hopes for “Respect,” an Aretha Franklin biopic starring Jennifer Hudson, which comes out in August (and was in motion when Mr. De Luca and Ms. Abdy came to MGM).But they said their efforts to reinvigorate the studio were more than just an attempt to make the company attractive to buyers. Anchorage Capital, the majority owners of MGM, put the studio up for sale in December and the speed with which a deal was made surprised Mr. De Luca and Ms. Abdy.Both said they were in for the long haul. “If it works, I feel like it could go on forever,” Mr. De Luca said. Ms. Abdy added, “Until they carry us out.”As part of their efforts, Mr. De Luca and Mrs. Abdy even had MGM’s logo reworked: Leo the lion is now digital and the gold film ribbons that encircle him have been sharpened “to own gold the way Netflix owns red,” Mr. De Luca said. The three Latin words encircling the lion — “Ars Gratia Artis” — are first spelled out in English: “Art for Art’s Sake.”That’s music to Mr. Anderson’s ears.“Long live the lion!” he said. “Whether it’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’ or ‘Tom & Jerry’ cartoons, the lion is a symbol of our business. The healthier, the better.”And how does he feel about MGM being sold to Amazon?“Who?” he responded. More

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      Richard Donner, Director of ‘Superman’ and ‘Lethal Weapon’ Films, Dies at 91

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      The Bronx-born Mr. Donner was in his late 40s when he made his first megahit, about the Man of Steel, but others soon followed, including “The Goonies” and “Scrooged.”Richard Donner, the tough, single-minded but playful film director who made Christopher Reeve’s Superman fly, Mel Gibson’s deranged detective lethal and the young stars of “The Goonies” pirate-adorable, died on Monday. He was 91. His production company and his wife and producing partner, Lauren Shuler Donner, confirmed the death with Hollywood trade publications. They did not say where he died or give the cause.Mr. Donner was in his late 40s when he made his first blockbuster, “Superman,” reviving a comic-book hero who hadn’t been seen onscreen since the 1950s television series “Adventures of Superman.” The film opened in 1978, introducing Mr. Reeve, a relative unknown at the time, as the Man of Steel and some state-of-the-art special effects.“If the audience didn’t believe he was flying, I didn’t have a movie,” Mr. Donner told Variety in 1997.That megahit was followed by “Inside Moves” (1980), a drama about a man crippled in a failed suicide attempt (Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Donner had directed it “with a surprising gentleness”); “The Toy” (1982), with Richard Pryor, whose character finds himself hired to be the plaything of a spoiled rich child; “The Goonies” (1987), about misfit children on a treasure hunt; the first of four “Lethal Weapon” movies (also 1987), starring Mr. Gibson and Danny Glover; and “Scrooged” (1988), an irreverent comic take on Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” starring Bill Murray.Christopher Reeve in “Superman.” “If the audience didn’t believe he was flying, I didn’t have a movie,” Mr. Donner said.Warner Brothers, via ReutersMr. Donner attributed the surprise success of “Lethal Weapon” to his clean depiction of violence.“I like to turn my head away in suspense, not in disgust,” he said in a 1987 interview with The Times. “Sure, there were a lot of deaths, but they died like they died in westerns. They were shot with bullets; they weren’t dismembered.”He even admitted to having stolen some fight moves from a western: “Red River” (1948), which starred John Wayne.Mr. Donner always said he had been hired for “Goonies” because Steven Spielberg, who produced the movie, had told him, “You’re a bigger kid than I am.” But working with actual kids (including Sean Astin at 14 and Josh Brolin, barely 17) was a mixed blessing. “The annoying thing was the lack of discipline,” Mr. Donner told Yahoo Entertainment in 2015. “And that was also what was great, because it meant that they weren’t professionals. What came out of them was instinct.”In a statement on Monday, Mr. Spielberg said: “Dick had such a powerful command of his movies, and was so gifted across so many genres. Being in his circle was akin to hanging out with your favorite coach, smartest professor, fiercest motivator, most endearing friend, staunchest ally, and — of course — the greatest Goonie of all. He was all kid. All heart. All the time.”A scene from “The Goonies.” Mr. Donner said he had been hired for “Goonies” because Steven Spielberg had told him, “You’re a bigger kid than I am.” Warner Bros.Richard Donald Schwartzberg was born on April 24, 1930, in the Bronx, the younger of two children of Fred and Hattie (Horowitz) Schwartzberg. His father was a Russian Jewish immigrant who worked in his father’s furniture business; his mother, a daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, worked as a secretary before having children.Richard became fascinated by film when he and his sister would go to their grandfather’s movie theater in Brooklyn. But he had no specific career ambitions, Mr. Donner said in a 2006 Archive of American Television video interview. He grew up in the Bronx and in Mount Vernon, N.Y., and joined the Navy in his teens.His first real attraction to show business came with a summer job parking cars and doing errands at a summer theater. Because his father wanted him to study business, he enrolled in night school at New York University but dropped out after two years.He had some luck landing acting jobs in commercials and finally won a tiny part on the 1950-51 anthology series “Somerset Maugham TV Theater.” The episode’s director, Martin Ritt (who went on to a successful career directing movies like “Hud,” “Sounder” and “Norma Rae”), didn’t care for the young man’s attitude and offered a suggestion. “You can’t take direction,” he said. “You should be a director.”Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in “Lethal Weapon 2.” Mr. Donner attributed the surprise success of the first “Lethal Weapon” to his clean depiction of violence.Warner Bros, via Everett CollectionMr. Donner (he took his stage name from the infamous Donner Pass massacre, observing its centennial at the time, and because Donner sounded like his middle name) continued to do commercials and helped found a commercial production company, which he and his partner later sold to Filmways. He got his big chance to direct prime-time series TV in 1960, with an episode of the western “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” starring Steve McQueen.From the start he brushed elbows with stars. The golden-age-of-Hollywood star Claudette Colbert was in one of his first assignments, a 1960 episode of “Zane Grey Theater.” One of the six “Twilight Zone” episodes he directed was “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” in which William Shatner played a terrified airline passenger who sees a gremlin on the wing outside his window. Neither of Mr. Donner’s first two tries at film made a big splash, but he directed big names: Charles Bronson in “X-15,” a 1961 drama about a test pilot, and Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford in “Salt and Pepper,” a 1968 comedy crime thriller.The first Richard Donner movie that received headline attention was “The Omen” (1976), about a cold-eyed little boy who is secretly the Antichrist. Vincent Canby, unimpressed, described Mr. Donner in The Times as “a television director who has a superb way of dismissing any small detail that might give some semblance of conviction to the proceedings.” But “The Omen” became the year’s fifth-highest-grossing film; soon its director was offered “Superman,” which did even better financially. It was beaten at the box office in 1978 only by “Grease.”Mr. Donner directed Mr. Gibson in two high-profile films in the 1990s: “Maverick” (1994), a comic western with Jodie Foster; and “Conspiracy Theory” (1997), an action thriller about a paranoid cabdriver, with Julia Roberts. In the early ’90s he produced and directed episodes of HBO’s “Tales From the Crypt.”The last “Lethal Weapon” movie was in 1998. Mr. Donner’s last film, “16 Blocks,” was a 2006 crime drama starring Bruce Willis.Mr. Donner in 2017, when he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe met Ms. Shuler when she hired him for the 1985 fantasy “Ladyhawke”; they married in 1986. The couple eventually chose not to work together because it affected their relationship, Mr. Donner said. “I’m a 200-pound gorilla,” he explained. “She’s a 300-pound gorilla.”But their production company, the Donners’ Company, founded in 1993, has been behind lucrative hits like “Deadpool,” “The Wolverine” and the “X-Men” franchise. (Complete information on his survivors was not immediately available.)Like Alfred Hitchcock, Mr. Donner enjoyed making silent cameo appearances in his own projects; he was, among other things, a riverboat card dealer in “Maverick,” a police officer in “The Goonies” and a passer-by in “Superman.”But asked in the Archive of American Television interview how he wanted to be remembered, he was unassuming. “As a good guy who lived a long life and had a good time and always had that lady behind him pushing him,” he said. His only boast: “I’m pretty good at meeting a schedule and a budget.” More

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      After ‘F9,’ We Watched the Ninth Movies of Other Franchises. Oof.

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      There’s a reason most series don’t run so long. But amid the dreck (cough — “Jason Goes to Hell” — cough), we found a few that held up.I’m not sure anyone imagined, when watching “The Fast and the Furious” in the summer of 2001, that a modest flick about street-racing car thieves in Southern California might one day yield eight sequels. It’s not so much that this material didn’t warrant a return trip as that almost no material gets returned to so many times.But what about those rare movie series that make it that far? In honor of “F9,” I watched the ninth installments of some other franchises. As you might expect, the quality varies wildly, from painfully derivative to astonishingly fresh.‘Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday’ (1993)Of course, the subtitle is a misnomer: “Jason Goes to Hell” was far from the final “Friday the 13th” movie; for one, it was succeeded in 2001 by “Jason X,” which was set in outer space. Part 9 starts with Jason Voorhees being blasted to bits by a SWAT team, but naturally getting blown up doesn’t prevent him from continuing to wreak carnage on the denizens of Crystal Lake. Possessing another human body with his evil spirit, he extravagantly stabs, crushes and impales attractive teenage victims in various states of undress. It’s a brutally violent and luridly graphic slasher, although not a particularly frightening one, that culminates in a bewildering last-second cameo by Freddy Krueger’s glove.‘Ernest in the Army’ (1998)Ernest P. Worrell, the cartoonish buffoon immortalized by Jim Varney, started his career in a long-running series of popular television commercials, promoting Sprite and Chex cereal, among other products, with his signature catchphrase: “Know what I mean, Vern?” He went on to star in several hit movies, including “Ernest Goes to Camp” (1987) and “Ernest Scared Stupid” (1991), but by the late ’90s, the schtick had hit a point of diminishing returns, to put it mildly. “Ernest in the Army,” the ninth Ernest feature, is a direct-to-video farce in which the eponymous hero enlists in the Reserves and is shipped out to Karifistan, a fictional country in the Middle East that provides much of the film’s absurdly racist humor. Varney died two years later, ending the franchise here.‘Son of the Pink Panther’ (1993)Blake Edwards, creator of the original “Pink Panther” (1964) and one of the greatest American comedy directors of all time, was still making excellent comedies as recently as the late 1980s, like the uproarious “Skin Deep” (1989). “Son of the Pink Panther,” his final feature, feels like the work of a different filmmaker entirely. A limp, superfluous movie arriving a decade after the dismal “Curse of the Pink Panther” (1983), it starred Roberto Benigni as the illegitimate adult son of Inspector Clouseau, and was of course similarly blithe and bumbling. Benigni is funny; the material isn’t. The one bright spot is the original score — the last by the great Henry Mancini.‘Hellraiser: Revelations’ (2011)Many of the “Hellraiser” sequels are bad. “Hellraiser: Revelations” doesn’t even try to be good. The ninth film in the grisly supernatural horror franchise was made strictly to satisfy a condition in the studio’s contract with the series’s creator, Clive Barker, that a new installment be released every few years, lest the studio relinquish its rights to the franchise. The script was written in a matter of days and the movie slapped together in a couple of weeks. Doug Bradley, who starred as the villain Pinhead in all eight of the previous iterations, declined to participate. “If they claim it’s from the mind of Clive Barker, it’s a lie,” Barker tweeted during production.‘American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules’ (2020)The original “American Pie” (1999) has three true sequels — “American Pie 2” (2001), “American Wedding” (2003) and “American Reunion” (2012) — following the same characters. But the franchise has also spawned a series of spinoffs made in a similar spirit of raunchy jubilance, including “Band Camp” (2005) and “The Naked Mile” (2006). The ninth and latest, “Girls’ Rules,” is a gender-swapped riff on the first film. It follows four young women who resolve to find romantic satisfaction before the night of their high school prom. What charm it has is thanks to its charismatic leads — particularly Lizze Broadway as Stephanie Stifler, cousin to Seann William Scott’s memorable supporting character from the original series.‘Adventures of Zatoichi’ (1964)Shintaro Katsu starred as the blind masseur and Edo-era swordsman Zatoichi in no fewer than 26 features between 1962 and 1989, sometimes making as many as four in a single year. The quality of each installment is remarkably high, considering just how many there are, and the ninth, “Adventures of Zatoichi,” is no exception: The dramatic swordplay, political intrigue and upbeat physical comedy that are the hallmarks of the series are on grand display, as Zatoichi dispatches the usual processions of villainous samurai with gratifying flair. And if you just can’t get enough Zatoichi, Katsu later reprised the role for television — and made more than 100 “Zatoichi” episodes.‘Star Trek: Insurrection’ (1998)The ninth “Star Trek” picture is also the third oriented around the cast of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” whose small-screen voyages on the Starship Enterprise are some of the most beloved by “Trek” fans. Starring the inimitable Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, paragon of interstellar virtue and decency, and directed by Jonathan Frakes, who also plays the handsome ladies’ man William Riker, the movie feels a bit like a feature-length episode of the show. After the blockbuster action of the previous installment, “Star Trek: First Contact,” that TV-movie quality is fairly refreshing, and Stewart and the cast, as always, are a pleasure to watch. It also compares very favorably against the next film in the series, “Star Trek: Nemesis” (2002), about which the less said, the better. More

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      Watch These 11 Titles Before They Leave Netflix This Month

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      Plenty to catch up on before a slew of titles leave for U.S. viewers by the end of July. These are the ones most worth seeing.Oscar winners and family favorites lead this month’s parade of titles departing from Netflix in the United States, along with an unnerving indie thriller, an immortal Australian franchise starter, a beloved ’90s rom-com and a controversial Stanley Kubrick classic. (Dates reflect the final day a title is available.)‘The Iron Lady’ (July 5)Meryl Streep picked up her third Academy Award for this 2011 portrait of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and it’s a stunning transformation. (The film’s makeup team also won Oscars for their work). But Streep’s performance is no mere impersonation; she digs deep into the complicated personality of the conservative stateswoman and the inconsistencies (some might say hypocrisies) she personified. Abi Morgan’s inventively structured screenplay jettisons the expected cradle-to-grave construction, dramatizing instead her life in a series of flashbacks inspired by both her grief and Alzheimer’s disease. Jim Broadbent is warm and winning as her husband.Stream it here‘The Invitation’ (July 7)What would you do if your good friends — people you have known for years, trusted and loved — joined a cult? How would you react if they welcomed you into their home, sat you down in their living room and began forcibly explaining why you should join, too? That’s the question at the heart of this gripping thriller from the director Karyn Kusama (“Girlfight”), in which a young man (Logan Marshall-Green) is invited to the home of his ex-wife (Tammy Blanchard) for a reunion and dinner party that takes a decidedly dark turn. The thriller elements are sharp, but its provocative central conundrum — How to get through to friends who’ve seemingly lost touch with reality? — has grown only more pointed in the years since its early 2016 release.Stream it herePrincess Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose)and the frog Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) in “The Princess and the Frog.”Walt Disney Animation Studios‘The Princess and the Frog’ (July 15)Disney’s 49th animated feature was also the first with an African-American “Disney princess” — a long-overdue gesture but a welcome one nevertheless. It wasn’t just a surface alteration; the directors Ron Clements and John Musker adapted the classic children’s fairy tale “The Frog Prince” to New Orleans of the 1920s, taking full advantage of Bayou culture with memorable, ragtime-style songs (by Randy Newman) and delightful updates to the original story. Anika Noni Rose voices Tiana, a waitress and chef whose dream of owning her own restaurant is interrupted by a witch doctor’s spell that turns her — and her perspective suitor, a fun-loving prince — into frogs. Oprah Winfrey, John Goodman, Keith David and Terrence Howard are highlights of the impressive voice cast.Stream it here‘The Croods’ (July 28)One of the last remaining prehistoric families finds their methods of survival — and thus, their entire way of life — challenged in this frisky, funny animated comedy. Nicolas Cage, an actor so operatically expressive that it’s shocking he hasn’t done more animated work, is both amusing and empathetic as the patriarch of the Crood family, who will go to any length to keep his family safe; Emma Stone is a delightful counterpoint as his teenage daughter, who, like most rebellious teens, is just looking to break the boredom. Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener and Clark Duke charm in supporting roles, but the scene stealer is Cloris Leachman, hilarious as the family’s fierce grandmother.Stream it here‘Spotlight’ (July 30)The Academy Award winner for best picture of 2015 is an “All the President’s Men”-style chronicle of investigative journalism at its most urgent. Telling the true story of how the team at the Boston Globe unearthed widespread sexual abuse by Catholic priests, the director Tom McCarthy focuses on the nuts and bolts of the journalism — how each isolated tip and victim leads to another, and another, and another. A flawless ensemble cast (including Michael Keaton, John Slattery, Liev Schreiber, Stanley Tucci and the Oscar nominees Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams) runs the full emotional gamut, from skeptical and cautious to fiery and impassioned; the results are gripping, intelligent and powerful.Stream it hereMalcolm McDowell in “A Clockwork Orange.”Warner Bros.‘A Clockwork Orange’ (July 31)Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel would become his most controversial film, a dark and disturbing examination of violence (and its glamorization) that refuses to let viewers off the hook. Kubrick’s dynamic direction puts us uncomfortably close to the thrill crimes of its protagonists, a group of youthful hooligans in a vaguely futuristic Britain led by the charismatic Alex (Malcolm McDowell, at the top of his game). The picture’s ultraviolence and pitch-black humor proved so upsetting to viewers that the director took it out of circulation in England for decades; the passage of more than a half century has done little to blunt its force.Stream it here‘Hook’ (July 31)The pitch for this 1991 adventure — Steven Spielberg directing a follow-up to “Peter Pan” with Robin Williams as an adult Peter and Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook — seemed so irresistible, such a perfect confluence of elements, that when the results were somewhat uneven, critics (and some audiences) dismissed it outright. But talk to anyone who was a child when “Hook” was released, and you’ll hear a different story, about an endlessly rewatched favorite. And children, lest we forget, were the target audience, as evidenced by the film’s eye-popping color palate, youthful supporting cast and firm embrace of the magic of imagination.Stream it here‘Jupiter Ascending’ (July 31)Every single film by the Wachowskis is a big swing, even when they’re crafting such seemingly safe bets as a television adaptation (“Speed Racer”), an adaptation of a best-selling novel (“Cloud Atlas”) or a follow-up to an earlier hit (the “Matrix” sequels). They can’t help but take risks, even when silliness or audience alienation is at stake. And if this big-canvas fantasy adventure isn’t quite a home run — the narrative pieces don’t quite fit together, and the performances are tonally disparate — the sheer ambition of its creators is as overwhelming as ever, and it is refreshing to see big-budget filmmaking that so stubbornly refuses to play by the rules.Stream it here‘Mad Max’ (July 31)Before the massive production of “Fury Road,” or even the rough-and-tumble “The Road Warrior,” the Australian director George Miller introduced the action legend “Mad” Max Rockatansky in this lean, mean slab of “Oz-ploitation” filmmaking. And he introduced a little-known Aussie actor named Mel Gibson in the title role, a police officer in a crumbling society who becomes a bloodthirsty vigilante after a criminal gang attacks his wife and child. A first-time director, Miller was working with a tiny budget and limited resources. But his talent for genre filmmaking was already evident; the metal-crunching car chases are staged with jittery ingenuity, while the emotional beats are brutally effective.Stream it here‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ (July 31)When Julia Roberts headlined this 1997 romantic comedy, it was framed as a comeback vehicle, implying that she had wandered too far from her bread and butter with appearances in darker fare like “Mary Reilly” and “Michael Collins.” But this was no lightweight rom-com; the director P.J. Hogan (“Muriel’s Wedding”) and the screenwriter Ronald Bass (“Rain Man”) allow Roberts to tinker with her audience’s expectations, complicating their assumed empathy for the actor with her character’s questionable (and even cruel) motives and actions. And Cameron Diaz is brilliantly used as the target of her ire — a character so warm and sunny, we can’t help but wonder whose side we’re really on.Stream it hereFrom left, Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin in “Zombieland.”Glen Wilson/Columbia Pictures‘Zombieland’ (July 31)In the aftermath of a raging zombie apocalypse, it’s kill or be killed. And the primary pleasure of this double-barreled action comedy is the extent to which the screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have worked through the logistics of this hellscape, as articulated by the hero (Jesse Eisenberg) and his rules for survival. An introverted college student, he joins forces with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a gunslinging cowboy type, and the sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) on a journey through the chaos. The director Ruben Fleischer keeps the laughs and gore coming at a steady clip, so thoroughly adopting the hip approach of “Ghostbusters” that Bill Murray even shows up to play along.Stream it here More

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      ‘Zola’ | 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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      Five International Movies to Stream Now

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      Take a cinematic journey around the world with these highlights.This month’s picks include a delirious Mexican jungle thriller, an Indian character study about an aging trucker, a Buenos Aires–set drama about bereavement, a whimsical film about a Chinese tourist in Malaysia and the latest feature by the Filipino “slow cinema” auteur Lav Diaz.‘Tragic Jungle’Stream it on Netflix.Yulene Olaizola’s delirious 1920s–set thriller unfolds in the forested borderlands between Mexico and Belize (formerly British Honduras). Agnes (Indira Andrewin), a beautiful British woman of African origin, escapes a forced marriage with a white landowner, only to be swiftly recaptured by a band of Mexican gum harvesters. Her presence sends the men into a frenzy both sexual and territorial: They raise their guard, taking her as a sign of the nearby presence of British harvesters, while also forcing lewd glances and violent advances upon her.Agnes’s look of frightened alarm slowly turns into a smirk as Olaizola unveils the mythical undercurrent of her tale: Her heroine represents the Xtabay, a succubus-like femme fatale of Mayan legend. Yet despite the film’s whispered voice-over and feverish visions, “Tragic Jungle” draws its power from the petty human — or rather, masculine — follies it lays bare. The men encircling one another in the film’s games of profit are greedy, corruptible foot soldiers of colonialism. They don’t need the Xtabay to lure them into the jungle — just a flash of gold (or of skin) is enough to entice them to jump into the deep.‘Milestone’Stream it on Netflix.A middle-age crisis descends like a downpour on Ghalib (Suvinder Vicky), a long-haul trucker in Delhi. Just as he hits a record of 500,000 kilometers, he develops an ache in his back, is faced with a compensation claim from the family of his recently deceased wife and is tasked with training a newbie who might be his eventual replacement, Pash (Lakshvir Saran). In “Milestone,” the director Ivan Ayr distills Ghalib’s converging existential bumps-in-the-road into a melancholy, magic hour–soaked mood piece. Most of the film’s gorgeous scenes unfold in the pink pre-dawn fog of North India, while a minimalist sound design captures Ghalib’s isolation in a hectic world.“Milestone” is a pinpoint-precise character study, with the camera staying close to Ghalib, but Ayr also colors in the broader plight of India’s transportation workers and their fight against a culture of disposability. The crews responsible for loading cargo into trucks are on strike, but Ghalib is too numbed by grief and pain to see beyond the inconvenience this causes him. But the more time he spends with Pash, the clearer his impending fate becomes. The generational chasm between the two reveals itself in a wry exchange: When Pash asks Ghalib why he returned to India after a spell in Kuwait, Ghalib asks, “Ever heard of Saddam Hussein?” Pash is blank. Even as “Milestone” takes some contrived turns, Vicky’s performance grounds the film, conveying grief and alienation without macho broodiness or overwrought restraint.‘A Family Submerged’Stream it on Ovid.tv.The Buenos Aires–set “A Family Submerged” unfolds in a series of diaphanous, sun-smudged scenes — a fitting visual aesthetic for a film that dwells in the limbo of bereavement. María Alché’s debut feature follows the middle-aged Marcela (Mercedes Morán) as she grapples with the recent death of her sister. Much of the film takes place in her and the sister’s dimly lit apartments, where Marcela sorts through objects loaded with memory.There’s a boisterous, lived-in quality to these indoor scenes. Marcela’s three teenagers laugh and fight and talk over each other; assorted visitors walk in and out. Marcela seems to struggle to keep up with the swirling pace of life around her, and her dazedness slowly gives way to hallucinated conversations with long-gone relatives. At the same time, she succumbs to an affair with a friend of her daughter’s while her husband is away on a business trip.There’s a hint of melodrama in “A Family Submerged” — with its grieving heroine, familial conflicts and adultery — but the film never feels the least bit contrived or even scripted. Alché and her performers (particularly Morán) conjure a talky naturalism that makes you feel like you’ve walked, for a brief spell, into the thicket of someone’s life.‘Three Adventures of Brooke’Stream it on Mubi.Inspired by the ambulatory, serendipity-driven stories of Eric Rohmer and Hong Sang-soo, “Three Adventures of Brooke” plays out a triptych of variations on a couple of days in the summer vacation of Brooke (Xu Fangyi), a Chinese tourist in the Malaysian city of Alor Setar. On the 30th of June — the date is announced via a handwritten title card — Brooke’s bicycle breaks down on a country path. In the first segment, she’s rescued by a local woman her age, with whom she explores touristy locales like a crystal shop and a museum; in the second, Brooke is picked up by three young city-council workers who seek her input for their plans to refurbish and modernize the town; and in the third, she runs into a Frenchman (Rohmer regular Pascal Greggory) at a bicycle repair shop and explores the city with him.These segments are breezy and whimsical, and deceptively minor. Nothing too eventful happens in the film, but every new encounter gently reveals something about the ways in which a place can refract differently through the lenses of familiarity and foreignness. In each episode, Brooke offers slightly varying reasons for her presence in Alor Setar. It’s a recurring red herring that seems to encapsulate one of the film’s central themes: that our desire for mystery and meaning can obscure our view of the simple truths and pleasures of life.‘Genus Pan’Rent it on Projectr.The Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz is known as a master of “slow cinema”: His longest film clocks in at 11 hours, and even shorter recent works exceed the 3-hour mark. But it’s not just the duration that makes his films “slow.” There’s also an austerity to his style, with genre elements and political critique mixing into narratives that unfold patiently, demanding attention and investment.In “Genus Pan,” the filmmaker’s latest, three miners make their way home through a jungle for the bulk of the film’s 157-minute running time (practically brisk, by Diaz standards). It’s the 1990s, and the men’s often rancorous banter keep returning to their exploitative work conditions. Various bribes and brokerage fees leave them with little income for backbreaking, dangerous work, and local military authorities add to their abuse, intimidating and murdering workers without consequence. The 20-something Andres (Don Melvin Boongaling) rails at these injustices, while the middle-aged Baldo (Nanding Josef) and Paulo (Bart Guingona) seem to have become inured — and even complicit — in the system.The film’s title refers to the monkeys that squawk in the jungle, but also to the primitiveness Diaz unearths in his characters. The miners’ journey home ends in a dark turn that spurs further bloody twists. There’s plenty of violence in the film, but it’s shot in a sardonic, make-believe style (enhanced by the black-and-white palette), as if to maintain the focus on the real tragedy: the depravity and desperation that turns all the men in the film into animals. More