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      ‘Clean’ Review: Taking Out the Trash

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      Adrien Brody plays a community do-gooder with a not-so-pristine past in this action film directed by Paul Solet.Adrien Brody, as Clean, the title protagonist of this movie, drives a sanitation truck with the company name Bliss on its driver-side door in the opening scene. As Clean tools through desolate semi-urban streets in the dead of winter, stopping at the junkyard to feed a wiry dog, it’s clear that right now bliss isn’t part of the man’s program.In voice-over, the character, who sports a large but well-tended beard and sees the world with wide, baleful eyes, speaks of “a sea of filth, an endless onslaught of ugliness.” Clean sounds a little like a cabby whom cinephiles became familiar with in the 1970s, no?As it happens, it’s one of the members of Clean’s 12-step group who introduces himself as Travis.It’s understandable that an actor of Brody’s upbringing (he’s a native New Yorker) and inclination might want to concoct a variant on the “Taxi Driver” character who referred to himself as “God’s lonely man.” (The actor co-wrote “Clean” with its director, Paul Solet. Brody also composed the music.)Unlike the eventually messy antihero of Martin Scorsese’s movie, Clean, seeking sober redemption after a tragic and criminal past, is actually adept at meting out violence. After practically caving in the already unlovable face of the son of a local drug kingpin, Clean is obliged to put his skills to further work rescuing a teen girl who, well, yes, reminds him of someone he lost.After teasing the audience with an arthouse-inflected diffusion of narrative for its first half, “Clean” goes full grindhouse in the second. Shot in Utica, N.Y., and boasting locations that set a high bar for starkness, “Clean” has some real craft, but doesn’t quite satisfy as it toggles between bloodbaths and bathos.CleanNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Sundown’ Review: Stuck in Shallow Waters in Acapulco

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      In this Michel Franco film, a family escapes to the beach in Acapulco, the onetime sun-baked paradise that has become an epicenter of violence.Acapulco’s picturesque beauty and grimy desperation converge in writer-director Michel Franco’s psychological thriller “Sundown.” Franco teams up again here with Tim Roth who plays Neil Bennett, an heir to a United Kingdom meatpacking fortune on vacation with his wife, Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and family. The cinematographer Yves Cape delivers a steady stream of wide shots and abstract-leaning frames that constantly compel the viewer to prioritize the macro over the micro.Franco chooses to depict Acapulco from the wealthy white foreigner’s point of view, in which the lives of brown locals — the villains and Neil’s beautiful lover Berenice (Iazua Larios) alike — go unexamined. Yet Franco manages to wag a not-too-subtle finger at viewers, reminding them to check their assumptions about Neil while at the same time keeping the raison d’être of that main character utterly hidden. The result: “Sundown” lands more like a one-note thought exercise than a fully fleshed out story.Roth’s delivery isn’t the problem here; neither is the film’s slow-burn pacing nor its absence of score. Rather, the script feels thin and ill-conceived in a film that clings noticeably to the surface. Neil is nothing if not brief — the number of lines he has might add up to a paragraph in the entire film. We can barely get a good look at him; his first close-up doesn’t appear until nearly halfway through the film.Ultimately what “Sundown” is most successful at revealing to us is the look of Acapulco itself. By the end, Cape has captured how the sun strikes this spot of Pacific Coast in a dozen different ways. If only the same amount of light had been shed on any of the characters. Without that, an Acapulco sunburn is likely to elicit more feeling than “Sundown” does.SundownRated R for graphic violence, sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters. More

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      He’s a Doctor. He’s an Actor. He’s an Indie Heartthrob.

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      Actors have a long history of indulging in side projects: Some use their off time to write books, while others even front rock bands. But it’s fair to say that few thespians navigate a dual career quite like Anders Danielsen Lie, who currently stars as a lingering love interest in both “Bergman Island” and “The Worst Person in the World” — an indie-film doubleheader that prompted one critic to dub him “the art house’s next great ex-boyfriend” — while still working full-time as a doctor in Oslo.“It’s been overwhelming,” Lie, 43, told me over a recent video chat, and he wasn’t kidding: In early January, he was named best supporting actor by the National Society of Film Critics even as he worked three days a week at a vaccination center in Oslo and two days a week as a general practitioner. “It feels kind of abstract because as an actor, the most important part of making a movie is the shoot itself,” he said. “Then, when the film is coming out, it’s kind of a surreal experience.”Expect things to get even more surreal as the acclaimed “The Worst Person in the World” finally makes its way into American theaters on Feb. 4. In this romantic dramedy from the director Joachim Trier, Renate Reinsve — who won the best-actress prize for the role at the Cannes Film Festival — stars as Julie, a young 20-something trying to figure out her future. For some time, she takes up with Lie’s character, Aksel, an older, charismatic comic-book artist, and adopts his settled life as her own. But even when they break up and Julie discovers new pursuits, she finds her bond with the cocksure Aksel hard to shake.Lie with Renate Reinsve in “The Worst Person in the World”Kasper Tuxen, via Sundance InstituteLie previously collaborated with Trier on the well-reviewed films “Reprise” (2008) and “Oslo, August 31” (2012), but “The Worst Person in the World” has proved to be something of a breakthrough: Already, the internet has crafted video tributes to his character, and the film has struck a chord with audiences who prefer simple, human stakes to superhuman ones. “It felt like we made a very local thing from Oslo, and we were afraid if anybody else in the world would understand,” Lie said. “But people on the other side of the planet can identify with it. That’s what is so nice about feature films, they kind of bring people together.”Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.With Aksel and Julie, it feels like the qualities that drew them to each other eventually drive them apart. How would you sum up their relationship?He’s good at articulating her emotions and thoughts, and that’s something she probably wanted at an earlier stage in their relationship, but at this point, she’s just annoyed by it. He’s a pretty kind person, but he is also, in a subtle way, trying to dominate her by using language as his tool, because that’s what he’s good at.Is Aksel a “bad boyfriend,” as a recent Vanity Fair article asserted?I don’t see him as a bad boyfriend at all, actually. She’s not bad; he’s not bad; they’re just human. They are put in situations where they have to make hard choices and end up feeling like the worst people in the world, but it’s not really their fault. It’s life’s fault, in a way.In the film, we watch Julie swipe between different identities, trying on new jobs, new passions. Did you act the same way at that age?I personally thought that my 20s and 30s were hard, tough years, because I spent so much time trying to figure out who I was and what to do. I still haven’t made that choice, but that doesn’t bother me so much anymore. I’m happy enough to have two kids and a wife. Maybe it’s as simple as that.When you were younger, did you feel pressure to make an ultimate choice between acting and medicine?This has been my ongoing identity crisis.Lie is the son of an actress and a doctor who “ended up being both!” he said. “I probably should go into psychoanalysis or something.”David B. Torch for The New York TimesMaybe that’s just the bifurcated life you feel most suited to.It’s definitely a bifurcated life, and sometimes it feels like an identity crisis because it’s just a lot of hustle making the calendar work out. It’s hard to combine those two occupations, and sometimes I also wonder a little bit who I am. I’m trying to think that I’m something deeper than that: I’m not the doctor or the actor, I’m someone else, and these are just roles that I go into.Your mother is an actress. Did that affect the way you regard an actor’s life?My mother is not the typical actress — she’s not a diva or anything like that. She’s a very ordinary person, and I think it’s important to have a foot in reality if you want to portray people onscreen with confidence and credibility. But I’ve grown up seeing how it is to be an actress and how it is to be a doctor, and ended up being both! I probably should go into psychoanalysis or something.Your father was a doctor. That pretty much split you right down the middle, doesn’t it?Exactly. Maybe it’s an inheritable disease.Does one career inform the other?Working as an actor has improved my communication skills as a doctor because acting is so much about listening to the other actors and trying to establish good communication, often with people that you don’t know very well, and that reminds me a little bit of working as a doctor. I meet people, often for the first time, and they present a very private problem to me, and I have to get the right information to help them. It’s a very delicate, hard communication job, actually.“I have, many times, asked myself why I keep doing this, because I’m very neurotic as a person,” Lie said. David B. Torch for The New York TimesYou made your film debut when you were 11 in a film called “Herman.” How did that come about?My mother had worked with the director, so she knew he was searching for a boy my age, and she asked if I was interested in doing an audition. I didn’t really know what I had signed up for — I was 10 years old, and it felt like just a game that we were playing. I remember when the director wanted me to do the part, he came to our house with flowers and said, “Congratulations,” and I was frightened because I realized, “Now I really have to play that role and deliver.” For the first time, I felt this anxiety of not doing a good job, the exact same feeling I can get now in front of a shoot that really matters to me. I can be scared of not rising to the occasion.After that film, you didn’t work again as an actor for 16 years.“Herman” was an overwhelming experience. I felt like I was playing with explosives. I was dealing with emotions and manipulating my psyche in a way that was kind of frightening.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      John Stamos on Bob Saget and the Many Stages of Their Friendship

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      In an interview, the “Full House” star recalls everything from early clashes to Cyrano-like support, as well as the last time he saw his former co-star.When the stand-up comic and actor Bob Saget died on Jan. 9 at 65, stunned friends and family responded with an outpouring of tributes — among them, John Stamos, Saget’s co-star on “Full House” and the Netflix sequel “Fuller House,” and his longtime friend. In a video interview on Monday from his home in Los Angeles, Stamos reminisced about how what began as a sometimes fractious working relationship developed into a love for the ages. These are edited excerpts.At Bob’s memorial, his ex-wife [Sherri Kramer], who is the mother of his three kids, came to me. She was crying. “He loved you so much. He loved you so much. But in the beginning, he hated you.” What? [Laughs.] “He would come home and he was so jealous of you. He would just complain about you so much.”My junior high school drama teacher emailed me the other day with condolences, and he said, “Do you remember I came to Hawaii? Bob was so nice to me, but man, you were really unhappy with him.”And that’s the truth.Our styles completely clashed. He was a comic. If there was even one person on the set, he had to make them laugh. And I was, “Where is the drama?” I think we met in the middle. But we both went in kicking and screaming, not wanting to bend what we do.He could be painfully distracting — disruptive — because you’re here, let’s get this scene, let’s find out what works, what doesn’t. And he’s like [punching the air as if for each joke], “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” I’d go, “Bob.” He couldn’t stop it. I think, if I may say, that it could have been a detriment sometimes to him.Saget and Stamos in a scene from “Full House.” They both went into the series “kicking and screaming, not wanting to bend what we do,” Stamos recalled. ABC, via Getty ImagesBut here’s the deal with him: He found a balance like nobody I’ve ever seen. He would make up for all of that with just as much love or more. I had so many people call me, saying what Bob meant to them and how he helped them. He was maniacally of service at all times.At his memorial, people started in with the jokes, and it was needed. Dave Chappelle did [two long sets]. I said, “You’re the GOAT. You’re the greatest of all time.” And the respect that he gave Bob the last five, 10 years of his life, I said, “That was so important to Bob, and I really appreciate it.” He goes, “Are you kidding me? When I was a young comic, I looked up to him and he took me under his wing. He helped me.” Which I didn’t know.Bob was bombastic with his love and his friendship. If you were a friend or even an acquaintance, he was like this [mashes hands together] on you all the time.I looked at this video of us of the last episode of “Full House,” the final bows. We all gathered around, and Bob eventually walked over and he hugged me, kissed me. But I don’t know how close I was to him at the end there. I didn’t think I needed a Bob in my life. I had my parents. I had my faith. I had whatever.But then my dad dies, and this guy steps up like nobody in my life because everybody else was busted up. My sisters, my mom. But Bob wasn’t, and he just stepped in and took care of me, even to the point of “Can I host your dad’s funeral?” Two hours of dirty jokes that I think my dad would’ve liked. But he gave people what they needed at that moment. Everybody needed a laugh, and he did it.I think that one really cemented our friendship. And then it just got closer and closer from there, to the point of we just were there through all the most important moments. Now I have to get through them without him, you know?His divorce was first, and I think that’s when maybe he would say I was around for him. I was his Cyrano through a lot of stuff. I remember being on a text on a first date with him, telling him what to say, what to do. And then when he broke up with that girl, he was practically living on my couch. I mean, we were as close as anyone could be. But everybody said that about him.Bob was a great listener, but sometimes you had to tell him to listen. Here’s the truth, too: There was a point in our life and our friendship, about 10 or 11 years ago, when we were like a married couple. We were both single and around each other a lot, and I said, “You’ve got to go to a therapist if we’re going to stay friends.” I had this great guy. Bob started going to him, and it really helped. Bob would be talking about himself, talking about himself, and then you’d see something in his eyes go, “Oh. Now I’ve got to ask about John. ‘How are you?’”But next to my mom, he was my biggest cheerleader, my biggest fan. He would brag about me to people. When I brought “Fuller House” back and it was a success, at first you could see he was like, “Why didn’t I think of that?” And then almost every interview it was, “John did this. He’s the one who got us together. We owe it to him.”He was the most egotistical humble guy on the planet. He was the most insecure person I’ve met in my life. He did this thing where he would inflate himself. Every girl that came onto “Full House” — “She loves me. She’s got a crush on me.”“I don’t know, Bob. Cindy Crawford, really?” I think he overcompensated sometimes.My job for many, many years was to help him to understand how good he was and how smart he was, how funny he was and how much people loved him. I guarantee you he went into that grave not knowing the love that this world has for him, and that saddens me so much because he wanted that so bad. He craved being accepted and loved and appreciated, and people knowing how damn good he was. And they did know it, but they didn’t get it to him in time.Bob was always worried about everyone else, but he talked about death a lot. His wife, Kelly Rizzo, said she had a premonition. I didn’t see it. The last time we were all together, we went on a double date to Nobu, maybe a month before he passed away. He didn’t look like a guy who was going to die, but he was very calm, which was odd for Bob. He was at peace somehow. And he listened and he was thoughtful and didn’t interrupt; he cared about what we were saying.I hate to say it, but it was the Bob that I always wanted to see. And it was the last time I saw him. More

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      Peter Dinklage Calls Disney’s ‘Snow White’ Remake ‘Backward’

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      On Monday’s episode of Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, the “Game of Thrones” star Peter Dinklage said he was stunned to learn that Disney was doing a live-action remake of the 1937 animated film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” — and more so, that Disney was proud to announce that it had cast a Latina actress, Rachel Zegler (“West Side Story”), as the lead.“Literally no offense to anything, but I was sort of taken aback,” said Dinklage, who won four Emmys for his role in the HBO fantasy epic. “They were very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me.”“You’re progressive in one way,” he continued, “but you’re still making that [expletive] backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together.”“Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox?” he asked. “I guess I’m not loud enough.”Dinklage, who stars in the upcoming film “Cyrano,” an adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s classic play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” said he was not opposed to a remake of the classic fairy tale, as long as it were given a “cool, progressive spin,” he said. “Let’s do it. All in.”In a statement on Tuesday, a Disney spokesperson said that “to avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community.” Disney added that the film was still a long way out from production.Marc Webb will direct the new “Snow White,” and Gal Gadot has been cast as the Evil Queen. More

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      ‘Compartment No. 6’ Review: Strangers on a Russian Train

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      A young Finnish woman embarks on a journey of self-discovery that takes her (and you) through richly detailed and surprising terrain.When the heroine in “Compartment No. 6” gets into a car with a guy who has been giving her nothing but grief, you may silently shriek: What is she thinking? You may also judge her for what looks like a bad decision or damn the filmmaker for putting yet another woman in hackneyed straits. Vulnerable women and dangerous men are clichés, but they’re also turned on their heads in this smart, emotionally nuanced film that rarely goes where you expect.Set in Russia in what seems like the late 1990s — the Soviet Union has collapsed and our girl uses a Walkman — the film mostly takes place on a train from Moscow to the northwest city of Murmansk. It’s there that Laura (Seidi Haarla), a Finnish university student, plans to see the Kanozero petroglyphs, rock drawings dating back five, six thousand years. Her reasons for going aren’t especially clear. She’s in Russia to study the language and expresses an interest in archaeology. Yet her focus is lasered on Irina (Dinara Drukarova), a flirt who opened her flat and bed to Laura but has stayed behind in Moscow.Travel stories are almost invariably metaphoric expeditions with multiple destinations, not all of them literal. That holds true in “Compartment No. 6,” which is partly the story of a young, vague woman’s journey of self-discovery. Laura is already on the move when you first see her, drifting through a party in Irina’s apartment to the sounds of Roxy Music’s “Love Is the Drug.” In one sense it’s perfect walk-on music: Laura is besotted with Irina. But there’s also something off, even a bit sardonic, about the juxtaposition of Laura, a mousy little blur, and this particular song, with its louche, emphatically unromantic world-weariness.The Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen is a deft fast-sketch artist, a talent that was first beautifully on display in his feature debut, “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki” (2017), about a sweet boxer in love. Minutes into “Compartment No. 6,” you have a rich sense of people and place, and a clear bead on Laura. You see her pleasure and her discontent — you clock the flickering smile and note the nervously bowed head — as she wanders Irina’s flat, a bohemian sprawl filled with books, objets d’art and clever people being clever for one another. Laura tries to fit in, but isn’t anywhere near slick enough.Her sensitive solo act turns into a lively, funny, seemingly incongruous duet soon after she settles into the cramped, dingy train compartment. Her home for much of the rest of the story, it has already been staked out by her fellow traveler, Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov). It’s hostility at first sight, or almost. Initially, they don’t speak to each other — he pulls out a bottle of booze without offering her any — but by the time Laura is making up her berth for the night, Ljoha is plastered. “Russia is a great country,” he all but yells at her, mentioning the defeat of the Nazis before gesturing at the moon: “We went there!”Part of what makes “Compartment No. 6” engrossing and effective is how Kuosmanen plays with tone. In Irina’s apartment, the naturalistic performances, loose camerawork, casual staging and Laura’s visible unease create a sense of intimacy as well as sympathy: All of us have been the awkward guest somewhere. Once the story shifts to the train (the film was shot on moving railroad cars, not soundstages), its claustrophobic spaces and jerky motions help create a threatening intimacy, one that’s compounded by Ljoha’s aggression and Laura’s guardedness. The two characters are equally defensive and mutually antagonistic; yet pinpricks of dry humor also make their belligerence seem more than a little absurd.The days pass and the train stops and starts, other characters enter and exit, and Laura and Ljoha move in and out of the compartment. As they eat, chat and smoke, which they do a lot, their shared enmity starts to fade, giving way to different kinds of gazes, more involved conversations and moments of surprising delicacy and feeling. You could say they enter a period of détente, but although the story evokes a specific historical period — and with it, the transition from the Soviet Union to the new Russia — Kuosmanen steers clear of obvious politics. What interests him are Laura and Ljoha, how they look at each other and don’t, and how by sharing food and talk and a car ride, they reveal themselves.Eventually, the train arrives at its destination and so do Laura and Ljoha, who by then have reached their terminus. In emotional terms, the film reaches its apogee two-thirds in, after Laura loses her camera and all her images of Moscow. She and Ljoha are at the rear of the train, staring out at the foggy night and the softly diffused colored lights of the depot they’ve just left. As the camera holds on this scene of wistful, ephemeral beauty, Laura tells Ljoha about Irina’s life, friends and flat. “I loved it all,” Laura says as darkness swallows the lights. Her voice is filled with longing, but she has already moved on.Compartment No. 6Rated R for vulgar language, boozing and cigarette smoking. In Russian and Finnish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour and 47 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Alec Baldwin Seeks Dismissal of ‘Rust’ Lawsuit

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      Lawyers for the actor Alec Baldwin and other producers behind the film “Rust” filed a motion on Monday seeking to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the movie’s script supervisor, who was feet away from the actor on the movie set in New Mexico when he fatally shot a cinematographer.The script supervisor, Mamie Mitchell, said in her lawsuit, filed last year, that she was standing nearby when the gun fired a live bullet that killed the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounded the film’s director, Joel Souza. Mitchell then ran out of the wooden church set that had been the backdrop for the scene and called 911.The lawsuit claimed that Ms. Mitchell “sustained serious physical trauma and shock and injury to her nervous system and person” as a result of her proximity to the shooting. It accused Baldwin of “intentionally, without just cause or excuse,” cocking and firing the revolver in a scene that did not call for it.In Monday’s court filing, lawyers for Mr. Baldwin wrote that he could not have intentionally shot a live bullet from the gun because shortly before it discharged, the movie’s first assistant director called out “cold gun,” indicating that the old-fashioned revolver being used as a prop did not contain any live bullets and should have been safe to handle.“It is completely illogical for plaintiff to contend defendant Mr. Baldwin received a prop gun that everyone including plaintiff and defendant Mr. Baldwin expected to be ‘cold,’ while at the same time stating that Mr. Baldwin’s conduct was intentional in accidentally firing a live round,” the filing said.Mr. Baldwin said in a television interview last year that he did not pull the trigger of the gun while he was practicing on set that day. He said he did not fully cock the hammer of the gun, but pulled it back and let it go in an action that might have set it off.The filing from Mr. Baldwin’s and the production’s lawyers also asserted that Ms. Mitchell’s grievance did not qualify as a complaint under New Mexico’s workers’ compensation law.Ms. Mitchell’s lawsuit targeted the production more broadly for making a series of what she called “cost-cutting measures,” including hiring a 24-year-old armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was just starting out her career as a lead armorer in the industry. Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyer has said that she was dedicated to safety on set; she filed her own lawsuit against the film’s supplier of guns and ammunition.The production’s court filing said that Ms. Mitchell’s allegations relied on “a list of things that she contends, in hindsight, should or should not have been done” to ensure safety on set; the production’s lawyers argued that her case was insufficient and should be dismissed. More

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      The Black List, Founded in Hollywood, Expands Into Theater

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      The Black List, an effort to boost the careers of undiscovered writers by drawing attention to high-quality unproduced scripts, was formed 17 years ago with a focus on Hollywood. Now the organization is looking to extend its work into theater.The project’s leadership announced Tuesday that it would begin inviting playwrights and musical writers to share their work with gatekeepers in the theater, film and television industries, with the goal of helping them find representation, get feedback and land productions in the theater world or jobs in the film and television world.Four well-regarded nonprofit theaters, Miami New Drama in Florida, the Movement Theater Company in New York, Victory Gardens in Chicago and Woolly Mammoth in Washington, have each agreed to commission a new play or musical from a writer whose work surfaces through the project. The commissions are $10,000 each.“Our fundamental belief is that there’s a lot of amazing playwrights whose opportunities don’t befit their talents,” said Franklin Leonard, who founded the Black List. “If we can rectify that, that’s something we should do.”The Black List started as an annual survey of scripts that Hollywood executives liked but hadn’t turned into films, and the organization says that 440 of those scripts have since been produced. Then the Black List added a for-profit arm that allows writers to post scripts online to bring them to the attention of industry professionals, and which also allows writers, for a fee, to seek script evaluations from readers who work in the industry.(Evaluations cost $100, of which $60 goes to the reader.)Leonard said he and Megan Halpern, the Black List executive spearheading the theater expansion, have been talking with theater industry leaders for months about the idea of broadening the Black List’s scope, with the goal of helping undiscovered playwrights and musical theater writers find work in theater and, possibly, also in film or TV.“What we’ve heard is that people want to find new playwrights, but the reality of wading through the slush pile is insurmountable,” he said. More