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      ‘The Last Five Years’ Review: Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren Star in a Muddy Revival

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      Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren star in a muddy revival of Jason Robert Brown’s still-scathing musical.Leave aside its seriousness, its intimacy, its wit. Leave aside, too, its relative obscurity, despite being frequently performed. (Without really trying, I’ve seen it six times, including the 2014 film.) Even apart from any of that, “The Last Five Years,” by Jason Robert Brown, is still the ur-nerdical — nerdical being a term I made up to describe shows, like “Fun Home,” “The Band’s Visit” and “Kimberly Akimbo,” that are too good to stay in the very small theater-geek niche they arose from. Turns out they can speak, and sing, to anyone.What really makes “The Last Five Years,” which debuted Off Broadway in 2002, look like the father of that family of choice, is its baroque structure. Doubling down (and doing a backflip) on reverse-chronology narratives like the ones in “Betrayal” and “Merrily We Roll Along,” it presents the story of Jamie Wellerstein, a suddenly successful young novelist, and Cathy Hiatt, a slowly sinking young actor, in two timelines. Jamie’s moves forward, from the day he falls headlong for Cathy to the day, five years later, he resentfully leaves her. Cathy’s moves backward, from despair over Jamie’s betrayal to exhilaration over the first stirrings of his love.The structure is no mere appliqué, decorating the surface of the show like a doodle. It is how “The Last Five Years” expresses its truth. One arc always going up, one down, there’s sadness waiting whenever there’s joy and joy whenever there’s sadness. Seen alternately in separate scenes, the lovers never touch, let alone share Brown’s pyrotechnical songs, except halfway through, on the day they marry. Whether the story has a happy ending thus depends on how you look at it.Instead of staying out of each other’s scenes, the actors in this production are often thrown together: one singing, one reacting to the song in mime.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut in the show’s first Broadway incarnation, starring the resplendent Adrienne Warren and an underpowered Nick Jonas, the structure (along with the balance) has been compromised. The production, which opened on Sunday at the Hudson Theater, muddies the show’s temporal ironies and flattens its emotional topography. Its meaning and thus its impact are short-circuited.With material so precision-made, it takes just one mistake to do big damage. Instead of keeping the characters out of each other’s scenes as Brown’s libretto indicates, the director, Whitney White, often throws them together: one singing, one reacting to the song in mime. They make faces, make contact and even make out. As a result — follow me with a protractor if you must — each inhabits the other’s arc, thus disturbing their own. The individual timelines no longer track.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Upper West Side Theater Is Sold After Governor Allocates $3.5 Million

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      A nonprofit bought the landmark Metro Theater after receiving financial support from Gov. Kathy Hochul, the State Senate and Steven Spielberg’s foundation.A landmark Art Deco movie theater that closed 20 years ago on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was sold to a nonprofit after it received $3.5 million in discretionary grants from Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York.The nonprofit, the Upper West Side Cinema Center, used those funds and $500,000 in grants from the State Senate to complete its $6.9 million purchase of the Metro Theater on Friday. It plans to revitalize the building, on Broadway near West 99th Street, with a five-screen theater, a lobby lounge and a public cafe.Additional fund-raising of $15 million to $25 million is required to construct a new interior, replace the marquee and clean graffiti from the facade, the nonprofit says.“The Upper West Side community deserves another world-class venue for cinema and art, and that’s why I was proud to step in,” Hochul said in a news release.Assemblyman Micah Lasher, a Democrat who took office in January, grew up going to the Metro Theater and fondly remembers seeing “Ali” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus” there with his family.“Its loss for the last 20 years has been not just an eyesore, but a deeply felt scar for the neighborhood,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Interview’: Bill Murray Says He’s Not the Man He Used to Be

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      In Bill Murray’s new movie, “The Friend,” currently in theaters and based on the beautifully bittersweet novel by Sigrid Nunez, he plays Walter, a writer and professor who is best friends with Iris, played by Naomi Watts. Through an upsetting course of events, Iris, who lives in a modest apartment in Manhattan, winds up having to take in Walter’s Great Dane. Not exactly ideal for her or the dog, and not exactly thoughtful of Walter.Witty and charismatic but also self-centered and responsible for real damage, Walter shares much in common with many of Murray’s late-career roles. I often think of the dramatic parts that he has specialized in since the late ’90s (consider the melancholy men of a certain age in “Rushmore,” “Lost in Translation,” “On the Rocks,” “St. Vincent” and so on) as being akin to alternate-world versions of the comedy characters that made him a star. Because Peter Venkman in “Ghostbusters” or Phil Connors in “Groundhog Day,” to pick just two of his most memorable comedic creations, could also be selfish and mean but, in the end, got away with it. Not so with Walter and his ilk. It’s as if Murray’s latter-day characters are suffering the karmic payback owed to his earlier ones.A similar balancing act — between charm and callousness, buoyancy and bad moods — has surfaced in Murray’s offscreen life too. Yes, he is a globe-trotting avatar of joyful surprise, known for his party crashing and playful high jinks, but directors and co-stars like Geena Davis, Lucy Liu, Richard Dreyfuss and Harold Ramis have said Murray was, to put it very mildly, not easy to work with. And in 2022, a female staff member working on the film “Being Mortal” claimed that Murray, who is 74, behaved inappropriately with her on set. She said that he straddled her and kissed her through masks, which they were wearing as part of Covid-19 protocols. The production was shut down, and eventually they reached a settlement.Given all this, Murray, enigmatic and mercurial, is a hard one to figure out. But on a rainy day in late March, at a hotel in downtown Manhattan, I had a chance to try.Listen to the Conversation With Bill MurrayThe actor talks about his new film “The Friend,” his jerky past and what he doesn’t get about himself.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppYou know, at The Times earlier today, your co-star in “The Friend,” the dog, was having his photo taken. He is a striking dog: 150 pounds, a Great Dane. His name is Bing. Bing! He lives in Iowa, and after a nationwide search he was chosen as the dog of the moment. He wasn’t wearing a tight sweater or anything. He was just the most capable dog. More

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      Pedro Almodóvar Inspires a New Roche Bobois Collection

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      Roche Bobois reintroduces classic pieces that reflect the Spanish filmmaker’s palette.This article is part of our Design special report previewing Milan Design Week.Known for palettes that are as flamboyant as his characters, the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar uses color as an actor with its own dramatic energy. Recently, he teamed up with Roche Bobois, also renowned for its splashy color sense, to modify classic works from the French furniture company’s catalog that will be introduced in Roche Bobois’s Milan showroom during the city’s Design Week.The Lounge sofa, for example, a precursor of the company’s modular Mah Jong seating that was originally designed in 1971 by Hans Hopfer, is being reissued in an edition of 50 for this occasion. Each sofa will feature iconic images from Almodóvar movies and film posters, and will be signed and numbered by the director.Also on view will be the 11-year-old Bubble sofa, designed by Sacha Lakic. Bubble will be shown in four new colors — sky, moss, sun and fiery red — that are heroes of Mr. Almodóvar’s most recent film, “The Room Next Door,” a meditation on friendship and death starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, which was released late last year. (The sofa itself has a cameo in that movie, popping up in a scene set in a gym.)A rendering of Roche Bobois’s updated Lounge sofa, which is being reissued in a limited edition and has the bright colors and iconic images from Almodóvar movies and film posters.A sideboard from Roche Bobois’s Rondo collection has been updated with new door panels featuring designs inspired by film posters and Almodóvar’s own still-life photos. The director also designed rugs and cushions that have movie poster motifs, including the floral pattern representing “Volver” (2006), the heavily mascaraed eyes from “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (1988) and the deadly stiletto signifying “High Heels” (1991).Apart from the limited-edition Lounge sofa, the collection will be available for purchase in mid-September, in Roche Bobois stores.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Best Movies and Shows Coming to Netflix in April: ‘Black Mirror,’ ‘You’ and More

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      “Black Mirror” and “You” are back this month, alongside a bunch of promising new titles.Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of April’s most promising new titles for U.S. subscribers. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)‘Pulse’ Season 1Started streaming: April 3Fans of frenetic, bloody scenes of emergency room traumas have been well served lately, first with the Max hit “The Pitt” and now with Netflix’s new medical drama “Pulse.” Created by Zoe Robyn (who runs the show alongside the veteran writer/producer Carlton Cuse), “Pulse” has Willa Fitzgerald playing Danny, an E.R. resident at a Miami hospital, who is promoted to a position of authority after an H.R. complaint is lodged against a colleague, Xander (Colin Woodell). While trying to rally the skeptical staff in the middle of several escalating crises — including a hurricane and its aftermath — Danny reflects via flashbacks on her messy personal and professional relationship with Xander.‘The Clubhouse: A Year With the Red Sox’Starts streaming: April 8The Boston Red Sox finished the 2024 baseball season at 81-81, missing the playoffs for the third straight year. But they had stretches when they showed real promise, thanks to a core of talented young players like Jarren Duran, Rafael Devers and Brayan Bello. The latest docuseries from the producer and director Greg Whiteley (“Last Chance U,” “Cheer”) covers the Sox’s highs and lows last year, from spring training until game 162. Whiteley is known for getting intimate access to his subjects, and “The Clubhouse” is no exception. Baseball is full of big personalities, and this series gets up close and personal with them. Whiteley’s crew catches the complex preparations that go into every game, along with the mental and emotional struggles modern athletes endure when they make mistakes.‘Black Mirror’ Season 7Starts streaming: April 10Season 6 was a bit of a departure for the satirical science-fiction anthology “Black Mirror,” with more folklore-focused episodes and fewer stories about futuristic technology. Season 7 gets back to basics, with episodes that ask the kind of unsettling, ripped-from-the-zeitgeist questions the series’s creator, Charlie Brooker, is known for. What if a lifesaving medical intervention were available only as a subscription service? Could super-advanced computing programs alter our memories? Can A.I.-aided replications of pop culture be as satisfying as the originals? These ideas and more are explored by casts that include Rashida Jones, Issa Rae, Paul Giamatti, Peter Capaldi and Cristin Milioti. The season also includes the first “Black Mirror” sequel, in a feature-length episode that revisits the world of the Season 4 fan-favorite “U.S.S. Callister.”‘You’ Season 5Starts streaming: April 24The TV adaptation of Caroline Kepnes’s “You” novels comes to an end with Season 5, completing the saga of Joe (Penn Badgley), a handsome and charming young man who has a habit of becoming dangerously, murderously obsessed with women. The show began as a twisted riff on romantic comedies, imagining what those stories might be like if their Prince Charmings had a secret violent streak. But as Joe has met other sociopaths and tried to control his impulses, “You” has evolved into a pitch-dark serial-killer thriller, depicting a world teeming with predators. The final season begins with our antihero married and seemingly secure, but it does not take long before some new characters — including a quirky bibliophile (Madeline Brewer) and a ruthless corporate schemer (Anna Camp) — provoke Joe into resuming old habits.‘The Eternaut’ Season 1Starts streaming: April 30In 1957, the Argentine comic book writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld co-founded the anthology magazine “Hora Cero,” for which he began writing the adventures of a time-traveling, dimension-hopping, alien-fighting, scuba-mask-wearing Everyman. One of the first sustained attempts at a mature, science-fiction comics series, “The Eternaut” became a favorite of genre connoisseurs; and for decades, movie and TV producers have tried to adapt it. Netflix and the writer-director-producer Bruno Stagnaro have finally gotten the job done with a series that begins with an apocalyptic event — a freakish, deadly summer snowfall, descending on Buenos Aires — and then follows an ordinary guy, Juan Salvo (Ricardo Darin), as his simple fight for survival turns gradually into something more epic.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Jack Black and Jason Momoa Share a Mine Cart in ‘A Minecraft Movie’

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      The director Jared Hess narrates an adventure sequence from his film, involving a cozy ride.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.Redstone and piglins and creepers, oh my!Fans of Minecraft will recognize a few of the game’s elements in this scene from “A Minecraft Movie.” But the sequence is also a good comic excuse to stuff Jack Black and Jason Momoa into a mine cart together.The scene takes place in the redstone mines, where Steve (Black) has brought Garrett (Jason Momoa) and Henry (Sebastian Hansen) to access his diamond stash. But trouble is afoot in the form of a piglin biological superweapon, who has an arm cannon ready to blast the protagonists. They plan an escape via mine cart, using redstone to power their way out.The film’s director, Jared Hess, said that he worked with his production designer Grant Major (the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy) to build many of the sets practically, including this mine set, and then extended those sets with visual effects.“We had a ton of fun coming up with the size of the mine cart design,” Hess said, “because we wanted to fit Jack and Jason in the same cart. And they are two of some of the juiciest hunks in motion pictures.”He said the actors felt the circulation in their thighs was being cut off, so they had to take a lot of breaks, but they ultimately made it through.“This was such a fun sequence to shoot,” Hess told me. “Lots of laughs on set, it was great.”Read the “Minecraft Movie” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      “Thank You Very Much” Looks at the Life of Andy Kaufman

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      “Thank You Very Much,” directed by Alex Braverman, uses archival footage and interviews to explore the appeal of a stand-up who didn’t tell jokes.A documentary subject like the comic Andy Kaufman, who died in 1984, has got to be both a dream and a nightmare for a filmmaker. Archival footage is usually used to suggest a glimpse into who someone “really” was, but Kaufman’s public appearances almost always involved him playing some kind of character, like the sweetly hapless Foreign Man (who evolved into Latka Gravas on “Taxi”) or the abrasively awful nightclub singer Tony Clifton. Kaufman suggested — and friends concur in “Thank You Very Much” (available to rent or buy on most major platforms) — that he was always playing a character, even if that character was a guy named Andy Kaufman. Trying to get at the “real” guy in this case seems quixotic.“Thank You Very Much,” directed by Alex Braverman, features several friends of Kaufman’s musing on who the real Andy was, and taps into elements of his childhood to explain some of his obsessions. But understanding the real Andy is not the ultimate point of this film. Instead, Braverman seems to be roving in search of the source of Kaufman’s appeal: Why did fans want to watch someone who was so often deliberately off-putting and exasperating? Kaufman’s act didn’t involve telling jokes (“I’ve never told a joke in my life, really,” he once said) and often seemed designed to push audiences as far as possible to see if and when they’d break.When, beginning in 1979, he started performatively wrestling women and spouting misogynistic garbage, it was awfully hard to tell whether he was satirizing women, feminists, misogynists, wrestlers or all of the above. His is not the kind of comedy you just chuckle at and move on. Today we might call him a troll.As “Thank You Very Much” shows, Kaufman was a comedian of the uncomfortable, the absurd, the confusing and at times the excruciatingly boring. Braverman wisely does not try to imitate Kaufman’s style in the film, instead opting to explore his career through old footage and conversations with people who knew him, like Lorne Michaels, Kaufman’s father (in archival interviews), the comedian Bob Zmuda and the musician Laurie Anderson (in new takes).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More