Movies

From slasher musicals to water nymph dramas, we recommend a number of unusual films to breathe new life into your streaming routine.This month’s off-the-radar recommendations include a trio of terrific (but modest) indies from earlier this year, along with a thoughtful biblical drama, a wild slasher musical (yes, you read that right) and a documentary to fill that “Summer of Soul”-sized hole in your heart.‘Together Together’ (2021)Stream it on Hulu.The writer and director Nikole Beckwith opens her character-driven comedy-drama with credits rendered in a white Windsor font — unmistakable as Woody Allen’s go-to title font. It seems like a bold, even ill-advised choice, but it’s a purposeful reference; the flaws of Allen’s cinematic worldview are discussed later in the film, which can be read as a feature-length rebuke to the ubiquity of May-December romances in that director’s work. The relationship here, between a would-be single dad (Ed Helms) and his gestational surrogate (Patti Harrison), is much more nuanced than that, though awkwardness gives way to affection and even love over the course of the pregnancy. Beckwith dares suggest that such emotion can exist outside the realm of romance, and scene after scene lands with sensitivity and depth, without sacrificing any laughs along the way. Helms crafts his best film work to date, and Harrison is a real find.‘My Zoe’ (2021)Stream it on Amazon.Julie Delpy writes, directs and stars in this tender familial drama with an unexpected dose of science fiction. Delpy’s Isabelle is a scientist and newly single mother who is struggling to navigate through the minefield of conflicts and emotions tied to her recent divorce; both parents want what’s best for their daughter, but have vastly different methods of achieving it. What begins as a 21st-century riff on “Kramer vs. Kramer” veers into more serious territory when little Zoe (Sophia Ally) is struck by tragedy, prompting Isabelle to call upon her vast scientific knowledge — and willingness to experiment. Delpy writes about parenthood from the inside out, capturing its fears and presumptions with a vividness that borders on emotional brutality. But her gift for dialogue and mood makes “My Zoe” an ultimately rewarding experience.‘Undine’ (2021)Stream it on Hulu.Christian Petzold’s latest begins in the middle of a breakup, with the standard explanations and platitudes, until Undine (Paula Beer), the woman on the receiving end, says something you don’t typically hear in such conversations: “If you leave me, I’ll have to kill you. You know that!” This is no ordinary romance, obviously; true to her name, Undine is a water nymph, and according to legend, when a man betrays her, she must kill him and return to the sea. But she’s waylaid by another, immediate romance, with (of course) a kindhearted deep-sea diver (Franz Rogowski), and complications ensue. Petzold is delving into the realm of magic realism, but with an emphasis on the realism; “Undine” is first and foremost a romantic drama, with the compelling intimacy and chemistry of its leads front and center, and the fantastical present mostly as well-drawn flourishes.‘Mary Magdalene’ (2019)Stream it on Netflix.Like “Ophelia,” from last month’s column, Garth Davis’s biblical drama “Mary Magdalene” repositions a woman into the center of a familiar tale, while simultaneously retelling it to a modern audience. Rooney Mara is quietly superb as the title character, carrying much of her faith and fear in her soulful eyes, and Joaquin Phoenix is a surprisingly effective Jesus of Nazareth, adroitly using his naturalistic approach to emphasize Jesus’s humanity and charisma. Davis and the screenwriters, Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett, revisit the expected highlights — the raising of Lazarus, the conflict with the money changers, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection — but never present them as tableaux or pageants. Much like in Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ” (a clear stylistic influence), these scenes have an urgency and immediacy to them, as if they’re being staged for the first time.‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’ (2012)Stream it on HBO Max.The genuine end-of-the-world vibes of late — floods, fires, a mutating plague — might make this apocalyptic romantic comedy hit a bit too close to home. On the other hand, its underlying message of giving in to the insanity, and making the best of the time you have left, feels exceedingly welcome. Steve Carell is at his sad-sack best as an average guy whose wife abandons him the second it becomes clear that the end is near; Keira Knightley is charming as the neighbor who accompanies him on an impromptu road trip. The writer and director Lorene Scafaria, later acclaimed for “Hustlers,” makes an assured debut, orchestrating a top-notch ensemble cast with skill, and creating wildly funny comic situations that remain anchored in the story’s crumbling reality.‘All Good Things’ (2010)Stream it on Amazon.Those who eagerly followed the twists and turns of the true crime documentary series “The Jinx” should seek out this earlier dramatization of its events from the “Jinx” director Andrew Jarecki. Ryan Gosling stars as David Marks — a fictionalized version of Robert Durst — who leaves his life of privilege to be with his wife, Katie (Kirsten Dunst), only to become a suspect in her disappearance, as well as an increasingly bizarre series of unsolved murders. Gosling is given a tricky task, finding the humanity in a seemingly impenetrable character who may or may not be a murderer; and Dunst makes a good match, conveying how this sincere woman could have seen that humanity — and the price she paid for it.‘Disobedience’ (2018)Stream it on Hulu.Sebastián Lelio narrates a sequence from his film, starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams.Bleecker StreetRachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams star as members of a strict Orthodox Jewish community whose shared past forcefully returns in this powerful drama from the director Sebastián Lelio (adapting Naomi Alderman’s novel). Ronit (Weisz), estranged from the community, returns following the death of her father and resumes her romance with Esti (McAdams), who has repressed her desires and entered a loveless marriage. Lelio approaches the material matter-of-factly, refusing to either sensationalize or desexualize the relationship; it’s a rare mainstream portrayal of same-sex attraction that considers both emotional and physical attraction, on equal footing.‘Like Crazy’ (2011)Stream it on Netflix.Young romance is dramatized so often in popular culture that yet another story of lost love hardly seems noteworthy — but few are rendered with the kind of lived-in experience that the director Drake Doremus brings to this Sundance hit. Anton Yelchin stars as Jacob, who falls hard for the British foreign exchange student Anna (Felicity Jones) and must face the geographical and emotional difficulties of a long-distance relationship. Doremus and his co-writer Ben York Jones penned only an outline, working with their actors to improvise the dialogue, creating intimacy and authenticity in even their offhand exchanges. Yelchin and Jones convincingly convey their longing and desperation, while a pre-fame Jennifer Lawrence shines as a potential complication for Jacob.‘Stage Fright’ (2014)Stream it on Amazon.Fans of throwback horror will delight in this cheerful mash-up of “The Phantom of the Paradise” and “Friday the 13th,” in which a summer musical theater camp’s production of a “Phantom of the Opera” rip-off is disrupted by the troubled past of its leading lady, and the return of the bloodthirsty killer that murdered her mother. The writer and director Jerome Sable both embraces and sends up the conventions of Gothic horror and slasher movies, while convincingly staging the musical-within-the movie (and ensuring echoes of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” by casting Meat Loaf in a supporting role). Keep an eye out for the “Schitt’s Creek” star Daniel Levy in a cameo role.‘Mr. Soul’ (2020)Stream it on HBO Max.If “Summer of Soul” whetted your appetite for archaeological explorations of forgotten pop culture artifacts, this energetic documentary makes a fine companion piece. It concerns “Soul!,” a variety and talk program produced for public television from 1968 to 1973 — one of the first such programs produced by Black talent, aimed at a Black audience. As such, it showcased an astonishing array of musical stars, including Stevie Wonder, Al Green and Earth, Wind & Fire (whose awe-inspiring performances are excerpted), as well as prominent Black authors, intellectuals and activists. The show was the brainchild of Ellis Haizlip, who produced and hosted; “Mr. Soul!” is written and co-directed by Ellis’s niece, Melissa Haizlip, who captures the show’s history with a mixture of cultural awareness and familial pride. More

This domestic thriller from Netflix is painfully dumb and laughably obvious.In the simplest terms, “Intrusion” is about a woman who begins to think that her husband may be up to something sinister. The movie makes it immediately obvious, however, that her husband really is up to something sinister, because he’s always prowling around suspiciously, with ominous music playing pretty much whenever he’s onscreen. But this is a feature-length thriller, and it needs to buy some time and build suspense, so the faithful wife is obliged to be very, very obtuse and draw some very foolish conclusions. It’s an exercise in watching someone have the world’s slowest revelation.The wife is Meera (Freida Pinto), a cancer survivor and therapist, and the husband is Henry (Logan Marshall-Green), an architect who has designed the couple’s modernist dream home in rural Corrales, outside of Albuquerque. After their home is burgled, Meera surmises that they may have been targeted, and seeks answers by investigating Henry’s private life, which is both highly dubious and conveniently easy to look into. This is one of those mysteries where both the suspect and the sleuth keep making the kind of implausible, idiotic mistakes that generate trite suspense. Henry leaves evidence lying around with laughable carelessness; Meera roots around his office as he’s right about to walk in the door.If “Intrusion” has one redeeming feature, it’s Marshall-Green, whose performance as the husband with a dark secret has a crackling, tightly controlled intensity far more nuanced and persuasive than anything else in the film. Marshall-Green was similarly sensational in Karyn Kusama’s excellent thriller “The Invitation,” but the director of “Intrusion,” Adam Salky, squanders the actor’s terrific work. It’s tempting to imagine this material realized with the maniac verve of a film like James Wan’s “Malignant,” where the ridiculous verges on camp, instead of how Salky plays it: thuddingly literal and painfully dumb.IntrusionNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

At the center of the Algerian effort to throw off French rule, he re-created that role in Gillo Pontecorvo’s searing 1966 movie, based on a book by Mr. Yacef.Saadi Yacef, a revolutionary leader who fought French rule in Algeria in the 1950s and then set in motion — and acted in — “The Battle of Algiers,” Gillo Pontecorvo’s acclaimed 1966 film about the long anti-colonialism struggle, died on Sept. 10 in Algiers, the capital. He was 93.His daughter Zaphira Yacef, who confirmed the death, said he had had heart problems.Mr. Yacef became involved in opposition movements while still a teenager and in 1954 joined the Front de Libération Nationale, the F.L.N., the leading nationalist organization during the war for independence. The war lasted from 1954 to 1962, ending with the country’s liberation from France.He became the organization’s military chief in Algiers in 1956, ordering bombings and other guerrilla attacks until his arrest by French paratroopers the next year in the part of the city known as the casbah. He was sentenced to death.“While I was in prison the executions were always done at dawn,” he told The Sunday Herald of Glasgow, Scotland, in 2007, “so when I saw the sun coming through the prison bars I knew I was going to live through another day. But I was very certain that I would be executed.”Charles de Gaulle, who was elected president of France in 1958, eventually set Mr. Yacef free. That began an entirely different chapter in Mr. Yacef’s life. While in prison he had written “Souvenirs de la Bataille d’Alger” (“Memories of the Battle of Algiers”), his account of a particularly violent three-year portion of the war.Once Algeria became independent, the F.L.N., ruling the country, sought to commission a film about the freedom fight, with Mr. Yacef leading the effort.“At that time,” he told Le Monde in 2004, “everyone swore by Italian neorealism. That’s why I went to Italy to look for a screenwriter and a director for ‘The Battle of Algiers.’”With a script based on his book, he met with Mr. Pontecorvo, who was said to have been considering his own movie about the Algerian War, one that he hoped would star Paul Newman as a French paratrooper turned journalist. Mr. Yacef and his backers nixed that idea, and Mr. Pontecorvo found Mr. Yacef’s script propagandistic, but they continued to talk. Mr. Yacef arranged to bring Mr. Pontecorvo and his screenwriter, Franco Solinas, to Algiers for an extended stay so they could study up on the revolution, see locations where the fighting had occurred and meet people who had fought.The resulting movie, filmed in Algeria with Mr. Yacef as a producer, had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 and caused a sensation for its startling realism. Some scenes, especially of bombings, looked so authentic that the film in its initial showings was preceded by a disclaimer saying that no newsreel footage had been used.“There are a couple of sequences which look very dangerous,” the director Steven Soderbergh said in a video for the Criterion Collection when it released a fresh version of the film in 2004. “I don’t know if you could do them now.”Mr. Pontecorvo, who died in 2006, used nonactors almost exclusively, including Mr. Yacef, who played a character largely based on himself.“Pontecorvo insisted that I appear in the film,” he told Le Monde. “I had to play in the movies moments that I had lived seven years before. The war, the prison, the torture — all of this was still fresh in my memory.”Mr. Yacef in 2012. “While I was in prison the executions were always done at dawn,” he said of his incarceration by the French, “so when I saw the sun coming through the prison bars I knew I was going to live through another day. But I was very certain that I would be executed.”Ryad Kramdi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSaadi Yacef was born on Jan. 20, 1928, in Algiers to Mohamed and Keltoum Yacef, who were bakers. His schooling was interrupted by World War II when the Allies commandeered his school for use as a barracks.After the war Saadi was apprenticed to become a baker as well. He also played soccer for one of Algeria’s top teams, the Union Sportive de la Médina d’Alger, from 1952 to 1954. By then he had also been pulled into the growing anticolonial movement.In addition to his daughter Zaphira, Mr. Yacef, who lived in Algiers, is survived by his wife, Baya Boudjema Yacef, whom he married in 1965; four other children, Salima, Saida, Omar and Amin; and nine grandchildren.The revolution that Mr. Yacef helped further was known for atrocities on both sides, and Mr. Pontecorvo’s film, which focused on the fighting in Algiers from 1954 to 1957, did not pull punches.“Apart from Orson Welles, no one before had so imaginatively imitated the look of a newsreel,” the film critic Stuart Klawans wrote in The New York Times in 2004, “although Welles had pulled the trick only for the ‘March of Time’ segment of ‘Citizen Kane,’ whereas Mr. Pontecorvo kept up his illusion for 123 minutes.”The movie won the Golden Lion in Venice, that festival’s top award, and in 1967 it was chosen to kick off the New York Film Festival. It was nominated for Oscars for best foreign language film, screenplay and director.The movie has been studied over the years both by militant groups like the Black Panthers and by the Pentagon. Mr. Yacef, who later in life served as a senator in Algeria’s national assembly, readily acknowledged that orders he had issued resulted in many deaths, but he drew a distinction between actions committed in the cause of liberation and the actions of more recent groups in exporting terrorism. He had particular disdain for suicide bombings, a tactic his resistance fighters did not employ.“The fight gave meaning to our lives,” he said in 2007. “We weren’t in it to die.” More

The two women are joining Zando, an independent publishing company founded last year that plans to work with authors and sell books in unconventional ways.When Gillian Flynn submitted her novel “Gone Girl” to her publisher, Crown, she wasn’t sure what executives would make of the story’s twists and its churlish, unreliable female narrator.“We knew it was weird and complex and risky,” said Molly Stern, who was publisher of Crown at the time. “We also knew that it was a masterpiece.”“Gone Girl” became a blockbuster, selling millions of copies, inspiring a film adaptation starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike and creating a booming market for psychological thrillers featuring unstable women.Now Flynn and Stern, who left Crown three years ago, are teaming up again. Flynn is joining Zando, the publishing company that Stern started last year — not as a writer, but as a publisher with her own imprint, Gillian Flynn Books. Flynn will acquire and publish fiction as well as narrative nonfiction and true crime. (Her next novel, which she is currently writing, will be published by Penguin Random House.)“The industry is a harder place to break into. Everyone wants something that feels like a sure thing,” Flynn said in an interview. “What attracted me was that ability to give people what I got, which was a chance in the market. So now I get a chance to champion writers who are a little bit different.”“What attracted me was that ability to give people what I got, which was a chance in the market,” said the “Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn, who is starting the imprint Gillian Flynn Books.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesAlong with Flynn, Zando has brought on the screenwriter, producer and actor Lena Waithe, who will start an imprint dedicated to publishing “emerging and underrepresented voices,” including memoirs, young adult titles and literary fiction. As the company’s first founding publishing partners, Flynn and Waithe will each acquire and publish four to six books over a three-year period, and will be involved in marketing and promoting the books to their own fan bases.Flynn and Waithe both have built considerable followings and shown themselves to be versatile in different mediums. In addition to writing the screen adaptation of “Gone Girl,” Flynn was an executive producer on the adaptation of her 2006 novel, “Sharp Objects” and was the creator and showrunner of the TV show “Utopia.”Waithe is also a Hollywood powerhouse. After winning acclaim for her work as a writer and actor on “Master of None,” becoming the first Black woman to win an Emmy for comedy writing, Waithe wrote and produced the movie “Queen & Slim” and created the television series “The Chi” and “Twenties.”Stern and Waithe met in 2017, when Stern asked if she wanted to work on a book.“Molly was trying to get me to write a book, and I just didn’t want to,” Waithe said in an interview.She was more enthusiastic about the possibility of publishing other people’s books. When Stern asked her about working with Zando, Waithe developed the idea for an imprint, Hillman Grad Books, which she will lead with Rishi Rajani and Naomi Funabashi, executives at Waithe’s production company, Hillman Grad.“Our mission is to introduce people to authors they may not have otherwise heard of,” Waithe said.At a moment of accelerating consolidation in the publishing industry, Zando, an independent company, is something of an outlier. It will likely publish fewer than 30 titles a year and invest heavily in marketing those books, rather than acquiring many more and hoping a few break out, as most corporate publishing houses do.“I’m hoping we can have a force multiplier effect on books that would have sold modestly or wouldn’t have been a priority at a large publishing house,” Stern said. “Now there will be air around them.”“Our mission is to introduce people to authors they may not have otherwise heard of,” Lena Waithe said of her imprint, Hillman Grad Books.Ike Edeani for The New York TimesLike Hollywood studios, mainstream corporate publishers are increasingly reliant on blockbusters to drive profits, and have grown more risk averse when it comes to promoting new writers. Those authors are struggling more than ever to find their audience in today’s algorithm-driven marketplace, which favors recognizable brands and books that are already selling.Celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Jenna Bush Hager and Emma Watson can provide boosts through their book clubs, but those kinds of plugs are the publicity equivalent of lightning strikes — powerful but rare. Zando’s model attempts to reverse-engineer the process by recruiting cultural influencers to select the books.To combat what she called a “crisis” of discoverability, Stern is bringing on high-profile publishing partners, which will include businesses and brands as well as celebrities, to promote books to their own fans and customers. Zando’s partners will get a cut of the profits, though Stern declined to say how much.Zando received a significant start-up investment from Sister, an independent global studio founded in 2019 by the media executive Elisabeth Murdoch, the film industry executive Stacey Snider and the producer Jane Featherstone. Zando’s print books will be distributed by Two Rivers, a distributor run by Ingram, but Zando also plans to experiment with unconventional channels like direct to consumer sales.In addition to its imprints, Zando has its own editorial team making acquisitions. Its first batch of books, due out next spring, is heavy on fiction, including “The Odyssey,” a novel by Lara Williams that takes on consumer capitalism; Steve Almond’s debut novel, “All the Secrets of the World,” set in 1980s Sacramento; and Samantha Allen’s “Patricia Wants to Cuddle,” about contestants on a dating TV show, which is billed as a “queer Grendel for the Instagram era.” More

Freedom, Maine, population 722, is about as far away from Hollywood as you can get. So when Erin French, who runs the uber-popular Lost Kitchen there, had boldface names flocking to her virtual doorstep looking to buy the film rights to her best-selling memoir, she approached them with a lot of trepidation and a bit of awe.“It was intense,” Ms. French said of the experience of selling her personal story of food, addiction and abuse, told in the 2021 book “Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story; Remaking a Life From Scratch.” “Here you are, sitting in the middle of nowhere, a girl who felt like she had grown up a nobody, and then all of a sudden you’re having Zoom calls with Blake Lively. It was definitely a wild time.”In addition to Ms. Lively, Ms. French and her husband, Michael Dutton, met with others like MGM and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment. In the end, Ms. French and Mr. Dutton sold the rights to Bruna Papandrea and her four-year-old company, Made Up Stories. The couple said they were won over by Ms. Papandrea’s passion for the project, her clear vision of how to turn it into a movie and her track record for finding the right talent for projects.“We’re heading into what’s referred to as ‘Shark Territory,’ getting into this whole world of Hollywood-ness,” said Ms. French, “and we felt like Bruna’s a fighter and Bruna was going to always protect us and keep pushing forward.”Erin French, center, sold the rights to her book to Ms. Papandrea, who she felt had a clear vision of how to turn her story into a movie.Stacey Cramp for The New York TimesFor decades, Ms. Papandrea, 50, toiled in the entertainment business shadows of more famous collaborators, most notably Reese Witherspoon. Together, they produced hit adaptations like “Wild,” “Big Little Lies” and “Gone Girl.”With Made Up Stories, though, Ms. Papandrea has stepped firmly into the spotlight. Her latest series, “Nine Perfect Strangers,” which stars Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy and concludes Wednesday, is Hulu’s most-watched original series, according to the streaming service, beating the audience numbers for acclaimed shows like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Act.” Like “Big Little Lies,” it was adapted from a book by Liane Moriarty.The show’s success, according to those involved, is proof of Ms. Papandrea’s tenacity. “She’s hard to say no to,” said Craig Erwich, president of Hulu Originals and ABC EntertainmentShut down in Los Angeles by the pandemic, Ms. Papandrea and her team quickly shifted the entire production to Byron Bay in New South Wales, Australia. Ms. Papandrea persuaded the brand-new Soma meditation retreat to open its doors to the production before opening to the public.“I was like, listen, I made a show called ‘Big Little Lies,’ I’m telling you it just makes your property more, it brings it a lot of attention,” she said with her clipped Australian accent.Sitting outside at a beach cafe in Santa Monica, Calif., last month, Ms. Papandrea spoke with a machine gun cadence, dropping words at the ends of sentences as she toggled between topics. It’s a pace mirroring the frenetic schedule she’s managing as she prepares some seven productions for five streaming platforms — all movies or television shows centered on complicated female protagonists.In the next year alone she will debut one movie and two television shows for Netflix, including the long-gestating adaptation of the best-selling novel “Luckiest Girl Alive”; a series for Spectrum Originals and BET on women’s college basketball; an anthology series for Apple TV+ titled “Roar”; an Amazon original series starring Sigourney Weaver; and a romantic comedy series for Peacock that stars Josh Gad and Isla Fisher.Melissa McCarthy stars in “Nine Perfect Strangers,” a series on Hulu by Made Up Stories.Vince Valitutti/Hulu, via Associated PressIt is a sign of how Ms. Papandrea, known for her penchant for finishing novels in one sitting, is uniquely suited for a moment in the entertainment industry when the number of major companies able to buy content is shrinking but the need for compelling shows that will draw audiences continues to grow.“I’m watching it all curiously because it doesn’t matter what network you run or what streaming platform you head, you have to have curators, you have to have people who have taste,” she said. “The hardest thing in the world is to find something someone wants to make, and that’s my skill.”Ms. Papandrea teamed with Ms. Witherspoon for three years, shepherding projects like “Gone Girl” and “Big Little Lies” to the screen and racking up accolades along the way, including best actress Oscar nominations for both Ms. Witherspoon (“Wild”) and Rosamund Pike (“Gone Girl”). The two went their separate ways in 2017. Ms. Witherspoon formed Hello Sunshine, which was just sold to a new company backed by the investment firm Blackstone Group for $900 million.Ms. Papandrea took the company’s two former employees and with her husband, Steve Hutensky, started Made Up Stories. The company now has 12 employees and offices in Australia and Los Angeles.She attributes the split to the two women wanting different things and having “slightly different tastes.”“Ultimately, she built a big company and I built a big company,” she said with a chuckle.Ms. Witherspoon declined to comment for this article.To finance her new operation, Ms. Papandrea sold a passive minority stake in her business to Endeavor Content, the production arm of the entertainment and sports conglomerate Endeavor. The companies also formed a joint venture — renewable every calendar year — that allows both to serve as co-studios on all Made Up Stories television projects and some Made Up Stories films. The two share the economic risk of their entire TV development slate, but Endeavor does not pay for Ms. Papandrea’s overhead costs. She and Mr. Hutensky maintain independence over all creative decisions.Ms. Papandrea, with Reese Witherspoon, produced hit adaptations like “Big Little Lies,” seen here with some of the cast.Christopher Polk/Getty Images for the Critics’ Choice Awards“I just love being independent. I love it,” she said. “This path has given us the freedom and resources to compete in the marketplace for top material and writers, to bet on up-and-coming creators, to find the right path for each project and to choose the best homes for distribution among the many platforms.”Made Up Stories is one of many companies with a partnership with Endeavor Content.“We are platform agnostic, so we can sell her shows and our shows and other people’s shows to any platform,” said Graham Taylor, a co-president of Endeavor Content. “We’ve kind of built a United Artists 100 years later that we supply shows to every outlet.”The job of a producer has never been easily defined. There are those who take on the title simply because they contributed some money along the way. Others, like Ms. Papandrea, work tirelessly from book option all the way to postproduction and marketing to ensure that the promises they made at the beginning of what is an often long and tortuous process will still be met at the end.“It’s a problem. Producing credits are passed out like lollipops,” said David E. Kelley, the prolific writer and producer, who has worked with Ms. Papandrea on five projects including “Nine Perfect Strangers.” “What we just did in ‘Nine Perfect,’ for example, that’s kind of a miracle. Bruna had to blaze so much trail with the government just to get people into the country in order to shoot. It’s hard work, and it’s a lot of work.”Ms. Papandrea works tirelessly from book option all the way to postproduction and marketing.Phillip Faraone/Getty Images For Stella ArtoisMs. Papandrea, the third of four children, was raised by a single mother in a housing commission flat in the working-class neighborhood of Elizabeth, South Australia. She dropped out of college twice: once after starting a commerce law degree at Melbourne University and later bailing on an arts degree at Adelaide University.She tried her hand at acting. That didn’t stick.She then got a job working as the assistant to the Australian cinematographer Dion Beebe, an opportunity that led her first to being a producer of commercials and then films. Her big break, she said, came when she started working for the directors Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack.The job took her to London and then to Los Angeles, where she learned the art of adaptation from two of the best in the business.According to Ms. Papandrea, Mr. Minghella hired her because she was smart and she made him laugh. He taught her how to treat creative people with respect and to never work with anyone she didn’t want to have a meal with.She held on to those early lessons and has vowed to pay it forward by hiring only young talent with no Hollywood connections.“When we hire people now, we make sure they’ve had no access to the business. We won’t hire someone off a desk,” she said. “We try and find people who have come up with no experience, because how else do you break those people in?”Jessica Knoll was one such author. Ms. Papandrea worked with her to turn her novel “Luckiest Girl Alive” into a feature film. The two first came together seven years ago, just after “Wild” was made. But executive shuffles, changing tastes and other challenges kept the film in development for years. All the while, Ms. Papandrea stuck with Ms. Knoll as the film’s only writer — a feat in modern-day Hollywood.“She was just so fierce in terms of how much she championed writers and how much she protected them and their stories,” said Ms. Knoll, who had never written a screenplay before adapting her own and recalls Ms. Papandrea giving her Mr. Minghella’s memoir “Minghella on Minghella” and coaching her through the process.“I want to be in business with her forever. The room is a brighter room when Bruna Papandrea is in it.” More

Mr. Johnson, whose other film credits include “House Party” and “Menace II Society,” died on Sept. 6, his agent said.Anthony Johnson, an actor and comedian known for small but memorable roles in “Friday,” “House Party” and about two dozen other movies, died on Sept. 6. He was 55.His death, in a hospital in Los Angeles County, Calif., was confirmed by his agent, LyNea Bell, and the county medical examiner’s office; neither specified a cause.Mr. Johnson is perhaps best known for playing Ezal, a drug addict and thief who unintentionally interrupts a heist, in the 1995 movie “Friday,” starring Ice Cube. Mr. Johnson’s other film credits, sometimes as A.J. Johnson, include “House Party” (1990), “Menace II Society” (1993) and “B.A.P.S.” (1997).Mr. Johnson was born on Feb. 1, 1966, and grew up in Compton, Calif.“If you made it out of Compton, you can make it anywhere,” he said in a 2018 interview with VladTV. “You had to be really careful and watch yourself back in them days.”In a 2013 interview for a YouTube series called “Conversations of an Actor,” Mr. Johnson said his father, Eddie Smith, was a stuntman who worked with Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall and other stars. His father, he said, helped him get his start in the industry by getting him involved in work behind the scenes.“He told me whenever I’m on camera to always stand out, to do something on camera to make people remember me,” Mr. Johnson said in the 2018 interview.In the 2013 interview, Mr. Johnson said he had never taken an acting class.“It’s, like, real easy to act,” he said. “You just put yourself in the situation that you’re not in but you really want to be in.”Mr. Johnson’s survivors include his wife, Lexis, and three children, as well as a brother, Edward Smith, and a sister, Sheila.As the news of Mr. Johnson’s death spread on Monday, actors and performers shared memories and brief appreciations on social media. Ice Cube described Mr. Johnson on Twitter as a “naturally funny dude.”The rapper and actor Shad Moss, who is also known by his stage name, Bow Wow, credited Mr. Johnson with helping to set his career in motion. In a video on Instagram, he said that Mr. Johnson had been serving as the M.C. on the 1993 Chronic Tour, headlined by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, when he picked Mr. Moss out of the crowd and invited him backstage.“If it wasn’t for A.J. Johnson’s eyes, and then picking me out of the crowd out of 20,000 people in Ohio, I don’t think there would have ever been a Bow Wow,” he said. “You will truly be missed, and you’re definitely going to go down in history as one of the greatest.”In addition to performing standup comedy and acting in movies, Mr. Johnson said in 2013 that he had also appeared in plays, and expressed a desire to return to the stage.“It’s like doing standup,” he said. “I love it. I love the theater. That’s where I’m going back.”Mr. Johnson said that Robin Harris, an actor and comedian who also appeared in “House Party,” had helped him early in his career, including by giving one of his first shots at doing standup.“I did about three minutes and got booed,” Mr. Johnson said in the 2013 interview. “He told me to go home and make up some jokes. I came back, and the rest is history.” More

Notre critique évalue les chances et les attentes du film à l’approche de la saison des grands prix de cinéma. Aux USA, le film sort le mois prochain à la fois en salle et en streaming.The New York Times traduit en français une sélection de ses meilleurs articles. Retrouvez-les ici.L’épice doit couler. Mais le public sera-t-il au rendez-vous ?Le film très attendu de Denis Villeneuve a été projeté en avant-première à la Mostra de Venise le 3 septembre. C’était un choix de lieu inattendu pour le lancement d’une franchise de science-fiction qui aura coûté près de 160 millions de dollars — mais “Dune” n’a rien d’une locomotive de studio ordinaire.C’est un objet cinématographique plus étrange et onirique, une oeuvre effrontément à cheval entre un film d’auteur et un blockbuster de studio, de telle façon que même après l’avoir vu, je ne peux pas prédire quel succès il rencontrera à sa sortie en salle (aux USA et sur HBO Max le 22 octobre). A l’issue de la projection, le premier critique à qui j’ai parlé était conquis. Un autre a fui la salle comme si Villeneuve y avait posé une bombe.Pourtant, après une décennie de films Marvel réalisés avec moultes prouesses techniques mais sans grand risque formel, c’est stimulant de voir un film de cette envergure prendre de tels risques artistiques. Trois questions me trottent dans la tête depuis cette séance à Venise.‘Dune’ percera-t-il au grand écran?‘Dune’ a beau être fondé sur le grand classique de science-fiction par Frank Herbert, ses adaptations sont loin d’avoir enflammé les foules. Celle de David Lynch en 1984 est un célèbre fiasco que le cinéaste lui-même a désavoué. Quant aux deux adaptations en mini-séries, elles auront plutôt marqué par les lentilles de contact bleues déjantées qu’y porte un jeune James McAvoy que pour avoir inspiré quelque réaction significative dans le monde de la pop-culture.Mais ‘Dune’ a les reins solides, et ils ont supporté beaucoup depuis la publication du roman en 1965. Il a inspiré tant de films que les gfrands traits du récit nous sont désormais familiers : un jeune homme (joué ici par Timothée Chalamet) est envoyé sur une planète exotique où l’on exploite une ressource naturelle précieuse — en l’occurrence la fameuse “épice” hallucinogène — mais décide finalement de prendre le parti des autochtones et de lutter contre leurs oppresseurs archi-militarisés.C’est à peu de choses près l’intrigue d’ “Avatar”, direz-vous… et c’est peut-être tant mieux ! “Avatar” a pulvérisé les records, et si Chalamet est novice dans ce type de rôle, Villeneuve l’a entouré d’un casting de vétérans : Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista et Josh Brolin sont des vétérans de l’univers des super-héros, Oscar Isaac est frais émoulu de la trilogie “Star Wars” et Rebecca Ferguson tient le rôle principal dans l’adaptation de “Mission : Impossible”. Si tant de films à succès ont emprunté à “Dune”, ce n’est que justice que “Dune” leur emprunte en retour.En dépit de son pedigrée, “Dune” fait cependant face à des obstacles de taille. Le tournage s’est terminé il y a plus de deux ans et la sortie programmée d’abord pour novembre 2020 a été reportée d’environ un an par Warner Bros. Ce délai réservait l’espoir que “Dune” voit le jour dans une ère post-Covid; en réalité, les ravage continus du variant Delta font trembler les studios au point de repousser à 2022 la sortie de quelques films majeurs — comme “Top Gun : Maverick”.D’une certaine manière, ce n’est peut-être pas si mal pour “Dune” : avec moins de blockbusters de marque sur le marché, le film a plus de chance de sortir du lot et d’attirer les amateurs de grand spectacle. Mais aux USA, à la consternation de Villeneuve, le film sortira sur HBO en même temps qu’il ouvrira en salles, menaçant ainsi de rogner sur les recettes du box-office et de torpiller les chances qu’une suite du film voit le jour.Cela pourrait aussi affecter le buzz de départ : le public qui verra “Dune” en salle se sentira certainement plus immergé dans le film (avec les sensations sonores et visuelles qu’il dispense), tandis que les non-initiés ou les curieux qui arrivent sur HBO Max au moyen d’un simple clic seront forcément moins sensibles à la mise en scène de Villeneuve. La première séquence d’action de taille — l’attaque d’un ver des sables géant — n’arrive qu’au bout d’une heure. Les spectateurs à domicile seront-il aussi disposés à aller jusqu’au bout du film que ceux qui ont fait l’effort de payer leur place en salle?Timothée Chalamet et Rebecca Ferguson dans “Dune.”Chiabella James/Warner Bros.Comment “Dune” sera-t-il reconnu aux Oscar?Une des choses partciulièrement frappante de “Dune” est le sens de la texture qu’a Denis Villeneuve, à contrario d’autres réalisateurs de films à gros budget. Quand un personnage tombe lors d’une bataille, c’est le battement des cils du mourant qui le fascine. Durant l’assaut donné sur un retranchement, la caméra se détourne de l’action pour nous montrer de magnifiques palmiers en flammes, leurs couronnes de feuilles rayonnant de puissance destructrice.Même si les jurys des Oscars ne sont d’habitude pas très friands de films de science-fiction, je soupçonne que ce regard si particulier de Villeneuve distinguera “Dune”, car le film est indéniablement envoûtant. Il est sûr de s’attirer une tonne de nominations secondaires, dont pour la photographie de Greig Fraser et pour les décors de Patrice Vermette. La musique de Hans Zimmer, le son et le montage sont tous bien plus audacieux que ce que le genre nous offre d’habitude : les effets sonores et les plans en coupe semblent élaborés pour vous mettre en transe comme sous l’emprise de l’épice.Et je n’en suis pas encore aux costumes ! Leur design (par Jacqueline West et Bob Morgan) est étourdissant, surtout pendant la première heure du film. Avec Rebecca Ferguson en nonne de l’espace habillée de fourreaux extravagants, et Charlotte Rampling voilée en Jean-Paul Gaultier telle le Chevalier vert, “Dune” a des airs de défilé de haute-couture où passent à l’occasion des vaisseaux spatiaux — et pour moi c’est une bonne chose.“Blade Runner 2049” , le dernier film de Villeneuve, s’est vu décerner 5 nominations aux Oscars et un Academy Award mérité de longue date à son chef opérateur Roger Deakins. Mais il n’a pas pu percer dans les deux catégories d’excellence des Oscars — meilleur film et meilleur réalisateur. Est-ce que “Dune” a de meilleures chances d’y réussir?Je botte en touche et opte pour le ‘wait-and-see’. Aucun des acteurs de “Dune” ne semble avoir de chance d’être nominé, ce qui aurait accru la légitimité du film auprès des membres du jury. Ajoutons qu’une nomination pour le meilleur scénario adapté n’est pas non plus certaine. En même temps, après une année 2020 relativement confidentielle, je pense que l’Académie souhaitera voir un film de grande envergure sélectionné pour le prix du meilleur film. Et le combat qu’a mené Villeneuve pour que son film passe sur grand écran trouvera écho après des jurés réfractaires au streaming, pour lesquels son obstination est une croisade digne d’être soutenue.Le réalisateur Denis Villeneuve, au centre, à la Mostra de Venise entouré du casting de “Dune”. De gauche à droite: Javier Bardem, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac et Josh Brolin.Yara Nardi/ReutersY aura-t-il un “Dune : 2ème partie” ?Les spectateurs qui s’attendent à l’expérience complète risquent une déconvenue à la lecture du titre : il ne s’agit pas de “Dune”, mais de “Dune : 1ère partie”.Villeneuve a grosso modo coupé le roman d’Herbert en deux, avec pour conséquence que la trajectoire des personnages principaux ne s’esquisse que vers la fin du film. Et si la promotion du film suggère que Zendaya est le premier rôle féminin, c’est plutôt Rebecca Ferguson qui occupe le récit. Exceptées quelques visions d’anticipation de l’avenir, Zendaya ne contribue pas encore de façon déterminante à l’histoire.Denis Villeneuve compte bien livrer “Dune” en deux parties et travaille déjà au scénario de la suite. Mais la Warner Bros n’a toujours pas donné son feu vert. Le studio a déjà tenté l’expérience d’une adaptation en deux parties avec “Ça” de Stephen King, mais les films sont sortis à deux ans d’écart alors qu’un projet de suite pour “Dune” prendrait vraisemblablement bien plus longtemps à monter. (Le studio se soucie peut-être aussi du fait que le “Ça: Chapitre II” a rapporté, au niveau international, quelque 250 000 dollars de moins que le premier film, malgré une pléthore de stars à l’affiche.)Peut-être la Warner opte-t-elle aussi pour le ‘wait and see’, l’œil sur le box-office avant de donner le top de départ d’un second “Dune”. Mais avec la concurrence du streaming accentuée en temps de pandémie, les critères de succès ont pris une tournure nouvelle. Étant donné que HBO Max prépare une série dérivée sur les Bene Gesserit — un ordre clandestin et exclusivement féminin comptant les personnages de Charlotte Rampling et de Rebecca Ferguson — je m’étonne que le studio ne s’engage pas fermement sur une suite, ne serait-ce que pour favoriser une dynamique en amont de la sortie du film.Cela signalerait en outre clairement au public que le récit est encore inachevé à la fin de ce “Dune”, lequel passe par deux pics d’intensité avant d’atterrir en douceur pour un dénouement quelque peu amorti. Villeneuve n’est pas avare de teasing: on entrevoit beaucoup d’événements majeurs à venir, comme si le film était impatient d’entrer dans le vif du sujet. Combien de temps devra durer cette attente ? More

To transform the actress into the title televangelist of “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” it took a little faith and a lot of artists.Jessica Chastain spent years pursuing the opportunity to play Tammy Faye Messner, the indefatigable star of Christian broadcasting. Better known to an audience of millions as Tammy Faye Bakker, she and Jim Bakker, her husband at the time, presided over the popular PTL television ministry until they were brought down in the late 1980s by financial and sex scandals.So when Chastain finally got that chance in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” a new biopic co-starring Andrew Garfield as Jim Bakker and directed by Michael Showalter, she was determined to look the part. As Chastain said of the woman behind her character: “She never really did anything halfway. She didn’t have an ounce of being cool or being aloof about her. So I just felt like I couldn’t dip my toe in or be cool and aloof in the performance. I had to jump in the most wild, extreme way. Because that’s how she lived every moment.”Chastain had done her own research for the film, which Searchlight Pictures released on Friday: she sought out magazine articles about Messner, who died in 2007, as well as old photographs and TV appearances. But making that transformation required a team of makeup, hair and wardrobe artists. Some of them had worked with Chastain before and they knew what they would be expected to deliver. “It’s basically what she says she wants,” said the hairstylist Stephanie Ingram, adding, “At that point you’ve just got to make it happen.”Here, Chastain and several of the artists who worked on “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” talk about how they were able to fill the TV personality’s shoes (not to mention her wigs, sequins and acrylics).ProstheticsJustin Raleigh, the film’s prosthetic makeup designer, and his team faced a twofold challenge. First, designing prosthetics (artificial skin appliances made of gel-filled silicone) that struck the right balance between character and performer: “Jessica wanted to be lost within the role and to really embody Tammy without completely obliterating Jessica as well,” Raleigh said. “We had a really careful dance of how much prosthetics we were going to use or not.” Second, creating consistent looks that would build up to Bakker in her most recognizable eras: “Working in reverse, once we established what we had to do for the 1980s and ’90s, the only way to make the rest of it work would be to add prosthetics to her younger look,” Raleigh explained. “We had to keep that level of continuity, anatomically speaking, throughout the entire film.”During the 1960s and ’70s, Chastain wore prosthetics on her cheeks, an appliance on her chin (to cover a dimple) and tape to pull up the tip of her nose. In scenes set in the ’80s, she added a body suit, a full neck prosthetic and an appliance on her upper lip; for the ’90s she added eye bags. Throughout, Raleigh said, “The cheeks were the hallmark element that had to carry all the way through.”Kelly Golden, center, the lead prosthetic applicator, and Justin Raleigh, the prosthetic makeup designer, work on Chastain before filming.Daniel McFadden/Searchlight PicturesTammy Faye Baker got bolder with her makeup as she got older, and so did the screen version.Daniel McFadden/Searchlight PicturesMakeupFor all the cosmetics that Messner wore — and as much as she was ridiculed for it — members of the makeup team said they wanted to avoid mockery. “It was just really making sure that nothing we did compromised the authenticity of who she was and that we never crossed a line into a caricature,” said the makeup artist Linda Dowds, who has worked with the actress on 15 movies, beginning with the 2013 horror film “Mama.”Dowds, who headed the makeup department on “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” said there always had to be a “beauty element” in how the character used makeup: “She absolutely loved makeup and she loved looking the way she did in makeup. She just got bolder with it.”Pink was a prominent color in her youthful palette, but over time, her coloring got darker and she tattooed her eyeliner, eyebrows and lip liner (recreated with marker on Chastain). “We also had a lot more lashes to deal with — we went from one coat of mascara to four or five,” Dowds said. “She would say things in interviews like, ‘Who said you can’t put mascara on false lashes? Where do these rules come from? You don’t have to be dowdy to be Christian.’”CostumesTo build a wardrobe for the onscreen Tammy Faye, the film’s costume designer, Mitchell Travers, had to get into her character, too: “Honestly, I went shopping like Tammy did,” Travers said. “She had an expression where she would say that shopping was her favorite cardio. And she was a woman who loved the hunt.”He scoured swap meets and estate sales, shopped on Etsy and at T.J. Maxx, in search of clothes for a woman who wanted to look powerful even before she could afford to and who later had access to money, then lost it.“I could tell the story of what it was like to be comfortable with money and almost forget that things had prices,” Travers said. “And I could also tell the story of what it was like to have lost it all and the pressure to live up to that persona when you didn’t have the funds.”At her 1980s zenith, the character’s apparel looked new and everything about it was big: the shoulder pads, the clip-on earrings, the polka dots. And for Tammy Faye’s post-PTL life, Travers said, he tried to reuse earlier looks he’d already assembled, “so that you get the sense that it’s a woman holding onto something that used to be there but it’s not coming as easily.”The costumes were intended to reflect Tammy Faye’s growing comfort with money.Fox Searchlight PicturesHairGetting Chastain’s hair to look like Tammy Faye’s memorable tresses required no less than 11 wigs: brunette ones for her youth; big blond ones for her heyday in the ’80s and red ones for her later years — even a removable wig with a built-in headband that Chastain could pull off to reveal the character’s short, spindly locks (in fact, another wig). And don’t assume that Stephanie Ingram, head of the film’s hair department and another veteran of many Chastain projects, simply found these wigs on a store shelf.“It’s funny because people say, ‘You take ’em out of the box, you put ’em on,’” Ingram said. “I’m like, mmm, no, you don’t.” Some wigs were colored and fit to Chastain’s specifications and others were made custom for her. A given day on set could also call for five to 10 more stylists to provide period hair for the rest of the cast. Near the end of the shoot, when Tammy Faye asks for a divorce from her husband, Ingram said, “I just fell apart. I guess my body just went, oh my God, you actually did it.”PerformancePlaying a role under many layers of wigs, clothing, makeup and silicone was a largely new process for Chastain. She said her closest previous experience was portraying the dowdy heroine in a Broadway production of “The Heiress,” on which she didn’t have the benefit of such a large artistic team: “I had a prosthetic nose, which I applied myself,” she said. “So I have the utmost respect for what they do. Because it was really hard.”Turning herself into Tammy Faye each day could sometimes take as long as five to seven hours, even before any filming started, but Chastain said that lengthy preparation at least offered her the additional time to connect with her character. “When you sit in a chair for that long it can be draining,” Chastain said. “I was constantly watching videos of her, listening to her voice. I was using it as a runway. Sometimes when you’re playing a character, you get a 30-minute runway, and then you take off and you’re shooting. My character had an extra-long runway.” More