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      Mae West Vamped and Winked. She Also Blazed a Trail We’re Still Following.

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      New editions of her early films reveal a screenwriter with a deep interest in lives on the margins. That was just one reason the censors couldn’t abide her.Mae West is fourth-billed in her film debut, the 1932 melodrama “Night After Night,” and she doesn’t appear until the 37-minute mark. But it’s an unforgettable entrance. We first hear her whiskey-soaked voice purring, from behind a wall of ogling men, “Now why don’t you guys be good and go home to your wives?” The men part like the Red Sea to reveal the blonde bombshell, poured immaculately into her gown and sparkling with jewelry.Within her first minute onscreen, she has tossed off one of her signature lines, as a coat check girl coos, “Goodness, what beautiful diamonds,” and West replies, slyly, “Goodness had nothin’ to do with it, dearie!” West didn’t just take over the movie — she took over the movies, period.In recent years, film historians, archivists and programmers have cast a long overdue spotlight on the earliest female auteurs, resulting in such indispensable efforts as the “Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers” box set from Kino Lorber; the documentary “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché”; and fresh releases and reappraisals of works by Ida Lupino, Lois Weber and Dorothy Arzner. But West is rarely mentioned among those groundbreakers, still regarded solely (alongside contemporaries like the Marx Brothers and her onetime co-star W.C. Fields) as a comedian, starring in entertaining if interchangeable roughhouse Paramount comedies of the 1930s.West making her screen debut in “Night After Night.”Kino LorberThe simplest explanation for this exclusion is that West did not direct her own pictures. But she wrote them, often adapting her own plays, a rarity among female performers of the era. And while marquee directors helmed her films (including Leo McCarey, Henry Hathaway and Raoul Walsh), none put their personal stamp on them as she did. A close examination of her first nine films, all released between 1932 and 1940 (and all newly available on Blu-ray, via KL Studio Classics) reveals recurring themes and concerns beyond even the considerable achievement of creating and cultivating her iconic comic persona.In “I’m No Angel” (1933), West is advertised as a “Marvel of the Age,” and that’s as good a description as any. Born Mary Jane West in Brooklyn, daughter of a prizefighter turned private investigator, she began performing in talent competitions as a child and hit the vaudeville stage in her early teens, eventually graduating to burlesque shows and Broadway revues. But West’s career didn’t take off until she began writing, producing and directing her own Broadway vehicles: lurid comic melodramas with attention-grabbing titles like “Pleasure Man,” “The Constant Sinner” and, simply and most memorably, “Sex.”West was pushing 40 when she made that memorable debut in “Night After Night,” and she came to the screen with her comic personality fully intact. Her first starring vehicle, “She Done Him Wrong,” was based on her Broadway hit “Diamond Lil.” It paired her with a handsome young unknown named Cary Grant, with whom she re-teamed for “I’m No Angel” later that year. Alas, the year in question was 1933, the final stretch of Hollywood’s pre-Code era, so named because of the still-scant enforcement the Hays Code, which was intended as a strict set of moral guidelines — for characters in motion pictures and for the actors who played them.West opposite Cary Grant  in “She Done Him Wrong,” based on her Broadway hit “Diamond Lil.”Kino LorberIndeed, “She Done Him Wrong” and “I’m No Angel” could only have been made — and Mae West, thus, could only have become a star — in the pre-Code era. The women she played were not just sexually independent; they were sexually voracious, unapologetic in their appetites (and their forthrightness about them). Such women were otherwise uncommon onscreen in the 1930s, and frankly, are still far from the norm.She got away with it (for a time) by wrapping her sexuality in a comic character. But when enforcement of the Code cranked up in 1934, West — whose two 1933 films were among the year’s biggest hits — topped the list of targets, and her screenplays were subjected to such scrutiny that her persona was all but defanged. Even slicing her dialogue couldn’t “clean up” a West picture, though; she had merely to wrap her suggestive voice around a line or to insert a little moan or a suggestive eye roll to make the most innocent piece of dialogue sound filthy.But she was always vamping with a wink and taking pains to include her audience on the gag. Time after time, West pulled off the neat trick of being sexy and satirizing the very concept of sexiness, pushing her eyebrow raising to the level of parody, exploring and ultimately eradicating the razor-thin line between horny and silly.West’s characters in “I’m No Angel” and other films were sexually independent and unapologetically so.Kino LorberStill, her scripts were never mere clotheslines on which to hang her double entendres. They were snapshots of life on the fringes, where she herself had dwelled: Bowery bars, vaudeville stages and carnivals, filled with gangsters, boxers and drunks. Perhaps because of her proximity to these worlds, she conveys a palpable affection for lowlifes, eccentrics and outcasts. No one thinks of Mae West as a purveyor of social realism, but perhaps people should. Is “I’m No Angel” less worthy of esteem than a social realist drama like “Dead End” simply because it has more laughs?Moreover, the personal preoccupations of her work, easily overlooked at the time, become apparent when viewing the films as a whole. Over and over again, West plays an outsider trying, and often failing, to fit in. Her characters are objects of derision, frequently from local women, hypocritical cops or corrupt politicians, who look down on her because she’s in show business, or because she’s a nouveau riche, or (most of all) because she’s sexual. Whatever the reason, she does not “belong.”Yet, Hays Code or no, women who not only survived as outsiders but thrived remained the central motif of West’s work. It has taken decades for mainstream cinema to catch up with what she was doing in the early 1930s, and while there are scores of possible explanations for West’s current exclusion from the canon, it is entirely possible that they’re the same now as they ever were: that she was a comedian, that she was overtly sexual, that she was fundamentally disreputable. It’s quite possible she’ll forever remain a gate-crasher.On one hand, that’s a shame. On the other, she probably wouldn’t have it any other way. More

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      Taylour Paige on ‘Zola,’ Grace and Being Kinder to Herself

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      For the stripper tale, the actress was mindful of the real Zola’s voice: “We’re in service of the bigger truth, the way we as Black women go through the world.”By her own estimate, Taylour Paige has about 48 voices inside her, at the ready for any situation.“I got an auntie voice, my educated, white-school voice, my high school,” she begins on a video call from Bulgaria, where she’s shooting “The Toxic Avenger.” Before she continues, one of those voices stops to clarify her statement. “When I say ‘white-educated,’ I’m not saying that being white is educated. I’m saying I went to a very white college. I was around a lot of white people, so that was a voice.” Then there was the voice observing her white friends doing wild things “where I’m like, ‘Oh, hell no. You white people are crazy.’”Code-switching — or “assimilating and survival,” as the actress described it — came in handy throughout her portrayal of the title character in “Zola,” the director Janicza Bravo’s new dramedy. In the film, inspired by the real-life Zola’s viral tweet thread, Paige plays a stripper who quickly vibes with Stefani, a white stripper (Riley Keough) with cornrows and a blaccent.“I think Zola was like, ‘OK cool, I got a new friend,’” Paige said. “‘She’s fun. We both hustle.’”But when Stefani whisks Zola to Florida to earn extra money dancing, things slip dangerously out of the latter’s control: there’s a sex-work scheme, an unhinged pimp (Colman Domingo) and other shady dealings. Zola navigates these increasingly chaotic circumstances while sharing her inner dialogue about how disturbing this all is.“I think, ultimately, the tragedy in this film is there’s a betrayal,” the actress said, referring to how Zola’s so-called friend has set her up.Paige, 30, is now known for her acting (her film credits include “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) but growing up in Inglewood, Calif., she was a dancer under the tutelage of Debbie Allen, and later worked as a Los Angeles Laker Girl. She looks back on those years as a self-conscious young woman grappling with “generational self-loathing” with more compassion now. “Because I’ve given myself grace, I have a different availability to the roles that I always wanted. Before I was auditioning for my personality and auditioning for a role. So, everybody was lying.”Paige talked about “Zola” and how it helped her tap into her true identity. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Paige with Riley Keough in “Zola.” The real Zola wasn’t “some ghetto buffoon that just went on Twitter,” Paige said. “She was very strategic.”Anna Kooris/A24Paige, center, appeared opposite Viola Davis and Dusan Brown in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”David Lee/NetflixSince last year, you’ve appeared in several movies — “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Boogie” and now “Zola.” How does it feel to be a bona fide movie star?I’m still this human being trying to figure it out day by day. I’m trying to live my truth in my storytelling and in my life, my spirituality. There’s no stop and start to what I feel like I’m trying to learn as a human.When I hear “breakthrough,” it is like, “OK, but what’s expected of me? What’s expected of Black women?” I just want to be a bridge for what happens when you stay focused and patient and kind and tell the truth.Where does your spirituality come from?I’ve always been a seeker and a philosopher and a deep thinker. Like, “What am I doing here?” Since I was 5, I was very much thinking about death and my existence. My mom had me at almost 40, so it’s a completely different generation and very much fear-based thought. My own insecurities were projected onto me from my mom’s own self-loathing. I just wish I was kinder to myself sooner and I was able to distinguish which voice was mine. Seeing the way my mom asserted herself and lived [affected] me in a good way and a bad way. Because I thought, “Time is ticking, and I have to figure this out.” I’ve changed that fear to “Time is eternal, but what are you going to do with it?”Did playing Zola help you realize anything about how you previously moved around the world in your own body as a dancer?I’ve been dancing since I was really little. I loved it. But I got to an age where there’s pressure and I was tired. I wanted to stop. But I had a scholarship. My mom wouldn’t let me. Your butt all of a sudden is growing and you’re going through puberty, and you need to be super skinny like everybody else.Dance, as much as it was my escape from my home, would start to be something I resented. It started to feel like something I was doing for my mom or because some people thought I was good. I still was involved with Debbie Allen, but I stopped a little bit. With “Zola,” it’s like a return home to the innate ability of shaking that ass. It’s not so technical, so overthought. It’s like a Black girl getting down in her bedroom, but at a club. How do you get back to that without it needing to be perfect? I wanted to undo all that for her and for myself.Paige said she had “Laugh” tattooed on her arm. “When you’re laughing, you’re like, ‘I’m still alive, I’m still here.’”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesDid you have any reservations about how your body would be seen on the screen?I was of course really nervous and scared. Zola is such a force and so comfortable and confident in her body, and I’ve been self-conscious but I have been ready to be like, “Enough with the self-hatred. I’m never going to be this age again. My body works, my heart beats without assistance, I got 10 fingers, 10 toes. I’m just over it.” So I use that.That’s how Zola moved through the world. We’ve talked about how she’s been scared. But she does it anyway because she’s a Black woman and the bills got to be paid. Nobody’s going to do it for you. Also, Janicza was super protective from the jump. Like, “We’re not going to see your boobs.” I was like, “Hey, if it’s the right storytelling.” We show murders and violence on TV. I don’t know what the big hoorah is around boobs and our natural bodies.It does fit into the film’s voyeurism. Zola engages viewers with pithy commentary as her shocking experience unfolds. What was it like telling this kind of story while inside of it?I knew that this movie existed as hyperbolic, that this was Janicza’s interpretation. I don’t mean “interpretation” in a condescending way. But when we are processing and observing something that happened to us, there’s multiple truths. It’s Zola’s interpretation of what happened to her, Janicza’s interpretation from Zola’s brilliant writing. You living through it is different than when you’ve had time to process it and put it on Twitter. So, it’s multiple things happening at once when you’re watching it.Janicza was super clear that I’m the straight man. She treated this like a play or a comedy: there’s a straight man, and there’s a buffoon. Riley is like the minstrel in blackface. I’m observing it, so we don’t need two buffoons for us to be able to take in this type of atmosphere and react to it. You’re watching it through my eyes. So, a lot of my acting in the movie, my dialogue, is in my head.Paige said the director Janicza Bravo was protective when it came to nudity. But the actress was willing to take a chance if it was right for the story: “I don’t know what the big hoorah is around boobs and our natural bodies.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesI imagine it puts some pressure on you to convey the multiple layers of the story in a way that is tongue-in-cheek yet critical at the same time.It was like, “Am I doing enough?” But I get that I’m serving Zola. I’m serving Black women. White women, Black women — it’s satirical, psychological. It’s the systems in place. It’s racism. It’s on a white body. But on a Black body, you don’t really believe her. Even when she’s being gentle and tender, you’re going to question if she’s telling the truth. We’re in service of the bigger truth, the way we as Black women go through the world and the [stuff] that’s put on us. That’s why I thought it was so brilliant, because it was protective of Zola’s voice. Zola isn’t some ghetto buffoon that just went on Twitter. She was very strategic and knew exactly what she was doing and saying.“Zola” is also funny at times. Black women often use humor to protect ourselves, process things. Because of your own experiences, was it easy for you to embrace the comedic moments?I find humor in the most mundane things. Most things, even when they’re bad, are pretty funny. Like, “Wow, life is outrageous. This is ghetto.” I have “Laugh” tattooed on my arm because, man, laugh often. When you’re laughing, you’re like, “I’m still alive, I’m still here.” More

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      ‘White on White’ Review: Problematic Images

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      This striking, slow-burn portrait of a 19th-century Argentine archipelago considers a photographer’s involvement in the horrors of colonialism.Distressingly beautiful and subtly provocative, “White on White,” the slow-burn second feature from the Spanish-Chilean director Théo Court, considers the casual violence of image-making against a 19th-century backdrop of flesh-and-bones barbarism.Set in a grimly frigid and not yet fully colonized stretch of Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina’s southernmost archipelago, a photographer, Pedro (an excellent Alfredo Castro), is contracted to take wedding portraits of Miss Sara (Esther Vega Pérez Torres), a powerful landowner’s child-bride.Pleased with Pedro’s work, the landowner, Mr. Porter — a figure whose continual absence (he never appears onscreen) makes him all the more sinister — has the photographer stay to document his estate and its operations. The most powerful, after all, control the writing of their own histories.When Pedro is discovered to have secretly taken a suggestive photo of Miss Sara, however, his visit is extended indefinitely as he is absorbed into Mr. Porter’s wretched band of employees.Though the drama restages two real-life sets of photographs that inspired Court — Lewis Carroll’s perturbingly erotic portraits of prepubescent young women and the harrowing images of the explorer Julius Popper’s huntsmen standing over the bodies of slaughtered Indigenous people — “White on White” refuses to indulge in spectacular violence.Instead, Court — whose languorous pacing heightens the film’s brief, bewildering moments of action — summons an unsettling experience from relatively restrained gestures: the way Miss Sara’s sleeves are pulled down over her shoulders, delicately eroticizing her figure; a grave mound in the distance after a night of debauchery involving kidnapped Indigenous women.The cinematographer José Ángel Alayón shows us frames within frames that emphasize the limited subjectivity of Pedro’s camera — a comment on the considerations inevitably left out of any artwork — as well as long shots that capture glorious vistas shrouded in fog, both heavenly and hostile. Ultimately, these images remind us of the cruelty embedded in the striving for perfection, aesthetic or otherwise.White on WhiteNot rated. In Spanish and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch on Mubi. More

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      ‘Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over’ Review: A Punk Provocateur Endures

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      Beth B’s documentary tells the story of an iconic underground New York City misfit and her durable career.The musician, writer and spoken-word artist Lydia Lunch is an immediately provocative figure. The name alone, right? Escaping a horrifically abusive home in Rochester, N.Y., at 16, she took one look at the burgeoning 1970s punk rock scene on Manhattan’s Bowery and was determined to both join and upend it.“I had a suitcase and $200,” she recalls in “Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over,” a vigorous documentary directed by Beth B, whose own work as an underground filmmaker began in the same milieu as Lunch’s early efforts. Lunch’s first band was called Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and one of their songs began with Lunch caterwauling, “The leaves are always dead.”Lunch, now 62 — who, when reflecting on her generation, says, “The ’60s failed us” — had other interests, musical and extra-musical. The abundance of her ideas, and her resourcefulness in executing them, enabled a career that’s been a lot more durable than those of many other iconoclasts of her time. Her musings on the condition of womanhood and the failings of conventional feminism are emphatic, to be sure. She asks how women “devolved from Medusa to Madonna” and offers an unusual perspective on the #MeToo movement that finds its rationale in an examination of cycles of abuse.Lunch’s entire aesthetic is centered around trauma: how abusers dispense it, how it is — and how she thinks it ought to be — received, and turned back on the world. This yields any number of anecdotes, including a tale from the musician Jim Sclavunos about how Lunch took his virginity before admitting him into one of her bands.The footage of her on the road with her current band, Retrovirus, shows her mastery of live performance and also highlights her very urban sense of sarcasm; sometimes she suggests no-wave’s answer to Fran Lebowitz.Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never OverNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas. More

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      ‘America: The Motion Picture’ Review: In Bros We Trust

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      The American Revolution gets a frat-style sendup in this irreverent animated comedy.Two nights before signing the Declaration of Independence, George Washington threw a celebratory rager where America’s founding father was said to have rung up a bar tab equivalent to $17,253. Our nation began with a hangover, a fact too factual to be included in “America: The Motion Picture” (streaming on Netflix), a raunchy, aggressively inane cartoon that flips the bird — both onscreen and thematically — to a strain of patriotism that insists that the slave owners who started this country were sober-minded heroes whose vision of democracy remains flawless, bro. “That’s why we make the rules, baby!” bellows Samuel Adams (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas) after a keg stand. Here, to be a privileged white man in America is intoxicating, a truth no less fictional than watching Paul Revere win a “Fast and Furious”-inspired street race that goes “one quarter-mule at a time.”This sacrilegious prank, directed by Matt Thompson and written by Dave Callaham, opens with Abraham Lincoln (Will Forte) getting his throat ripped out by the turncoat (and werewolf) Benedict Arnold (Andy Samberg). Let’s dodge a description of Lincoln’s deathbed flatulence and skip ahead to the plot where Lincoln’s prom date George Washington (Channing Tatum, perfectly himbo-esque) vows revenge on the “fun police,” a.k.a. King James (Simon Pegg), who has constructed a dirigible that will tea-bag the fratty Yanks into submission. What follows is a rowdy sendup of the country’s id. Eagles scream. “Free Bird” wails. Paul Bunyan boxes Big Ben. And in a nod to America’s ill-informed history classes, Washington also stutters his goal to do “something about taxation?”The one-joke premise results in a headache by the time we witness Washington impregnate Martha (Judy Greer) during a montage that includes Old Faithful and a sledgehammer crushing a cherry pie. Squint hard, and the first lady’s buoyant pep and pectorals could charitably be a satire on ideal womanhood. Less subtle are the film’s cheeky rip-offs of “Star Wars” and “The Avengers,” and the inclusion of a reimagined Thomas Edison (Olivia Munn), now a female Chinese immigrant who exists to roll her eyes at the dingbats. Ultimately, Edison decides the country is worth defending anyway. Is it? The fictional ending isn’t sure — and the real ending is yet to be written.America: The Motion PictureNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Caveh Zahedi Has So Many Stories to Tell

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      After plunging into a TV series, a filmmaker low on funds but loaded with rich personal narratives pours them into micro-podcasts.Caveh Zahedi was in a closet in a Brooklyn Heights apartment on a recent Sunday, trying to figure out how to end the story he was telling. He had been talking about a college class he’d taken with the filmmaker Michael Roemer. When Roemer saw Zahedi’s class project, a film titled “Sex and Violence,” he said, “‘I think you need serious help; you really need to be in therapy,’” Zahedi recalled. He cried on the spot when he heard those words. More

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      Rita Moreno: Pathbreaker, Activist and ‘A Kick in the Pants’

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      The actress discusses being the subject of a new documentary, and spending eight-plus decades in the spotlight.Rita Moreno was all of 6 when she made her professional debut, duetting with her Spanish dance instructor on a stage in Greenwich Village. “I remember every detail,” she said. She wore a traditional, resplendently ruffled dress. “We danced a jota — that was a country dance. And we played castanets. My mom let me put on lipstick — I was so thrilled.” It was 1937.For the next eight-plus decades, Moreno, who will turn 90 in December, has found her way to the spotlight. And she is still dancing, as we see in the opening moments of a new documentary, “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It,” which shows her kicking up her strappy heels at her own Cuba-themed birthday party.She also set up the party. “Boy, I hate doing this,” she says in the film, unwrapping silverware by the chafing dishes. “You can tell I’m not a real star, because somebody else would be doing this.”“That’s why you must never really believe anything about your fame,” she continues, with a curse. “It goes up and down.”Moreno, who is Puerto Rican by birth and Hollywood by steely determination, occupies a singular place in the cultural firmament. The joy, and the luck of it, is not lost on her. “I damn near peed my pants!” she told me, describing a rarefied moment in her career. (Irreverence keeps her afloat.) She is indisputably well-crowned: She had minted her EGOT status by 1977, including being the first Latina actress to win an Oscar, for her indelible turn as Anita in “West Side Story.” The trophies haven’t stopped piling up; if there were an EGOT for lifetime achievement awards — Kennedy Center Honors, Presidential Medal of Freedom — she would have earned that too.The actress is the subject of the documentary, “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It.”Act III ProductionsThose accolades were largely for Moreno’s triple-threat talent. What has been less heralded is her depth as a pathbreaker — as a person of color, as a mother (and now grandmother), and as an irrepressible (sometimes ignitable) activist and personality.“She’s obviously an icon for all the noteworthy reasons — but she’s a kick in the pants too,” said Representative Jackie Speier, the California congresswoman and her friend of two decades.And as Moreno’s career propels forward — she will next be seen in Steven Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story,” which she also executive produced — her unorthodox status only grows. There are few compatriots whose longevity stretches from before the studio era (Louis B. Mayer signed her to her first contract, calling her the “Spanish Elizabeth Taylor”) to reboots, the meme age and beyond.For Mariem Pérez Riera, the Puerto Rican filmmaker who directed the documentary, Moreno was foundational. “I’ve known about Rita since I’ve known about movies,” she said.On-screen and off, Moreno is the first to giddily admit that she loves attention. And she wields it expertly, with a burnished supply of boffo Showbiz stories and zingy one-liners, even if she sometimes forgets a word (at her age, “nouns and I have become mortal enemies” — that’s one of the zingers). The bellowing voice that welcomed a latchkey generation with “Hey you guys!” on “The Electric Company” is still supple enough to sing, pull off an accent, and toggle between profane and poetic; she narrated Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir, at the justice’s request, and then they became friends. There is categorically no wilt in her game.“She really is a born performer,” said her daughter, Fernanda Gordon Fisher. “She doesn’t have to try at all, it just happens — that’s her substance, that’s what she needs. It feeds her soul, it feeds her energy.”Moreno, center, in the 1961 film “West Side Story.”United ArtistsAnd in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 version of the film.Niko Tavernise/20th Century StudiosStill, convincing Moreno to do the documentary took nearly a year. “I just didn’t know if I wanted to entrust anyone with my life,” she said. “Because if I was going to do this, I was prepared to be completely truthful.”During the yearlong production, she added, “That’s one of the things I remember reminding myself of: Rita, don’t try to charm the camera.”She agreed to be filmed without makeup — and even more reluctantly, without a wig. She gave the documentary team a key to her home in Berkeley, Calif., so they were there when she woke up, and followed along as she drove herself to the studio for “One Day at a Time,” the sitcom on which she starred as the scene-stealing Cuban grandmother. (Her grandson on the show was played by Pérez Riera’s son, and the documentary was the brainchild of Brent Miller, a producing partner of Norman Lear, the series’ creator.) More

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      Wait, Who’s Fast, Who’s Furious?

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      A guide to the characters and the melodramas in the sprawling, surprisingly complicated “Fast & Furious” franchise.At one point, rather a long time ago now, the “Fast & Furious” movies were about street racing. They do still involve cars moving at breakneck speeds, but only as one component in a blockbuster machine that also routinely includes high-stakes espionage, military-grade shootouts, multimillion-dollar bank heists and villainous schemes for global annihilation. They lately have more in common with James Bond or “Mission: Impossible” than with “Gone in 60 Seconds.”As the movies have gotten bigger and more spectacular, so too has their ensemble swelled and broadened, and with the latest installment, “F9,” the list of marquee names makes “Game of Thrones” look like “Waiting for Godot.” This is made more complicated by the franchise’s tendency to shuffle characters in and out of the troupe without warning or explanation — actors are frequently being written out and then written back in, or killed off, then suddenly resuscitated. It can be very, very hard to keep track of who’s who and what their deal is.With “F9” nitrous-boosting its way into theaters this weekend, here’s a handy cast explainer to get you up to speed.Vin Diesel in “Fast Five.”Jaimie Trueblood/Universal PicturesDominic Toretto (Vin Diesel)The heart of the series, Dom’s a world-weary, Corona-drinking street racer and car hijacker with an obsessive devotion to his family and a fraught relationship to the law. He first appeared in “The Fast and the Furious” (2001, the movie that started it all) as a small-time Los Angeles crook with a heart of gold, and has gradually evolved to become a sort of freelance secret agent and globe-trotting supercop. In “The Fate of the Furious” (2017), it was revealed that he had an infant son.Paul Walker in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesBrian O’Conner (Paul Walker)The original series hero, Brian was a cop going undercover as a street racer to bust Dom and his crew of hijackers. When it came time to make the arrest, Brian chose to let Dom get away, and the two have been like brothers ever since. Paul Walker died in an automobile accident in 2013, but rather than kill him off, the films wrote Brian into peaceful retirement. He was last seen in the closing moments of “Furious 7” (2015) literally riding off into the sunset.Michelle Rodriguez in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesLetty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez)Dom’s wife and partner in crime, Letty was killed at the beginning of the fourth film, “Fast & Furious” (2009), after she ran afoul of a master criminal. In “Fast & Furious 6” (2013), however, she was revealed to have survived the murder attempt after all — though with a serious case of mind-wiping amnesia, which caused her, temporarily, to team up with the bad guys. She saw the error of her ways at the end of that movie, and she’s been back with Dom and company ever since.Tyrese Gibson in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesRoman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson)One of Brian’s childhood friends, Roman was introduced in “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003, the first sequel) as a silver-tongued Lothario who is sensational behind the wheel. Since being called upon for help with a bank heist in “Fast Five” (2011), he’s been a mainstay of Dom’s crew, usually serving as the comic relief.Ludacris in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesTej Parker (Ludacris)Like Roman, Tej first appeared in “2 Fast 2 Furious” and has been a series regular since “Fast Five.” He’s the crew’s gifted computer hacker, handling comms, tech and surveillance, although when necessary, he’s willing to drive or fight. Tej and Roman have a friendly rivalry and tease each other constantly.Dwayne Johnson in “Furious 7.”Scott Garfield/Universal picturesLuke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson)Dwayne Johnson made his debut in “Fast Five” as the brawny Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs, the antagonist striving to foil Dom and his crew’s heist plans. Eventually, Dom and friends won him over to their side, and since “Fast & Furious 6” he’s been their frequent teammate and friend. He most recently appeared in the series spinoff “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” (2019).Jordana Brewster in “Fast Five.”Jaimie Trueblood/Universal PicturesMia Toretto (Jordana Brewster)Dom’s sister, Mia, was Brian’s love interest in “The Fast and the Furious,” and she has continued to accompany him on his adventures. After she gave birth to her first child, in “Furious 7,” she and Brian have been in retirement, and is back for “F9” after being sidelined in “The Fate of the Furious.”Sung Kang in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesHan Lue (Sung Kang)Han, a Korean street racer living in Japan, co-starred in the third film in the series, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” (2006), and was killed in a car crash during the finale. He appeared alive and well in the next three sequels, however, because they evidently took place before the third film chronologically. To add to the confusion, his accidental death was rewritten as a murder in “Furious 7,” using a mix of archival and new footage. And now he is back, alive again, in “F9,” for reasons that are as yet unclear.Gal Gadot in “Fast Five.”Jaimie Trueblood/Universal PicturesGisele Yashar (Gal Gadot)A femme fatale in “Fast & Furious,” Gisele was inducted into the crew in “Fast Five,” when she started a romantic relationship with Han. She died in “Fast & Furious 6,” sacrificing herself to save Han during the action-packed climax. She has not been brought back to life — yet.Nathalie Emmanuel in “F9.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesMegan Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel)A world-renowned super-hacker rescued by Dom and his crew from kidnapping in the middle of “Furious 7,” Ramsey has since become a series regular who helps the team with computer-related problems. Tej and Roman have been steadily competing to win her affections.Lucas Black in “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”John Johnson/Universal PicturesSean Boswell (Lucas Black)The hero of “Tokyo Drift,” Sean is a ne’er-do-well young street racer who hopes to avoid a stint in juvenile detention by shipping out to live with his father in Japan. Other than a brief cameo in “Furious 7,” he hadn’t appeared in a “Fast” movie since, but surprisingly enough, he’s back for “F9.”Kurt Russell in “The Fate of the Furious.”Matt Kennedy/Universal PicturesMr. Nobody (Kurt Russell)A top-secret government agent with seemingly limitless resources, Mr. Nobody hired Dom and his crew to help save the world in “Furious 7” and again in “Fate of the Furious.” Think of him as the M to Dom’s James Bond.2017 FATE OF THE FURIOUSUniversal PicturesDeckard Shaw (Jason Statham)Another villain turned hero, Shaw tried to wipe out Dom’s crew in “Furious 7” before teaming up with them in “The Fate of the Furious.” He last co-starred in the series spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw” and only has a small cameo in “F9.”Helen Mirren in “F9.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesMagdalene Shaw (Helen Mirren)Deckard’s cockney-accented mother, Magdalene, turned up in “The Fate of the Furious” to lend a hand to Dom. She was last seen in “Hobbs & Shaw,” serving time in prison.Luke Evans in “Fast & Furious 6.”Universal PicturesOwen Shaw (Luke Evans)Deckard’s brother, Owen, meanwhile, was the villain terrorizing the crew in “Fast & Furious 6,” hounding them across London before being thrown out of an airplane in mid-takeoff. He survived that fall and came to Deckard’s (and Dom’s) aid in “The Fate of the Furious.”Charlize Theron in “F9.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesCipher (Charlize Theron)Cipher is reputedly the world’s most gifted and terrifying hacker, so much so that even the notorious Anonymous collective is afraid to mess with her. She tries to bring about nuclear war in “The Fate of the Furious,” holding Dom’s baby son hostage and killing the baby’s mother in the process. She returns — apparently as a villain again — in “F9.”John Cena in “F9.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesJakob Toretto (John Cena)A newcomer to the saga. Jakob is Dom’s never-before-mentioned brother, and of course the primary antagonist of “F9.”Elsa Pataky in “Fast & Furious 6.”Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesElena Neves (Elsa Pataky)Dom’s love interest when Letty was presumed dead, Elena was a cop in Rio tapped by Hobbs for assistance in “Fast Five.” She had Dom’s baby, unbeknown to him, and was killed by Cipher shortly after revealing the news to him in “The Fate of the Furious.”Tego Calderon and Don Omar in “Fast Five.”Jaimie Trueblood/Universal PicturesTego and Rico (Tego Calderon and Don Omar)Perennial comic sidekicks Tego and Rico have tagged along on several of Dom’s jobs, and usually turn up once or twice per movie for some pratfalls. More