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      Mohammad Rasoulof, Director Who Fled Iran, Brings a Message of Hope to Cannes

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      At a news conference for his film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof reveled details of his escape from the country to avoid a prison sentence.While shooting his new film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” the director Mohammad Rasoulof learned that he was facing eight years in prison for making movies that criticize Iran’s hard-line government.So Rasoulof fled Iran, made his way to Germany, and then arrived in France this past week for the Cannes Film Festival. After “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” premiered in competition at the festival to strong reviews on Friday night, Rasoulof promised to continue making films that shine a light on the situation in his country.“The Islamic Republic has taken the Iranian people hostage,” he said at a news conference on Saturday. “It’s very important, then, to talk about this indoctrination.”Set against a backdrop of student protests in Tehran, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” follows an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran whose job approving death sentences begins to take a heavy toll on him and his family. The judge’s paranoia is stoked after his gun goes missing, and as he begins to suspect his wife and daughters of conspiring against him, he makes drastic moves to determine who the culprit is.Rasoulof said the idea for the film had come to him in 2022, when he was imprisoned alongside the director Jafar Panahi for signing a petition that called on Iran’s security forces to use restraint during public protests.After his release in February 2023, the director began formulating a plan to shoot “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in a clandestine fashion, with a small crew, so as not to arouse suspicion. “Sometimes people said, ‘There’s someone outside lurking,’ and we would all scatter,” Mahsa Rostami, an actress in the film, said at the news conference. “We just prayed that this project would be followed through to the end.”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 Interview”: Ted Sarandos’s Plan to Get You to Binge Even More Netflix

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      If you’re anything like me, you probably spent some large portion of this week sitting on your couch watching Netflix. I love rom-coms — my latest obsession is a Turkish series called “Thank You, Next” — and the more rom-coms I watch, the more of them Netflix feeds to me. Maybe you’ve had this experience with sports documentaries, or thrillers, or biopics. It’s something we’ve all gotten used to. Which means, as I’m pressing play on whatever comes up next, I’m not really thinking about the people who are deciding what I’m consuming. And that’s why I wanted to talk to Ted Sarandos.Listen to the Conversation With Ted SarandosNetflix won the streaming battle, but the war for your attention isn’t over.Sarandos, 59, has been at Netflix for 24 years, nearly as long as Reed Hastings, one of the company’s two founders. He is now co-chief executive and is in charge of Netflix’s creative output. He oversaw the company’s early expansion into streaming and pioneered the binge watch. Under him, Netflix developed that powerful algorithm that knows just what to serve up next. He was also the guy who greenlit Netflix’s early original productions, like “House of Cards,” making Netflix into a studio, not just a platform. And he has led the company as it has ventured into reality TV, prestige film and live entertainment — including a just-announced deal to broadcast some of the N.F.L.’s Christmas Day games.Sarandos seems to be very good at giving us more of what we want. And after a crackdown on password-sharing (which Sarandos tells me is still in progress), his company has come out on top in the crowded streaming wars (if you set aside YouTube, which Sarandos does not). That doesn’t mean everything is rosy all the time now — the company has had several rounds of layoffs in the past few years — but Sarandos, along with his co-chief executive, Greg Peters, has put Netflix in a dominant position. Has this been good for us? Or for culture? When we talked recently, with viral clips of Netflix’s Tom Brady roast flying all over the internet, I asked him.You have an unusual background for a Hollywood or tech C.E.O. I would agree with that assessment. My parents had four kids in their 20s. So these were kids raising kids really. Our house was always chaos. And my only escape from that chaos was that little box. I watched a lot of television. Most of my upbringing, we never had all the utilities on at the same time. So the gas would be cut off, and then the phone would be cut off, and the electric, but never all simultaneously. But for some reason we had a VCR. And total happenstance, the second video store in the state of Arizona opened up two blocks from my house.Do you remember the first thing you ever checked out in the video store? Yeah, it was a filmed version of the Willie Nelson Fourth of July picnic. [Laughs.] More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Ren Faire’

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      The long-running medical show wraps up its 20th season. HBO airs a new documentary series about a renaissance fair in Texas.For those who still enjoy a cable subscription, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, May 27- June 2. Details and times are subject to change.MondayBELOW DECK 9 p.m. on Bravo. The first season with Fraser Olender as chief stew and Captain Kerry Titheradge at the helm is wrapping up. This season has been pretty status quo with faulty chefs, boatmances and irritating guests. (Remember when Jill Zarin wanted a doorbell installed on the boat?) Thankfully, you don’t have to wait too long for more yacht shenanigans — “Below Deck Mediterranean,” with Aesha Scott as chief stew and Captain Sandy Yawn, returns on June 3.TuesdayVANDERPUMP RULES REUNION 8 p.m. on Bravo. The previous two parts of this reunion have dealt with James Kennedy’s dog Graham and a secret kiss between Scheana Shay and Tom Schwartz, but this third part will likely bring more drama. A year on from Scandoval, this season’s finale ended with Ariana Madix walking off from filming after Tom Sandoval tried to approach her. During the reunion, the cast will watch and rehash these final minutes. It won’t be pretty, but it will make good television.WednesdayStacy Spikes, left, and Hamet Watt on “Moviepass, Moviecrash.”San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers, via Getty Images, via HBOMOVIEPASS, MOVIECRASH (2024) 9 p.m. on HBO. In 2011, Stacy Spikes founded Moviepass, a website that allowed subscribers to purchase up to a movie ticket a day for a monthly fee — a great deal for movie lovers and a seemingly successful business model. In 2017, the company was bought, but the new owners filed for bankruptcy in 2020. This documentary outlines its rise and fall.ThursdayGREY’S ANATOMY 9 p.m. on ABC. When this TV show started airing in 2005, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston had just filed for divorce, and Mariah Carey was about to release “We Belong Together.” Now it’s wrapping up Season 20, and though the star Ellen Pompeo will no longer be a series regular, she will remain involved when it returns for Season 21.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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      10 Artists on Living and Creating Through Grief

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      Sigrid Nunez, authorConor Oberst, musicianBridget Everett, performerBen Kweller, musicianJesmyn Ward, authorJustin Hardiman, photographerJulie Otsuka, authorLila Avilés, filmmakerRichard E. Grant, actorLuke Lorentzen, filmmakerWhen Jesmyn Ward was writing her 2013 book, “Men We Reaped,” she could feel the presence of her brother, who had been killed years earlier by a drunk driver. She still talks to him, as well as to her partner, who died in 2020.“This may just be wishful thinking, but talking to them and being open to feeling them answer, that enables me to live in spite of their loss,” she told me.While filming the HBO series “Somebody Somewhere,” Bridget Everett, playing a woman mourning the loss of her sister, was grieving the loss of her own. Working on the show was a way to still live with her, in a way, she said: “There’s something that’s less scary about sharing time with my sister when it’s through art or through making the show or through a song.”One of the many things you learn after losing a loved one is that there are a lot of us grieving out there. Some people are not just living with loss but also trying to create or experience something meaningful, to counter the blunt force of the ache.We talked to 10 artists across music, writing, photography, film and comedy about the ways their work, in the wake of personal loss, has deepened their understanding of what it means to grieve and to create.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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      Fred Roos, Casting Director and Coppola Collaborator, Dies at 89

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      Widely considered to have the best eye for talent in Hollywood, he shared the best-picture Oscar with Francis Ford Coppola for “The Godfather Part II.”Fred Roos, a casting director and producer who championed the early careers of A-list actors like Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Carrie Fisher, and whose long collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola and his family, stretching from “The Godfather” (1972) to this year’s “Megalopolis,” earned him an Oscar and an Emmy, died on Saturday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 89.His death was announced by his family in a statement.Many in Hollywood said that Mr. Roos had the best eye for talent in the business. He championed the young, relatively unknown Mr. Pacino for the role of Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” when the studio executives at Paramount wanted a better-known actor, like Robert Redford or Warren Beatty. And when his friend George Lucas was leaning toward Amy Irving for the role of Princess Leia in “Star Wars” (1977), Mr. Roos suggested he cast Carrie Fisher instead.Mr. Lucas listened — after all, it was Mr. Roos who had assembled the cast for his breakout film, “American Graffiti,” in 1973, including then-unknown actors like Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss and Mackenzie Phillips. He later did something similar for Mr. Coppola’s 1983 adaptation of the novel “The Outsiders,” bringing together the future stars Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze.Al Pacino as Michael Corleone and Talia Shire as his sister, Connie, in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II.” Mr. Roos was a producer of the film, which won the best-picture Oscar in 1975.John Springer Collection/Corbis, via Getty ImagesHarrison Ford and Linda Christensen in George Lucas’s “American Graffiti,” for which Mr. Roos assembled the cast.Screen Archives/Getty ImagesMr. Roos was particularly taken with Mr. Ford, whom he met while the young actor was doing carpentry work on his home. After getting him the uncredited role of Bob Falfa, a wisecracking drag racer, in “American Graffiti,” he cast him in small roles in Mr. Coppola’s films “The Conversation” (1974) and “Apocalypse Now” (1979).But when he suggested Mr. Ford for the role of Han Solo in “Star Wars,” Mr. Lucas balked. He said he only wanted to cast actors he had never worked with.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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      Morgan Spurlock, Documentarian Known for ‘Super Size Me,’ Dies at 53

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      His 2004 film followed Mr. Spurlock as he ate nothing but McDonald’s for a month. It was nominated for an Oscar, but it later came in for criticism.Morgan Spurlock, a documentary filmmaker who gained fame with his Oscar-nominated 2004 film “Super Size Me,” which followed him as he ate nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days — but later stepped back from the public eye after admitting to sexual misconduct — died on Thursday in New York City. He was 53.His brother Craig Spurlock said the cause was complications of cancer.A self-described attention hound with a keen eye for the absurd, Mr. Spurlock was a playwright and television producer when he rocketed to global attention with “Super Size Me,” an early entry into the genre of gonzo participatory filmmaking that borrowed heavily from the confrontational style of Michael Moore and the up-close-and-personal influences of reality TV, which was then just emerging as a genre.The film’s approach was straightforward: Mr. Spurlock would eat nothing but McDonald’s food for a month, and if a server at the restaurant offered to “supersize” the meal — that is, to give him the largest portion available for each item — he would accept.The movie then follows Mr. Spurlock and his ever-patient girlfriend through his 30-day odyssey, splicing in interviews with health experts and visits to his increasingly disturbed physician. At the end of the month, he was 25 pounds heavier, depressed, puffy-faced and experiencing liver dysfunction.The film, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, grossed over $22 million, made Mr. Spurlock a household name, earned him an Academy Award nomination for best documentary and helped spur a sweeping backlash against the fast-food industry — though only temporarily; today, McDonald’s has 42,000 locations worldwide, its stock is near an all-time high, and 36 percent of Americans eat fast food on any given day.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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      ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’: What Do Critics Say? What Do You Say?

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      The reviews all agree that the follow-up to “Fury Road” feels sadder and heavier. But is that a good thing? That’s where the disagreements start.Following up what is considered one of the greatest action movies of the last decade is no easy feat. But that was the task facing George Miller as he set out to make a prequel to his Oscar-winning 2015 blockbuster, “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The result, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” tells the origin story of the Imperator Furiosa, the breakout character who first appeared in “Fury Road” — played by Charlize Theron then and Anya Taylor-Joy now.The new film hits theaters on Friday, but critics weighed in when it premiered at Cannes last week. Comparisons with the other films in the “Mad Max” series (and especially the beloved “Fury Road”) were inevitable, and critics seem to agree that “Furiosa” feels heavier and sadder — but it’s less unanimous if that’s a positive or a negative. Read what they had to say, and let us know in the comments what you think of the movie.Manohla Dargis, The New York Times: “Scene for scene, ‘Furiosa’ is very much a complement to ‘Fury Road,’ yet the new movie never fully pops the way the earlier one does. As it turns out, it is one thing to watch a movie about warriors high-tailing it out of Dodge on the road to nowhere. It’s something else entirely to watch a woman struggle to survive a world that eats its young and everyone else, too. Miller is such a wildly inventive filmmaker that it’s been easy to forget that he keeps making movies about the end of life as we know it.” Read more.Owen Gleiberman, Variety: “What it all adds up to is a movie that can be darkly bedazzling, and that will be embraced and defended in a dozen passionate ways — but it’s one that, to me, falls very short of being a ‘Mad Max’ home run.” Read more.David Ehrlich, IndieWire: “Does ‘Furiosa’ deliver the kind of system shock that made its predecessor feel like such a violent rebuke to superhero-era Hollywood? Absolutely not — though its two bona fide set pieces both eclipse the most electric moments of ‘Fury Road,’ while also iterating on them in fantastic new ways (the much-hyped ‘Stowaway to Nowhere’ sequence is an out-of-body experience). But Miller’s decision to shift gears ultimately proves to be his prequel’s greatest strength.” Read more.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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      ‘Atlas’ Review: Jennifer Lopez Thriller Wonders Whether A.I. Is All That Bad

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      Jennifer Lopez stars in a sci-fi action thriller that wonders whether artificial intelligence is really all that bad.In 1927, a humanoid robot showed up and wreaked havoc in Fritz Lang’s expressionist science fiction film “Metropolis,” a memorable early example of cinema’s artificial intelligence antagonists. Since then, many a sci-fi movie, from “2001: A Space Odyssey” to the “Terminator” offerings to “The Matrix,” has proposed that some kind of A.I. will try to take us out.But it’s scarier now. No longer is a menacing A.I. a thought experiment, mere metaphor. Every script with an A.I. villain operates in a world where the audience has probably thought about, or used, an actual A.I. to do some kind of task. So the notion of an “A.I. terrorist,” as in Brad Peyton’s new sci-fi action movie “Atlas,” seems queasily plausible.That terrorist has a name: Harlan (Simu Liu). In a fast-moving prologue, we quickly learn how he came to threaten humanity with extinction, wiping out millions of people before abruptly decamping for outer space. Humans, left behind on a “Blade Runner”-looking earth, protected only by the International Coalition of Nations (I.C.N.), wait uneasily for Harlan’s return, like a cutting-edge second coming of Christ.After 28 years of peering nervously at the skies, the I.C.N. captures an A.I. bot known to be associated with Harlan. Something is afoot. A scientist named Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez) is called in as the world’s leading expert on Harlan — in part because her mother, Val Shepherd, the founder of Shepherd Robotics, created Harlan and raised him alongside Atlas. At the request of Gen. Jake Boothe (Mark Strong), Atlas boards a spacecraft commanded by Col. Elias Banks (Sterling K. Brown), headed for the planet where they’ve discovered Harlan has been hiding out.You can tell from these names that “Atlas,” which Peyton directed from a script by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite, is highly referential. (Or, perhaps, derivative.) Harlan shares a name with Harlan Ellison, the eminent speculative fiction author. Atlas is bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders; Lopez, who was also a producer on the movie, flings herself into the role with abandon, the kind of performance that’s especially impressive given that she’s largely by herself throughout. Her character’s last name, Shepherd, seems both metaphorical and maybe a link to a beloved character from the sci-fi show “Firefly.” I could keep digging, but you get the idea. At times “Atlas” feels like pure pastiche, and it looks, in a fashion we’re getting used to seeing on the streamers, kind of cheap, dark, plasticky and fake, particularly in the big action sequences. Science fiction often earns its place in memory by envisioning something new and startling — but with “Atlas,” we’ve seen it all before.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