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      ‘Yes Day’ Review: It’s a Family Affair

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Yes Day’ Review: It’s a Family AffairA sunny family of five agrees to a day where a mother and father must consent to whatever the kids want in this broad Netflix comedy.From left, Edgar Ramírez, Jenna Ortega, Everly Carganilla and Jennifer Garner in “Yes Day.”Credit…NetflixMarch 12, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETYes DayDirected by Miguel ArtetaComedy, FamilyPG1h 26mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Ice cream for breakfast? Silly costumes in public? Parents are required to give the green light to every request on Yes Day, a designated 24-hour period when kids take charge.Despite the farce and chaos such a premise could contain, there is little that’s edgy or engaging in “Yes Day,” a mediocre comedy streaming on Netflix. Directed by Miguel Arteta, the film follows the Torres family, a sunny and fairly conventional suburban household. Mornings find the dad (Edgar Ramírez) dancing and bantering with the kids while the mom (Jennifer Garner), type-A and in the kitchen, wags a finger.All seems well until parent-teacher night, when teachers suggest the Torres children are suffering from draconian rules at home. No matter that the kids construct waffle volcanoes at breakfast, scatter toys around the house and appear to lead an altogether breezy life. Once the siblings call their mom a fun-killer, she schedules a Yes Day to prove them wrong.[embedded content]Adapted from a children’s book, “Yes Day” ticks off a series of youthful wishes as the Torres clan engages in extravagant — but never out-of-the-question — behavior. Using slow motion and montage, the film follows the family as they give Mom a makeover, slurp an enormous sundae and visit a carwash with the windows down. Later, in the movie’s grandest set piece, the siblings escort their parents to a game of capture the flag with water balloons — a sequence that feels less like a forbidden desire granted than an oddly elaborate event for three kids to have organized.But though “Yes Day” does not lack for energy, the jokes are too broad and the mishaps too safe for the movie to emerge as an honest or imaginative journey through family conflict and compromise. Dad is chased by vindictive birds, Mom picks a fight at a theme park and the kids come to appreciate that, sometimes, adults are right to say no to things — like this movie.Yes DayRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Ryan Coogler Finds It Incredibly Hard to Make 'Black Panther 2' Without Chadwick Boseman

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      WENN

      The ‘Creed’ directors says developing the sequel to ‘Black Panther’ without the late T’Challa depicter is ‘the hardest thing’ he’s had to do as he returns behind the lens for the second installment.

      Mar 12, 2021
      AceShowbiz – Ryan Coogler has admitted making the “Black Panther” sequel without Chadwick Boseman is the “hardest thing.”
      The 34-year-old director is working on a follow-up to the 2018 Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film but admits that he is still trying to come to terms with the loss of lead actor Chadwick, who passed away last August aged 43 after a private cancer battle.
      Ryan said, “I’m still currently going through it.”
      “One thing that I’ve learned in my short time on this Earth is that it’s very difficult to have perspective on something while you’re going through it. This is one of the more profound things that I’ve gone through in my life, having to be a part of keeping this project going without this particular person who is like the glue who held it together.”
      The “Creed” filmmaker explained that he has been trying to find a “balance” between his personal and professional life since Chadwick’s passing.

        See also…

      Ryan told the “Jemele Hill Is Unbothered” podcast, “That said, you have a professional life, you’ve got a personal life. Personal life, I’m going to say when you work in something that you love, those things blend, they come together.”
      “I’m trying to find a work-life balance. But I’m not there yet, so this is without question the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my professional life.”
      Ryan explained that, while the loss of Chadwick “stings,” it has left him “incredibly motivated” that he got to spend time with the “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” star.
      He said, “This one hurts and stings, but it’s also incredibly motivating.”
      “I’m incredibly sad to lose him but I’m also incredibly motivated that I got to spend time with him. You spend your life hearing about people like him. For this individual, who is an ancestor now, I was there for it. It’s such an incredible privilege that fills you up as much as it knocks you out.”

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      Hollywood Loses $10 Billion a Year Due to Lack of Diversity, Study Finds

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHollywood Loses $10 Billion a Year Due to Lack of Diversity, Study FindsA McKinsey report that combined previous research and new interviews argues that concrete steps like company bonuses tied to improved representation can lead to change.A scene from “Black Panther,” starring, from left, Lupita Nyong’o, Chadwick Boseman and Danai Gurira. A new study found that when studios “are looking for Black content, they’re looking for Wakanda or poverty, with no in between.”Credit…Marvel/DisneyMarch 11, 2021Updated 12:00 p.m. ETBy ignoring the systemic racial inequities that plague the film and television business, Hollywood is leaving $10 billion annually on the table. That is one of the main findings in a new report from the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which for the first time turned its attention to the lack of Black representation in Hollywood. And, unlike many other studies that do excellent jobs of pointing out problems without giving concrete solutions, this one includes a series of steps that could help change the makeup of the industry.The consultants examined multiple existing research reports on thousands of film and TV shows including the “Hollywood Diversity Report” conducted annually by the University of California, Los Angeles; Nielsen’s 2020 “Being Seen on Screen: Diverse Representation and Inclusion on TV”; and annual work by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. The McKinsey researchers collaborated with the BlackLight Collective, a group of more than 90 Black leaders who work in film and television.McKinsey conducted anonymous interviews with more than 50 Black and non-Black industry participants including studio executives, producers, writers, directors and agents. The goal was to both reflect their experiences and identify the “pain points” as they try to create content. Examples of such obstacles include Black talent being “forced to sell stories about personal trauma to get ideas optioned” and white executives’ stereotypical assumptions about target audiences being “valued more than lived experiences of creators.”The study noted that Hollywood’s unique structure — involving unpaid or underpaid apprenticeships, tight-knit networks, small, informal and temporary work settings, often in far-flung locations — contributed somewhat to the ecosystem’s failings. But the report also recognized persistent trends that occur in large corporate settings: Black creatives are primarily responsible for providing opportunities for other Black offscreen talent; emerging Black actors receive fewer chances in their career and have a lower margin for error; and there is little minority representation among top management and executive boards. The film industry, the authors concluded, is a less diverse one than even typically homogeneous sectors like energy and finance.“In the same way that collective action is needed to advance racial equity in corporate American, real and lasting change in film and TV will require concerted action and the joint commitment of stakeholders across the industry ecosystem,” said the study’s authors, Jonathan Dunn, Sheldon Lyn, Nony Onyeador and Ammanuel Zegeye.According to the study, the average production budget for films with a Black lead or co-lead is a quarter less than the budget for films with no Black actors. One creative executive, who talked to the authors anonymously, said that when executives “are looking for Black content, they’re looking for Wakanda or poverty, with no in between.” Added one anonymous Black actor, “I have to take stereotypical works, because that’s what’s out there, but then when I take those roles, they say that’s all I am capable of.”To solve these issues, McKinsey offered several concrete measures, including urging studios, networks, streaming services, agencies and production companies to commit publicly to a specific target for Black and nonwhite representation across all levels and roles that reflect the American population: 13.4 percent Black or a total of 40 percent for all people of color. And the report encouraged those companies to expand recruiting efforts beyond New York and Los Angeles into the South, where 60 percent of the Black American labor force is concentrated, and at historically Black colleges and universities.The consultants also suggested increasing transparency and accountability with regular reporting on the racial, gender and ethnic makeup of their organizations. As reinforcement, the study said, executive bonuses should be tied to diversity targets so companies can “ensure that leaders are held to account for progress on racial equality.”Another idea: financially support a range of Black stories by committing 13.4 percent of annual budgets to projects starring Black actors with Black producers, writers and directors behind the camera.And lastly, the authors encouraged Hollywood to create an independent organization to promote diversity — an arms-length group with vocal backers and strong partnerships with film and TV leaders.“It would seem unreasonable to expect on- and off- screen Black talent to continue spending countless hours trying to reform this vast, complex industry on their own, time they could otherwise be spending creating the next hit series or blockbuster movie franchise,” the authors wrote.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Long Live Rock … Celebrate the Chaos’ Review: An Ode to Metal

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Long Live Rock … Celebrate the Chaos’ Review: An Ode to MetalWith this documentary, a longtime music supervisor, Jonathan McHugh, shines a spotlight on die-hard American rock fans.A crowdsurfing fan at a concert featured in “Long Live Rock … Celebrate the Chaos.”Credit…Jordan Wrennert/AbramoramaMarch 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETAside from the sheer nostalgia of seeing large concert crowds thrashing with abandon (and without masks), the rock ‘n’ roll documentary “Long Live Rock … Celebrate the Chaos,” directed by a longtime music supervisor, Jonathan McHugh, lands on a minor note. Largely consisting of talking heads — from fans and noteworthy talent (Rob Zombie, Jonathan Davis, Ice-T) — the film aims to celebrate the uniqueness of the rock and metal communities, but ends up becoming a repetitive sound clip. Subjects claim that this fandom is different from others, but fail to articulate how. Instead, the sorest thumb that sticks out is the concentration of white fans in the scene.[embedded content]The whiteness of the hard rock world is felt immediately in this film. It’s especially discomfiting to watch an interviewee compare moshing to a “tribal war dance.” McHugh later covers his bases with a quick detour into the Black roots of rock, but the history lesson is too brief and basic. Likewise, its foray into feminism remains surface-level, probing not much beyond crowd-surfing as an act of empowerment.In its latter half, the gears switch again to address drug addiction and the downfalls of the hard rock lifestyle, but the tonal shift from unadulterated adoration makes this transition jarring. “Long Live Rock” feels, at best, like a passionate but elementary essay. More often than not, it feels like a table of contents. The hot-topic buttons are touched upon, but McHugh doesn’t forge far enough into the mosh pit.Long Live Rock … Celebrate the ChaosNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ Review: Life and Death in Srebrenica

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s pick‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ Review: Life and Death in SrebrenicaBosnia and Herzegovina’s Oscar entry is the harrowing and rigorous story of a U.N. translator’s fight to save her family from slaughter.Jasna Djuricic is Aida, a high school teacher turned U.N. translator, in Jasmila Zbanic’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?”Credit…Super LTDMarch 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETQuo Vadis, Aida?NYT Critic’s PickDirected by Jasmila ZbanicDrama, History, War1h 41mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army, under the command of Gen. Ratko Mladic, overran the town of Srebrenica, which had been declared a safe haven by the United Nations. Muslim civilians sought refuge at a nearby U.N. base, but were handed over to Mladic’s soldiers, who separated them by gender and loaded them into buses and trucks. Around 8,000 men and boys were murdered, their bodies buried in mass graves, in one of the worst atrocities of the wars that convulsed the former Yugoslavia for much of the decade.At the time, many in the West wondered how this could happen — how genocidal violence could erupt in Europe barely 50 years after the end of World War II. “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” Jasmila Zbanic’s unsparing and astonishing new film, shows precisely how. This isn’t the same as explaining why, though Zbanic’s granular, hour-by-hour, lightly fictionalized dramatization of the events leading up to the massacre sheds some glancing light on that question.Mladic (Boris Isakovic) is an unnervingly familiar figure. A self-infatuated bully who travels everywhere with a cameraman, he punctuates his displays of power with litanies of grievance. But the movie isn’t really about him. He and his officers may be the authors of the nightmare, but the viewer suffers through it in the company of Aida Selmanagic (Jasna Duricic), who works as a translator for the U.N.[embedded content]In her previous life, Aida was a teacher. Her husband, Nihad (Izudin Bajrovic), was the principal of the local high school. At one especially tense moment, she and a Serb soldier exchange polite greetings: he’s a former student, who sends regards to Aida’s sons, Hamdija (Boris Ler) and Sejo (Dino Bajrovic). That encounter is one of several reminders of the prewar normal, when Serbs and Muslims lived side by side and Aida and her family pursued an uneventful middle-class existence. A flashback shows her participating in a whimsical pageant devoted to “Eastern Bosnia’s best hairstyle.”Now, she runs an increasingly desperate gantlet of contradictory demands. Her U.N. identification badge affords her some protection, which she tries to extend to her husband and children. She persuades Nihad to volunteer as a civilian delegate alongside the U.N. commander in farcical negotiations with Mladic, and uses her access to restricted areas of the base to find hiding places for Sejo and Hamdija.In her official capacity, Aida dutifully translates Serbian lies and U.N. equivocations, a role that becomes both horrific and absurd. She must convey to the panicked masses at the base — some of them her friends and neighbors — reassurances that she knows to be false. Amid the promises of safety, she can see clearly what is about to happen.Duricic’s performance is somehow both charismatic and self-effacing. Aida is tenacious and resourceful, and also terrified and overwhelmed by circumstances. The story she is caught up in moves swiftly and relentlessly, but sometimes nothing seems to move at all. The victims-in-waiting are trapped. Their ostensible protectors are paralyzed, and the predators are in no particular hurry. Who can stop them?There is relentless, dread-fueled suspense here, and a kind of procedural efficiency that reminds me of Paul Greengrass’s fact-based films, like “Bloody Sunday” and “United 93.” The rigorous honesty of “Quo Vadis, Aida?” is harrowing, partly because it subverts many of the expectations that quietly attach themselves to movies about historical trauma. We often watch them not to be confronted with the cruelty of history, but to be comforted with redemptive tales of resistance, resilience and heroism.Aida may have some of those qualities, but her brave attempts to escape only emphasize how trapped she really is. The title asks where she is going. The available answers are grim. If she can save herself, can she also save her family? And if so, what about the thousands of others whose lives are in peril?Her situation is dramatized with exquisite empathy. Pity isn’t the only emotion in play; it does battle with shame and disgust. The failure of the U.N. is almost as appalling as Mladic’s viciousness. The rule-bound, well-meaning Dutch officers in charge of the base become the general’s hostages and then his accomplices. The massacre was a war crime supervised by peacekeepers — a failure of institutional resolve, of humanity, of civilization.Eventually, Mladic was tried in The Hague and sentenced to life in prison. The final act of “Quo Vadis, Aida,” Bosnia and Herzegovina’s official Oscar entry, makes clear that many other perpetrators escaped with impunity. The war ended, and some version of normalcy returned, but Zbanic takes no consolation in the banal observation that life goes on. It’s true that time passes, that memory fades, that history is a record of mercy as well as of savagery. But it’s also true — as this unforgettable film insists — that loss is permanent and unanswerable.Quo Vadis, Aida?Not rated. In Bosnian, English and Dutch, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch through Angelika’s virtual cinema.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Still Life in Lodz’ Review: A Painting Becomes a Window

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Still Life in Lodz’ Review: A Painting Becomes a WindowThis documentary examines how objects can create through lines across history.A painting that hung for decades in an apartment is one of the subjects of the documentary “Still Life in Lodz.”Credit…Cavu PicturesMarch 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETStill Life in LodzDirected by Slawomir GrunbergDocumentary1h 15mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.The loosely observed conceit of “Still Life in Lodz” is that certain objects bear passive witness to history. In this documentary, directed by Slawomir Grunberg, Lilka Elbaum, a historical researcher born in Lodz, Poland, starts with a painting from the apartment in Lodz where she grew up. The painting had hung on a wall there since 1893, she says. It was the first thing she saw in the morning, and its absence left a “gaping wound” on the wall when her family left Poland in 1968, emigrating to North America to escape anti-Semitism.[embedded content]Grunberg and Elbaum interweave stories of departures from different periods. Elbaum meets with Roni Ben Ari, an Israeli-born photographer whose family lived in Elbaum’s building decades earlier until leaving Poland in 1926. Paul Celler, a real-estate developer raised in New Jersey, tours Lodz with Elbaum looking for traces there from the life of his mother, who spent two years in the Lodz ghetto and was then taken to Auschwitz. Elbaum also tells the story of Pola Erlich, a dentist who lived in Elbaum’s eventual apartment before World War II. She was sent to the Lodz ghetto and the Chelmno death camp.Because Erlich lived in the apartment that later became Elbaum’s, her story fits the central through line — that an inanimate painting could open a window on successive tragedies. But much of the material feels arbitrarily chosen — and sometimes just arbitrary. (Elbaum visits a contemporary Polish flea market seeking information on the painting’s creator, who was Russian. Is that a logical place to look?) The individual stories are powerful, as are the visual comparisons between present-day and historical locations. A few animated sequences effectively evoke the evanescence of memory.Still Life in LodzNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Come True’ Review: Bad Dreams? A Sleep Lab? What Could Go Wrong?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Come True’ Review: Bad Dreams? A Sleep Lab? What Could Go Wrong?Anthony Scott Burns’s superior throwback horror film is marred mainly by familiarity.Julia Sarah Stone in “Come True.”Credit…IFC MidnightMarch 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETCome TrueDirected by Anthony Scott BurnsHorror, Sci-FiNot Rated1h 45mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.On “Come True,” the Canadian filmmaker Anthony Scott Burns is billed as the director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor and lead member of the visual-effects team. Under the pseudonym Pilotpriest, he also shares credit for the synth-driven, ’80s-style score. He acquits himself well on all counts except maybe scripting (he wrote the story with Daniel Weissenberger). Like “Our House” (2018), Burns’s underseen feature debut, “Come True” is superior throwback horror marred mainly by familiarity and, in this case, an ending that feels like a tease.[embedded content]Still, it’s hard to complain until then. The protagonist is Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone), an 18-year-old we first meet as she awakes in the morning on a playground slide. Owing to unspecified home troubles, she needs a regular place to spend the night. Her ingenious solution is to sign up for a sleep lab. The researchers can’t tell her what they’re studying, but it becomes clear that Sarah has an active dream state. Her nightmares, which we can squint at in dark, labyrinthine effects sequences, involve bald, shadowy figures. Viewers of Rodney Ascher’s documentary “The Nightmare” may sense where this is going.Sarah becomes an object of obsession for one researcher (Landon Liboiron), whose repeated violations of good science and ethics warrant prompt dismissal, at least. But the characters are just the beginning of what’s creepy about “Come True.” Atmosphere is its primary virtue: Burns has an eye for medical spaces and tech that look dingy and out of date and for architecture that evokes anonymous, forgotten corners of academia.Come TrueNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Google Play, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘My Beautiful Stutter’ Review: Speaking Truth to Power

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘My Beautiful Stutter’ Review: Speaking Truth to PowerThe film is pitched more as a public-service announcement than as a documentary with cinematic ambitions.A moment at a summer program for children who stutter in the documentary “My Beautiful Stutter.”Credit…DiscoveryMarch 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETMy Beautiful StutterDirected by Ryan GielenDocumentary1h 30mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.The goal of “My Beautiful Stutter” is to raise awareness about people who stutter and to correct misimpressions and attitudes that surround the speech disorder. Directed by Ryan Gielen, the film is pitched more as a public-service announcement than as a documentary with cinematic ambitions. Reviewing it in artistic terms seems beside the point.Primarily, the movie is a showcase for Camp SAY, a summer camp for school-age children who stutter. The acronym stands for The Stuttering Association for the Young. The association’s founder, Taro Alexander, who stutters himself, tells campers he didn’t meet anyone else who stuttered until he was 26. The camp shows children that there are others like them and builds their confidence.[embedded content]Adhering to an overworked format, the movie follows several campers. We meet Julianna, who turned to singing as an outlet, and Emily and Sarah, friends who each in their way once shied away from talking because they found it exhausting. Malcolm, from New Orleans, who witnessed a violent incident as a child, forges a friendship with the older Will, a star English student who writes a college essay about the mismatch between the language in his mind and his ability to vocalize.It may seem odd that there is no mention of Joe Biden, who dealt with a stutter in childhood, but the movie is not current. It was filmed during the camp’s 2015 session, when the summer program was in North Carolina (it is now in Pennsylvania), and the first screenings took place in 2019. The lessons — for stutterers and non-stutterers — still hold.My Beautiful StutterNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Discovery+.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More