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      ‘Mayor Pete’ Review: Politics Is Local

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      This film, which follows Pete Buttigieg on his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, rarely captures him in what looks like an unselfconscious moment.We already knew Pete Buttigieg was good on camera. For “Mayor Pete,” the documentarian Jesse Moss followed Buttigieg — the current transportation secretary and former mayor of South Bend, Ind. — during his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. But the resulting portrait rarely captures him in what looks like an unselfconscious moment.Maybe Buttigieg is always on. “In my way of coming at the world, the stronger an emotion is, the more private it is,” he says in an interview for the film. He chafes against consultants’ advice that he “let loose” and be himself — because letting loose, he says, would not be being himself. The movie does show him singing a “Schoolhouse Rock” tune as he signs papers at his mayor’s desk.But Moss — a director of “Boys State,” in a sense a companion look at political novices finding their voices — hasn’t succeeded in becoming a fly on the wall, if such a thing is possible during a heavily photographed campaign. (“The War Room” focused on strategists, not the candidate.) Showing Buttigieg at one public appearance after another, “Mayor Pete” more often plays like outtakes from the trail than an inside glimpse.Occasionally the movie encounters situations that appear as if they weren’t intended to be filmed, as when Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, points out that he’s not going to be positioned as prominently as other candidates’ spouses in Iowa. Later, in South Carolina, Chasten encourages his weary spouse to deliver yet another speech (“Everything you’re going to say is new to them”). For a minute, you can see Buttigieg let a private emotion through.Mayor PeteRated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Amazon. More

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      ‘Home Sweet Home Alone’ Review: A Winter With Plenty of Falls

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      Dan Mazer’s film, streaming on Disney+, is a painful spiritual sequel to the 1990 hit.Burglars roasting on an open fire. Adults taking a pool ball to the nose. So go the Christmas caterwauls of Dan Mazer’s “Home Sweet Home Alone,” a painful spiritual sequel to the 1990 hit that made a meme of the child star Macaulay Culkin. Culkin’s Kevin McCallister does not appear, though his older brother Buzz (Devin Ratray) cameos to mention that the scamp has matured into a security alarm impresario.Apt timing as now two homes are in peril: the Mercers, who, because of a rideshare mix-up, have jetted to Tokyo sans Max (Archie Yates), their 10-year-old son with a mouth like Don Rickles; and the McKenzies (Ellie Kemper and Rob Delaney), who suspect Max of stealing an heirloom they need to pay off their mortgage.This leveling of the moral stakes reveals that Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell’s script is aimed at nostalgists, not children. It’s hard to imagine any grade schooler chuckling at a runner about the proliferation of alt-milks at the grocery store, even with the desperately whimsical woodwind score. And when the darts (and kettlebells and fishing lures) start flying, it’s the grown-ups who learn a lesson about the meaning of family. Max’s emotional revelation happens mysteriously offscreen midway through the film, minutes after he dresses like Scarface and inhales whipped cream.Who’s the real victim here? The audience — yet Kemper’s no-nonsense pixie who suffers a dozen thumbtacks to the face runs a close second.Home Sweet Home AloneRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More

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      ‘Clifford the Big Red Dog’ Review: Fetch Me if You Can

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      The beloved cartoon dog gets the live-action treatment in this generic canine caper.These are chaotic times for C.G.I. animals. Digital artisans replaced dog trainers on “Cruella.” The 2019 film version of “The Lion King” did its best impression of a David Attenborough documentary. And when early images from “Sonic the Hedgehog” were coldly received, the creators chose to delay release to refine the movie’s effects.The beloved canine at the heart of “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” directed by Walt Becker, is the most recent addition to this photorealistic litter, and like Sonic’s before him, Clifford’s appearance is jarring. Gone are his floppy Vizsla ears, his sad bloodhound eyes. Here, Clifford resembles a jolting golden retriever dyed vermilion red, and his looming cartoon height translates to a manageable 10 feet — just short enough to squeeze through the brownstone doorways of his new home in Manhattan.Rescued from the streets by a magic animal shelter, Clifford soon meets Emily Elizabeth (Darby Camp), a precocious middle schooler under the temporary care of her ne’er-do-well uncle Casey (Jack Whitehall). From here, the story veers into a generic caper, stacked with evil villains, kindly allies and mischief. Genuine sweetness can be found in Emily’s fidelity to her rowdy new best friend. Still, naturalism is hard to fake, and it’s difficult to divorce Clifford from the lines of code that animate him; indeed, when Clifford yipped loudly onscreen, my very real dog, lying beside me, didn’t even stir.Clifford the Big Red DogRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters and on Paramount+. More

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      Billy Crystal to Return to Broadway in ‘Mr. Saturday Night’

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      The musical, about a comedian’s rise and fall, plans to open at the Nederlander Theater in the spring.Billy Crystal plans to return to Broadway in the spring as the star of a new musical, “Mr. Saturday Night,” adapted from his 1992 film.The project has been in development for years — he said Mel Brooks first suggested in 2005 that he think about adapting the film for the stage — and last month Crystal led a nine-performance presentation of the show at Barrington Stage Company, in the Berkshires region of Western Massachusetts.“Mr. Saturday Night” is a comedy about the rise and fall of a stand-up comedian named Buddy Young Jr. Crystal not only starred in the film but he also directed, produced and co-authored it. He is writing the musical’s book with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who also collaborated with him on the film’s screenplay. The stage adaptation features music by Jason Robert Brown (a Tony winner for “The Bridges of Madison County” and “Parade”) and lyrics by Amanda Green (“Hands on a Hardbody”). The director is John Rando (a Tony winner for “Urinetown”), and the choreographer is Ellenore Scott (who is also choreographing next spring’s revival of “Funny Girl”).Joining Crystal in the eight-person cast will be David Paymer, playing Young’s brother, Stan. Paymer played the same role in the film, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Randy Graff (a Tony winner for “City of Angels”) will play Young’s wife, and Chasten Harmon (“The Good Fight”) will play his agent.In an interview, Crystal said he has found himself repeatedly drawn to the character for decades — he said he first performed as Young on an HBO special in 1984, and then brought him to “Saturday Night Live” and then did him on another HBO special before creating the film. “I love that guy,” he said. “And there was more to say with this character; there was more to do.”He noted that, 30 years ago, when he started shooting the film, he was 43 playing 73; now he is 73 playing 73, and “it just feels better.”Crystal said he performed in college musicals and sang as an Oscars host, but that he has been working with a vocal coach to prepare for the musical. “I’m going to be the best I can be,” he said. And will he dance? “I’m going to move,” he said.Crystal has done one previous Broadway show, “700 Sundays,” an autobiographical one-man play which he performed for eight months, from 2004 to 2005, and which he then brought back for two months from 2013 to 2014. The original production was given a 2005 Tony Award as best special theatrical event.He said he is ready to return.“I’ve always tried to challenge myself and keep growing, keep stretching,” he said.“Mr. Saturday Night” is scheduled to begin previews March 1 and to open March 31 at the Nederlander Theater. The producers are James L. Nederlander and Nederlander Presentations, Inc.; the show is being capitalized for $11 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The show will be staged seven performances a week (one fewer than the traditional Broadway eight) and Crystal said the run is open-ended.This is the eighth new musical scheduled as part of this Broadway this season, as the industry seeks to rebuild after the lengthy pandemic shutdown. The others are “Girl From the North Country,” which opened just before the shutdown but is being counted as part of the current season, as well as “Six,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Diana,” “Flying Over Sunset,” “MJ” and “Paradise Square.”Crystal said “Mr. Saturday Night” had been delayed by the pandemic, but that he felt good about the new timing based on audience response in the Berkshires.“I’ve spent so much of my life in front of an audience,” he said. “The great feeling to hear laughs, live, in a theater, even through masks, was intoxicating to all of us, and it gave us so much joy and so much hope.” More

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      Dean Stockwell, Child Actor Turned ‘Quantum Leap’ Star, Dies at 85

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      He appeared alongside Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly when he was not yet 10. He later had signature roles in movies like “Married to the Mob” and “Blue Velvet.”Dean Stockwell, who began his seven-decade acting career as a child in the 1940s and later had key roles in films including “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in 1962 and “Blue Velvet” in 1986, while also making his mark in television, most notably as the cigar-smoking Al Calavicci on the hit science fiction series “Quantum Leap,” died on Sunday. He was 85.His death was confirmed by Jay Schwartz, a family spokesman, who did not say where Mr. Stockwell died or specify a cause.Mr. Stockwell had a hot-and-cold relationship with acting that caused him to leave show business for years at a time. But he nonetheless amassed more than 200 film and television acting credits from 1945 to 2015, as well as occasional stage roles.As a child he appeared alongside some of the biggest stars of the day, including Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in “Anchors Aweigh” in 1945, when he was not yet 10. But while many child stars don’t make the transition to adult careers, Mr. Stockwell was blessed with angular, rugged good looks as a young man and a distinguished maturity later, attributes that made him suitable for all sorts of roles.Several times Mr. Stockwell lost interest in the profession that he had been all but born into, escaping to work on railroads and in real estate and, in the 1960s, to immerse himself in the counterculture. He also enjoyed several career revivals, notably in the 1980s, when he was cast in career-defining roles in movies like Wim Wenders’s “Paris, Texas,” David Lynch’s “Dune” and “Blue Velvet” (as the menacing and eccentric henchman of a drug dealer played by Dennis Hopper), and Jonathan Demme’s “Married to the Mob,” in which his performance as a mob boss earned him an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.Mr. Stockwell as an eccentric criminal in David Lynch’s film “Blue Velvet,” from 1986.De Laurentiis Entertainment GroupAs the son of actors — his father, Harry Stockwell, and his mother, Elizabeth Veronica, appeared onstage and in films together, and Harry Stockwell provided the voice of Prince Charming in Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” — Mr. Stockwell had little semblance of a typical childhood before he began acting.He first appeared on Broadway in 1943, at age 7, in “The Innocent Voyage.” (His older brother, the actor Guy Stockwell, who died in 2002, was also in the cast.) He was recruited by a Hollywood talent scout, and his movie career began in 1945, when he appeared in “The Valley of Decision,” with Gregory Peck and Greer Garson, and in “Anchors Aweigh.”Mr. Stockwell was immediately praised for his skill, winning a special award at the Golden Globes for “Gentleman’s Agreement” in 1947. Reviewing the movie “Kim” in 1950, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised his performance as “delightfully sturdy and sound,” adding, “Little Dean shows a real tenderness.” Other Times reviews of his performances as a child called his work “touching,” “commendable” and “cozy.”Robert Dean Stockwell was born on March 5, 1936, in Los Angeles. His parents divorced when he was 6, and he spent most of his childhood with his mother and brother. He would later say that he looked up to directors and leading actors on the set as father figures.He would appear in 19 films before he turned 16, at which point he quit acting for the first time. Withdrawn as a child, he took little pleasure in acting, seeing it as an obligation foisted upon him by others, he said in an interview with Turner Classic Movies in 1995.“If it had been up to me, I would have been out of it by the time I was 10,” he said.After graduating from high school at 16 — as a child actor, he received three hours of schooling while working — Mr. Stockwell realized he had little training to do anything else. He flitted from one odd job to the next before reluctantly returning to acting in 1956, when he was 20.Mr. Stockwell, left, with Scott Bakula on the set of “Quantum Leap” in 1989.Ron Tom/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty ImagesOne of his biggest roles in his 20s was alongside Jason Robards, Katharine Hepburn and Ralph Richardson in the 1962 film version of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” in which he played the younger son, Edmund Tyrone. He, Mr. Robards and Mr. Richardson shared an acting award at the Cannes Film Festival.Other notable roles in that period included “Compulsion” (1959), a fictionalized version of a well-known murder case, in which he and Bradford Dillman played the killers of a young boy; and “Sons and Lovers” (1960), based on the novel by D.H. Lawrence.Later in the 1960s, Mr. Stockwell found comfort in the counterculture movement and the hippie ethos.“My career was doing well, but I wasn’t getting anything out of it personally,” he told The Times in 1988. “What I was looking for I was finding in another place, which was in that revolution. The ’60s allowed me to live my childhood as an adult. That kind of freedom, imagination and creativity that arose all around was like a childhood to me.”After a few years off, he returned to acting, only to learn that his time away had led Hollywood casting agents to forget him. For about a dozen frustrating years, he struggled to land roles, appearing in fringe films and performing in dinner theater.“I even heard about a casting meeting where the producer said, ‘We need a Dean Stockwell type,’” he told The Times in 1988. “Meanwhile, I couldn’t even get arrested.”He quit acting again in the early 1980s, moving to New Mexico to sell real estate. His next comeback would be his most successful, beginning a decade of his most critically acclaimed work.In 1988, he was acclaimed, and Oscar-nominated, for his performance in “Married to the Mob.” The next year, he was cast in “Quantum Leap.”That show, seen on NBC from 1989 to 1993, starred Scott Bakula as Sam Beckett, a scientist who, because of a botched time-travel experiment, spends his days and nights being thrown back in time to assume other people’s identities. Mr. Stockwell portrayed Adm. Al Calavicci, described by John J. O’Connor of The Times in a 1989 review as “Sam’s wiseguy colleague, who hangs around the edges of each episode, setting the scene and commenting on the action.” Mr. Stockwell, Mr. O’Connor wrote, was “Mr. Bakula’s indispensable co-star.”Mr. Stockwell was nominated four times for an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in a drama series for his work on “Quantum Leap.” He never won an Emmy, but he did win a Golden Globe in 1990.He is survived by his wife, Joy Stockwell, and two children, Austin and Sophie Stockwell.In a 1987 interview with The Times, Mr. Stockwell said that his approach as an actor hadn’t changed since he was a child.“I haven’t changed in the least,” he said. “My way of working is still the same as it was in the beginning: totally intuitive and instinctive.“But as you live your life,” he added, “you compile so many millions of experiences and bits of information that you become a richer vessel as a person. You draw on more experience.”Neil Genzlinger contributed reporting. More

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      The ‘Rust’ Shooting Spurs a Debate Over Using Guns on Film Sets

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      Alec Baldwin, who fatally shot a cinematographer with a gun he had been told was safe, has called for productions to hire police officers to monitor gun safety.Ever since the actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot the cinematographer of the film “Rust” last month with a gun he had been told, incorrectly, contained no live ammunition, the debate on the use of firearms on sets has been growing.Dwayne Johnson — the action star whose production company has made gun-filled films like the “Fast & Furious” spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw” — told Variety last week that the company would no longer use real guns on set. Dozens of cinematographers have signed a commitment not to work on projects using functional firearms. And a state lawmaker in California is drafting legislation that would ban operational firearms from sets.Mr. Baldwin, who was a producer of “Rust” as well as its star, weighed in this week with his own suggestion: that productions should hire police officers to monitor safety. Mr. Baldwin posted Monday on his Twitter and Instagram accounts: “Every film/TV set that uses guns, fake or otherwise, should have a police officer on set, hired by the production, to specifically monitor weapons safety.”But many in the film industry see the tragedy more as a problem of failing to adhere to existing firearms safety protocols than of requiring new, stricter protocols, and it is unclear if any of the proposed changes will have the momentum to come to fruition.The “Rust” shooting happened on Oct. 21, after an old-fashioned revolver was placed in Mr. Baldwin’s hands and proclaimed “cold,” meaning that it should not have contained any live ammunition. But it did: As Mr. Baldwin practiced drawing the gun for a scene, it fired a real bullet, law-enforcement officials said, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and wounding its director, Joel Souza. There should not have been any live ammunition on the set at all, according to court papers, and law-enforcement officials are investigating how the gun came to be loaded with a lethal bullet.The backlash to Mr. Baldwin’s proposal to have police officers monitor on-set gun safety included comments from industry veterans like David Simon, the creator of “The Wire,” who tweeted that “the average cop is no more a totem of gun safety than a trained film armorer.”Then there are those calling to ban the use of functional guns — which are supposed to be loaded only with dummies or blanks — on sets. They say that technology has advanced to the point where special effects can be used to create the illusion of convincing gunfire. After the shooting in New Mexico, Craig Zobel, the director of the HBO whodunit “Mare of Easttown,” noted that all of the gunshots on that show were digital. But some studio executives say that there are times when visual effects are not sufficient, and that some actors struggle to make fake weapons that cannot even fire blanks appear convincing.The calls for systematic change are complicated by the fact that it is still unclear exactly why the tragedy occurred.Some crew members voiced concerns about the experience level of the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, whose lawyers have defended her training and commitment to safety and faulted the production. And the film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, told a detective investigating the case that he should have checked the gun more thoroughly before Mr. Baldwin handled it, according to an affidavit. (His lawyer later said in a television interview that checking the gun was not his job.) But the central question, of how a live round got into the revolver in the first place, remains a mystery.Despite the remaining questions, the fatal shooting has spurred calls for change inside and outside of the film and television industry..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, said days after the shooting that “if the industry doesn’t come forward with very specific accountable safeguards, they should expect that we will.”Stephen Lighthill, the president of the American Society of Cinematographers and one of the prominent signatories of the statement — first reported by Variety — pledging to avoid operational firearms on sets, said that there had not been a wide-scale conversation around what the industry standard should be before the “Rust” shooting. Cinematographers including Bill Pope of “The Matrix” and Mandy Walker of “Mulan” have signed on to the pledge. The statement was posted with a hashtag:#BanBlanks, calling for an end to the use of blank cartridges, which contain gunpowder and paper wadding or wax.Another signatory, Reed Morano, a cinematographer who directed episodes of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” wrote in an Instagram post that she had once been hit by a blank at close range while operating a camera and wished she had thought more about large-scale change then.“How many more deaths do we need to mourn to prove that this must change?” Ms. Morano wrote.In California, a Democratic state senator who represents Silicon Valley, Dave Cortese, has been drafting legislation that would ban operational firearms from sets, which he said would effectively also ban blanks. Mr. Cortese said in an interview that the current system for safety protocols around handling guns on sets — guidelines outlined by unions and production companies — were not sufficient to ensure enforcement and accountability.“Right now what’s missing is the consequences,” he said. “Life and death is not an OK consequence of an error or omission.”Another legislative approach that is being considered, Mr. Cortese said, is a restriction on certain kinds of blanks. But his preference is for an outright ban on operational firearms and blanks, which he thinks can be replaced with special effects.“Some people say, ‘Why get rid of them?’” Mr. Cortese said. “Why have them? What’s the point in this day and age?”He said he has scheduled a meeting this week with members of the union local that represents armorers, and a bill would likely be considered in February.Those in the film industry who warn against making such rapid and wholesale changes to the industry say safety protocols are usually clear, and usually closely followed.Michael Sabo, who was propmaster on “The Wire” and oversaw the use of operational guns on the set, said he thinks nonfunctional guns would appear fake to viewers. Instead of a ban, he favors tighter restrictions on who can handle them.“You can have some of the best actors in the world, but if they pull a trigger and nothing happens, it’s not real,” he said. “That’s my biggest problem when they say we should ban guns on sets.”Brooks Barnes contributed reporting. More

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      New Initiative Aims to Change How Movies Portray Muslims

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      An advocacy group has created a worker database with help from Disney to bring more Muslims into the filmmaking process.A new initiative to promote the inclusion of Muslims in filmmaking has been created by an advocacy group with the support of the Walt Disney Company — following a report issued this year that found that Muslims are rarely depicted in popular films and that many Muslim characters are linked to violence.The project, the Pillars Muslim Artist Database, was announced on Tuesday by the Pillars Fund, an advocacy group in Chicago. It produced the earlier report on depiction along with the University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and others.Kashif Shaikh, a co-founder of Pillars and its president, said that when the group discussed the findings, those in the industry often said they did not know where to find Muslim writers or actors.The database, Shaikh said, aims to give Muslim actors, directors, cinematographers, sound technicians and others, who could help create more nuanced portrayals, the chance to compose online profiles that can be reviewed by those hiring for film, television and streaming productions.That way, “Muslims around the country would be able to opt in and talk about their talents, talk about their expertise,” Shaikh said. “It was really meant to be a resource for studios, for the film industry.”The report on depiction, “Missing & Maligned,” was issued in June and analyzed 200 top-grossing movies released between 2017 and 2019 across the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.Of 8,965 speaking characters, 1.6 percent were Muslim, the report said. It added that just over 60 percent of primary and secondary Muslim characters appeared in movies set in the historical or recent past. Just under 40 percent appeared in three movies which took place in present-day Australia, the report said, and most of those characters — including “the only present-day Muslim lead” — appeared in one movie, “Ali’s Wedding,” released in 2017.Pillars, along with the Inclusion Initiative and the British actor Riz Ahmed and his production company, Left Handed Films, also released a companion report titled “The Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion” that was intended to “fundamentally change the way Muslims are portrayed on screen.”Before the reports were issued, Shaikh said, Pillars had begun conversations with Disney, which supported the creation of the database with a $20,000 grant.Latondra Newton, senior vice president and chief diversity officer of Disney, said in a statement that the support was part of an ongoing effort “to amplify underrepresented voices and untold stories,” adding: “We are honored to support the new Pillars Muslim Artist Database.”This follows the announcement last week of a guide, “The Time Is Now: The Power of Native Representation in Entertainment,” that was the result of a partnership between Disney and IllumiNative, a nonprofit group that works to raise the visibility of “Native Nations and peoples in American Society.”That guide was created “to help move beyond the outdated, inaccurate and often offensive depictions of Native peoples in pop culture,” the group said in a statement. It includes sections on “Combating Negative Stereotypes,” “Avoiding Cultural Appropriation” and “Supporting Native Storytellers.”Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      Joe Pera and the Surprising Pleasures of Gentle Humor

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      Don’t expect twists in these bits. The standup, who will be at the New York Comedy Festival, has devised a calming aesthetic with rewards of its own.To bore an audience is one of the worst things a performer can do. It’s among the trustiest truisms of show business. But what if our anxious culture has become so crowded with fast-talking agitators, hyperventilators and disrupters that something soothing and subdued becomes refreshing? Is it possible that the most exciting move is to embrace dullness?The stand-up comic Joe Pera tests this theory. With a rigid back hunching at the neck, he has the appearance of a large turtle, only slower. His fashion is basic suburban dad — Asics, glasses, comfortable khakis — and his dry, gently absurdist material focuses on cold-button subjects like what to have for breakfast. Of the hundreds of performers in the New York Comedy Festival this week, Pera is surely the only one who will say that he doesn’t mind if you fall asleep listening to him.After a year off because of the pandemic, the festival returns with a talent-rich lineup of seasoned veterans (Bill Maher, Colin Quinn, Brian Regan and Marc Maron); midcareer stars (Vir Das, Ronny Chieng, Michelle Buteau and Michelle Wolf); and rising newcomers (Megan Stalter). Since New York has a festival’s worth of comedy every week, the shows I most look forward to are those by Los Angeles comics we don’t see here as often (Nick Kroll) or stand-ups in their prime taking on a bigger stage (Gary Gulman playing Carnegie Hall). But there is also a wealth of small, quirky evenings like “Dan and Joe DVD Show” at the Bell House on Tuesday, standup from Pera and his more animated partner, Dan Licata.Over the past decade, Pera, a Buffalo native, carved out a niche in the New York scene by playing at his own pace, interjecting a soft-spoken, flamboyantly clean presence in the middle of shows full of quick wits and profane punch lines. This month, he has a new book out before the holidays, “A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing But Using the Bathroom as an Escape,” and premieres the third season of his television series whose title, “Joe Pera Talks With You,” is factual and straightforward, like his comedy.Pera plays a choir teacher from small-town Michigan who makes Ted Lasso look like Dexter. The 11 minute-or-so episodes are patiently, gracefully shot without a single swirling camera, goofy font or burst of color. It stands out on the Adult Swim schedule the way a sex tape would on Disney+. There are bits of plot, including a budding romance with a survivalist (played by Jo Firestone, whose consistent likability makes her the Tom Hanks of comedy) or the death of a grandmother, but much of this show hinges on creating a very peculiar tranquil mood.Pera with Jo Firestone in his Adult Swim show “Joe Pera Talks With You.”Adult SwimAt various points, Pera recites facts about lighthouses or beans, before sharing maxims like: “Waiting for someone is just a nice thing to do.” The first episode this season lingers on the pleasure of sitting. It finds Joe helping his friend Gene pick out a chair in a furniture store.Occasionally a political issue will come up, but only briefly, almost as a counterpoint to emphasize that this is not what the show is about. And while the subject of grief became prominent in the second season, the series doesn’t investigate sadness so much as offer tools to ward it off for a few minutes. How about a shot of some amazing fireworks? Or the comforting distraction of a musical put on by kids? Maybe Joe in some funny wigs?Early on this season, Joe Pera looked directly at the camera and asked viewers if they were sitting right now, before assuring us that he was not about to give bad news. Then he asked, if we were sitting on a chair, what kind was it? Not since Mr. Rogers has someone with as much conviction asked the television camera a question and then paused as if he might hear an answer. It’s not the only time Pera evokes that legend of children’s television.He displays the earnest manner and sense of wonder that most people lose by their teenage years. It’s tempting to conclude that his persona is a stunt, a piece of performance art in the Andy Kaufman tradition. Some fans probably enjoy his work as a kind of ironic prank on comedy itself. And he surely understands this, which might be why he often doubles down on the incongruous 1950s wholesomeness, singing the praises of a warm apple pie in the fall or apologizing for swearing. But watch him long enough and what becomes clear is that Joe Pera isn’t after glib laughs. Wait for the wink or the twist, and it never comes.His goal is not to take audiences out of the action by laughing at it, but to envelop them in a muted version of reality, to invite them to surrender to the small pleasures of calm.For years, I refused. I don’t tend to go to art for that, and when I do, I find it in unlikely places, like slasher films or Stephen A. Smith (yes, he makes N.B.A. punditry into an art). But those are my eccentric tastes. And while his aesthetic seems like ingratiating wholesome Americana, there’s an avant-garde obscureness underneath it. You have to work a bit to get it. Adventurous types should try.By slowing down and reducing everything to simple comforts, Pera can tap into a child’s view of the world, back when we dealt with boredom most creatively by creating races between rain drops on windshields or finding shapes in clouds.Many of his shows linger so reverentially on everyday things — the supermarket, a song by the Who — that they seem almost spiritual. Other times he appears to push the concept of banal normal life so far as to find the comic weirdness within. At one point in the first episode, an old stranger drives by him, stops and asks for Pera’s phone. The man takes a photo of himself and hands the phone back to Pera. It’s an odd moment that in a different show could make for cringe comedy, but here, this random gesture comes off as vaguely generous and inexplicable. I chuckled. You might not. But it’s best not to think about it too much.Early in the pandemic, Pera released a special called “Relaxing Old Footage With Joe Pera,” which featured stock video of waterfalls and coffee pots along with comments like this statement about watching trees: “I can’t be the only one who wants to watch Old Chico, a 9,000-year-old spruce, after reading the news.” More