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      Phoebe Waller-Bridge Joins Harrison Ford for 'Indiana Jones 5'

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      WENN

      The ‘Fleabag’ actress has been officially announced to star opposite original actor for the upcoming fifth installment which will be directed by ‘Logan’ helmer.

      Apr 10, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge is swinging into action to join Harrison Ford in the next “Indiana Jones” sequel.

      The “Fleabag” creator and star will take on a mystery role opposite movie veteran Ford, who is set to return as the iconic archaeologist for the fifth film in the blockbuster franchise.

      “Logan” director James Mangold will take over the reins of the film series from Steven Spielberg, who will instead serve as a producer, alongside longtime collaborator Frank Marshall, and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy.

      The news of Waller-Bridge’s casting comes as studio bosses also confirm John Williams’ return as the film’s composer.

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      In a statement, Mangold said, “I’m thrilled to be starting a new adventure, collaborating with a dream team of all-time great filmmakers.”

      “Steven, Harrison, Kathy, Frank, and John are all artistic heroes of mine. When you add Phoebe, a dazzling actor, brilliant creative voice and the chemistry she will undoubtedly bring to our set, I can’t help but feel as lucky as Indiana Jones himself.”

      “Indiana Jones 5” has been in the works since its official announcement in 2016 and, after a series of delays last year (20), Disney chiefs finally set the movie’s release date for July 2022.

      The film will be the follow-up to 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, which earned over $790.6 million (£568.7 million) at the global box office.

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      Tom Hanks' Classic Comedy 'Big' Originally Had Darker Tone With Robert De Niro in Lead Role

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      WENN

      According to co-star Elizabeth Perkins, the ‘Forrest Gump’ actor was a replacement for the ‘Taxi Driver’ star who was originally cast for the male lead in the classic movie.

      Apr 10, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Tom Hanks’ classic comedy “Big” was almost made into an entirely different film with Robert De Niro as the lead.

      Actress Elizabeth Perkins reveals she actually auditioned opposite De Niro to land her role as the love interest of Hanks’ adult character Josh Baskin in the 1988 hit, which would likely have taken on a darker tone than the finished product.

      “Robert De Niro was actually cast in the role of Josh in the movie Big,” she shared during an appearance on America’s “Watch What Happens Live”. “It fell apart because he had a scheduling conflict, and then they (casting directors) went to Tom Hanks.”

      “It’s like, a totally different movie in my brain with Robert De Niro. He was more moody. It was more of a – a little more of a horror movie,” she joked. “Robert De Niro wandering around the streets of New York. What Tom Hanks brought to it was so much lighter.”

      The Penny Marshall film centres on a young boy who wishes to be “big” and finds himself turned into an adult overnight.

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      The major casting switch ended up being a dream come true for Perkins, who has such fond memories of sharing an onscreen kiss with Hanks.

      “He lays one on me about halfway through the movie,” she recalled. “I had such a crush on him at the time. I was single.”

      Even though Perkins was lusting after Hanks, he was already taken in real life.

      “He was with Rita Wilson already,” she continued. “They were dating but hadn’t gotten married yet. So he was completely off limits, but he was adorable.”

      Hanks and Wilson went on to wed in 1988 – the same year “Big” was released.

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      Princess Anne and Prince Edward Remember Late Father Prince Philip

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      James Hampton, Bumbling ‘F Troop’ Bugler, Dies at 84

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      A character actor, he was best known for comedic roles but also appeared in “The China Syndrome” and other dramas.James Hampton, a character actor who achieved a measure of sitcom immortality with one of his earliest roles, the inept bugler Hannibal Dobbs in the 1960s series “F Troop,” died on Wednesday at his home in Trophy Club, Texas. He was 84.Linda McAlister, his agent, said the cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease.Mr. Hampton had a genial countenance well suited to comedic roles characterized by bumbling or gullibility. He had appeared in a handful of television shows, “Death Valley” and “Dr. Kildare” among them, when the director of a “Gunsmoke” episode he was in brought him to the attention of a Warner Bros. casting director. That led to the role on “F Troop,” a spunky ABC comedy about a military outpost, Fort Courage, in the 1860s.The show starred Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, Melody Patterson and Ken Berry, but Mr. Hampton made an indelible impression in his secondary role as a bugler whose playing bore only a passing resemblance to music. (In the show’s opening montage, an arrow makes a direct hit into the bell end of his horn as he’s playing.) The show ran for only two seasons, but its over-the-top humor in an era of milder comedies like “The Andy Griffith Show” endeared it to a certain segment of viewers.Mr. Hampton was well known to a later generation from the 1985 movie “Teen Wolf,” in which he portrayed the father of the title character, a werewolf played by the emerging star Michael J. Fox. He was also in its sequel, “Teen Wolf Too,” which starred Jason Bateman, in 1987.Mr. Hampton played more serious roles as well, including the power company public relations man who is showing Jane Fonda’s character around a nuclear power plant when disaster strikes in “The China Syndrome” (1979).He occasionally directed, including episodes of the 1990s series “Hearts Afire,” whose cast included Billy Bob Thornton. When Mr. Thornton wrote his acclaimed film “Sling Blade” (1996), he made sure that there was a role in it for Mr. Hampton, as a hospital administrator.Burt Reynolds was another important influence in his career. They met while working together on “Gunsmoke” when Mr. Reynolds was a regular cast member. The two appeared in the 1974 football movie “The Longest Yard,” and Mr. Hampton both wrote and directed episodes of Mr. Reynolds’s 1990s series, “Evening Shade.”James Wade Hampton was born on July 9, 1936, in Oklahoma City. His father, Ivan, owned a dry cleaning business, and his mother, Edna (Gately) Hampton, worked at a millinery.He grew up in Dallas and was a speech and drama major at North Texas State College (now the University of North Texas). He was drafted in the Army in 1959 and served in Europe. Returning to Texas in the early 1960s, he worked in regional theater before moving to New York in 1962.Mr. Hampton in 2012. He continued to act occasionally even after semi-retiring in 2002.Barry Brecheisen/WireImageMr. Hampton worked steadily for the next four decades and landed occasional roles even after semi-retiring and settling back in Texas in 2002. He is survived by his wife, Mary Deese Hampton, whom he married in 2002; two sons, James and Frank; a daughter, Andrea Hampton Doyle; and three grandchildren.After “F Troop,” Mr. Hampton returned to slapstick-in-uniform in the 1976 movie “Hawmps!” He played a mid-19th-century lieutenant tasked with overseeing an experiment in Texas that involved using camels in the cavalry. Mr. Hampton was a favorite of Johnny Carson in that period and was a frequent guest on his “Tonight Show,” including on the night of the Hollywood premiere of “Hawmps!”As Mr. Hampton told the story to The Community Common of Portsmouth, Ohio, in 2007, he was Mr. Carson’s first guest so that he could leave early to get to the premiere. He happened to mention to Mr. Carson that his mother was in the studio audience. Mr. Carson brought up the house lights and congratulated her on her son’s big night.His mother responded by saying: “You just go ahead to the premiere, James. I’m going to stay and watch the rest of Johnny.” More

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      Paul Ritter, British Stage, Film and TV Actor, Dies at 54

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      A familiar face to British theatergoers, he was also well known for his role as an eccentric father on the popular sitcom “Friday Night Dinner.”Paul Ritter, a versatile British actor who appeared in “Harry Potter” and James Bond movies and played a key figure behind the nuclear disaster that was the subject of the HBO mini-series “Chernobyl,” died on Monday at his home in Kent, England. He was 54.His agency, Markham, Froggatt & Irwin, announced the death. He had been treated for a brain tumor.Mr. Ritter was a familiar face to British theatergoers and well known for his role as Martin Goodman, the eccentric father of a London Jewish family, on the popular sitcom “Friday Night Dinner,” seen on Channel 4 since 2011.He played the ill-fated nuclear engineer Anatoly Dyatlov on the award-winning HBO drama “Chernobyl” (2019), the wizard Eldred Worple in “Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince” (2009) and a devious political operative in the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” (2008).He was also frequently seen in productions at Britain’s National Theater, including “All My Sons,” “Coram Boy” and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” in which his performance as the father of a socially challenged teenager was praised as “superb” by Matt Wolf in The New York Times.He appeared in “Art” at the Old Vic in London and as Prime Minister John Major, opposite Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, in a West End production of “The Audience.”Mr. Ritter was nominated for a Tony Award in 2009 for his performance in Alan Ayckbourn’s farce “The Norman Conquests.”He was born in 1966 in Kent. He is survived by his wife, Polly, and two sons, Frank and Noah. More

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      DMX Songs: Hear 10 Songs That Showed His Range

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      The gruff, evocative Yonkers rapper was a singular talent in hip-hop. He died on Friday after suffering what his family called “a catastrophic cardiac arrest” a week earlier.Earl Simmons, the gruff, evocative rapper from Yonkers, N.Y., better known as DMX, died on Friday at 50. He spent his final days on life support at White Plains Hospital in Westchester County after suffering a heart attack on April 2.DMX was one of the most recognizable M.C.s in the late 1990s and early 2000s, years when hardcore New York rap could still stake a claim as hip-hop’s central concern.Signed to Def Jam Recordings, his first five albums all debuted at No. 1, a feat no rapper has matched before or since. DMX cut a unique figure for a superstar rapper: He’d battle his inner demons using the horror-centric imagery beloved by heavy metal bands, but his albums reliably offered heartfelt, often a cappella, prayers to God. He made giant pop crossover hits, but they bubbled with wildly vivid threats better suited for a grindhouse theater. His shout-rap energy made him a favorite in the outwardly angsty era of Woodstock ’99 and the nü-metal band Korn’s Family Values Tour, but he was also a shirtless sex symbol moonlighting as an actor.Here’s a small sampling of an artist with a range that encompassed the shocking, the sincere and the simply incredible. (Listen on Spotify here.)‘Born Loser’ (1993)After years spent as a ruthless battle rapper, mixtape hustler and early beneficiary of The Source magazine’s Unsigned Hype column, DMX and the nascent Ruff Ryders label released the rarely heard “Born Loser” on a handful of 12-inch records. Soon after, “Born Loser” became the lone song released as part of DMX’s false start with Columbia Records. Both DMX and the rapper K-Solo had claimed a rhyme style where individual words in bars are spelled out. For example, on his 1990 hit “Spellbound,” K-Solo raps “I s-p-e-l-l very w-e-l-l/I only spell so all can t-e-l-l.” After the success of “Spellbound,” DMX wrote this track while fuming in a Westchester prison cell. “Born Loser” was not a hit, but as a punchline rap where DMX makes himself the punchline, it would foreshadow the self-eviscerating rhymes of rappers like Eminem and Fatlip: “They kicked me out the shelter because they said I smelled a/Little like the living dead and looked like Helter Skelter.”LL Cool J featuring Redman, Method Man, Canibus and DMX, ‘4, 3, 2, 1’ (1997)This single would be epochal for multiple reasons. It sparked the lyrical war between LL Cool J and Canibus, perhaps the last consequential wax battle held on actual vinyl — soon such things were fought in the fields of mixtapes and MP3s. And “4, 3, 2, 1” was the breakout single for DMX, then a new Def Jam signee, who holds his own against members of an elite tier of M.C.s. Here, he raps death threats with a filmmaker’s eye for detail: “Believe what I say when I tell you/Don’t make me put you somewhere where nobody can smell you.”DMX featuring Sheek Louch, ‘Get at Me Dog’ (1998)DMX recorded his debut Def Jam solo single amid the era of ’80s pop samples, big-budget videos and a general sentiment of getting “jiggy.” “I wasn’t down with all that pretty, happy-go-lucky [expletive],” DMX said in “E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX.” He added that Sean “Puffy” Combs “had the radio on lock, the clubs on fire, had people thinking that hip-hop was all about bright lights and shiny suits and smiled all the way to the bank — X, on the other hand, still lived in the dark.” “Get at Me Dog” is pure, unfiltered rhyming over a loop of the disco-funk band B.T. Express. If it sounds like a mixtape rap, that’s how it started: The beat and hook were part of a freestyle for DJ Clue. The song not only introduced DMX the solo artist, but introduced his trademark barking and growling, sounds inspired by his beloved pitbulls. The video — a black-and-white affair directed by Hype Williams — was filmed at New York’s hip-hop meeting ground the Tunnel, where Funkmaster Flex held court on Sunday nights. The song became one of the most beloved “Tunnel bangers.”‘Ruff Ryders’ Anthem’ (1998)The third single from DMX’s debut album, “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot,” gleamed a little brighter than its predecessors. His rhymes were no less uncompromising and violent — “Had it, shoulda shot it/Now you’re dearly departed,” he raps. But the song heralded the blipping, pixelated debut of the producer Swizz Beatz, whose sound would ultimately define the next few years of the Ruff Ryders orbit: DMX, Eve, the Lox, Drag-On and Swizz Beatz’s own solo work. Swizz Beatz told Vibe it took a week to convince DMX to do the song: “He was like, ‘I don’t want those white-boy beats.’” Swizz would go on to produce Top 10 singles for Beyoncé, Lil Wayne, T.I. and Busta Rhymes, and to co-found the popular quarantine-era streaming battle Verzuz.‘Damien’ (1998)The rapper’s most famous storytelling rhyme involves him having a conversation with the devil — a play about fighting his own temptations. “At the time, X was in a really dark place as he was in and out of jail,” the producer Dame Grease told Okayplayer. “He told me he thought he was in hell, mentally, and could hear the devil speaking to him. He wanted to find a way to recreate that feeling.” Two sequels followed, including “The Omen (Damien II),” also in 1998, which featured a guest appearance from the shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, who would go on to have a notable impact on hip-hop, influencing modern goth-tinged artists like Travis Scott and Lil Uzi Vert, among others. The second sequel is “Damien III” (2001).‘Slippin’’ (1998)On this bloodletting, emotionally raw track, DMX confronts his troubled upbringing, his time in various institutions and his addictions with a sober eye. It was a personal and vulnerable look at his life and his struggles in the vein of diarist rappers like Tupac Shakur and Scarface. “X was writing ‘Slippin’’ for a while — six months, a year,” the Ruff Ryders founder Joaquin “Waah” Dean told The Fader. “He wanted this song to be impacting people’s lives.”‘Party Up (Up in Here)’ (2000)Perhaps the most indelible DMX song, “Party Up (Up in Here)” has a chantable, giddy chorus that belies the nimble, severe trash talk in the verses. (“Listen, your ass is about to be missin’/You know who gon’ find you? Some old man fishin’.”) “It’s called ‘Party Up,’ but it’s very disrespectful,” DMX told GQ, adding, “The beat is for the club, I just spit some real [expletive] to it.” The durable track has had a long life thanks to its use in movies like “Gone in 60 Seconds” and TV shows like “The Mindy Project.” Earl Simmons even has a writing credit in the era-defining musical “Hamilton” because of an interpolation used in “Meet Me Inside,” a song that details a conversation between Alexander Hamilton and George Washington.Aaliyah featuring DMX, ‘Come Back in One Piece’ (2000)The 2000 film “Romeo Must Die” was the first film for the R&B superstar Aaliyah and the second for DMX. Though they do not play love interests in the movie, they did team up for this song from the soundtrack, a tune in the mold of hip-hop-soul duets like Method Man and Mary J. Blige’s “I’ll Be There for You/You’re All I Need to Get By.” However, it is almost like DMX refuses to meet R&B halfway: He rhymes an unapologetic full-throated street narrative while Aaliyah plays a beleaguered partner who just wants him to be safe.‘Who We Be’ (2001)“Who We Be” is a plain-spoken list of ills both political and personal, delivered with the thudding fire of an AC/DC song. It was the third and final DMX song to be nominated for a Grammy, but he never ended up taking one home.‘X Gon’ Give It to Ya’ (2003)Though it was a moderate hit when released as a single from the “Cradle 2 the Grave” soundtrack in 2003, “X Gon’ Give It to Ya” has ultimately emerged as the most popular DMX song of the streaming era thanks to its use in the “Deadpool” films and on television’s “Rick and Morty.” DMX intended it for his fifth album, “Grand Champ,” but, seeing its potential, the “Cradle 2 the Grave” producer Joel Silver intervened. It was certified platinum in 2017, nearly 15 years after its release. More

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      'Justice League' Scribe Demanded His Name Be Removed From Joss Whedon's Version

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      Warner Bros. Pictures

      Chris Terrio doesn’t want to be associated with the ‘Justice League’ which underwent ‘a wholesale dismantling’ by the new director after after original helmer Zack Snyder left.

      Apr 10, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      “Justice League” screenwriter Chris Terrio wanted his name removed from the “vandalised” film when it was changed after Zack Snyder’s exit.

      Terrio, who worked alongside Snyder on the 2017 movie before he stepped down due to a family tragedy and the helm was handed to Joss Whedon, admitted he had “no idea” how much “wholesale dismantling” there would be of Snyder’s version that he wishes his name wasn’t alongside it.

      “I was in Los Angeles at the time working on Star Wars (The Rise of Skywalker),” he told Vanity Fair. “I was on the west side of Los Angeles working with J.J. (Abrams) at the time, and I drove to the studio and I sat down and watched it a couple of weeks before release. I immediately called my lawyer and said, ‘I want to take my name off the film.’ ”

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      “(The lawyer) then called Warner Bros. and told them that I wanted to do that… I didn’t realise how much of the film was going to be changed – or vandalised, in my opinion. It became clear as I spoke to various actors that it was a wholesale dismantling of what had been there before. I did not hear from anyone who said it was a pleasant experience.”

      And Terrio admitted he went into “such a depression” after the film was rewritten.

      “But I didn’t even feel entitled to be depressed, because Zack and Debbie (Snyder, his wife and co-producer) were dealing with their family tragedy,” he explained. “Measured against that, losing the film that you wrote seems like nothing at all. But it did hurt. It hurts to think that I cared so much about these characters and worked on nothing else for a very long time.”

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      ‘Teen Wolf’ Star James Hampton Passes Away at 84

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      Horse Riders, a City Street and a History Now Captured on Film

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      The coming-of-age drama “Concrete Cowboy” is set amid the stables of Philadelphia’s Fletcher Street, a hub for Black equestrians for decades.On Fletcher Street one summer morning in 2019, Ricky Staub was asked to walk the plank.For decades, Fletcher Street — a slice of North Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood — had been home to urban horse stables, and a hub for Black equestrians, and Staub had started spending time there after befriending a local rider.That’s how Staub found himself struggling to push a wheelbarrow up an angled wooden beam as a group of stable regulars watched his every wobble. Staub was eager to prove himself. He’d shown up for a day of dirty stable work wearing clean, bright sneakers (“like an idiot”) and couldn’t afford another rookie flub. Also, the wooden plank was teetering atop a colossal pile of horse manure.“I’m literally going to be thigh-deep if I fall,” Staub said.Lucky for him (and his sneakers), Staub kept his balance. And when he successfully finished his task, dumping the contents of the wheelbarrow — also full of manure — onto the growing pile, the spectators erupted in applause.That daring maneuver is one of several firsthand experiences that Staub, 37, recreated in “Concrete Cowboy,” his first feature, which is now streaming on Netflix. In this coming-of-age tale, a Detroit teenager (Caleb McLaughlin) is sent to Philadelphia to live with his estranged father (Idris Elba, also a producer of the film), who ekes out a modern-day cowboy existence on Fletcher Street, where small stables sit modestly among rowhouses.The movie, which Staub and Dan Walser adapted from the young-adult novel “Ghetto Cowboy,” by G. Neri, may follow a familiar Hollywood arc, but it is injected with extraordinary, sometimes surreal details drawn from Staub and Walser’s experiences hanging out with urban horse riders in Philadelphia for about two years.Idris Elba, left, and Caleb McLaughlin in “Concrete Cowboy.”Aaron Ricketts/NetflixConsider, for instance, the campfire scene early in the movie, when the riders gather around a fire at night, swapping stories by the light of flames, which spew from the belly of a metal barrel. It’s a tableau, complete with cowboy hats, taken straight from a classic western. It’s also something you might see offscreen today.“In the summertime, any given night that you want to, you go around to Fletcher Street stables and there will be at least three guys with a tin-can fire sitting outside, just relaxing,” said Ivannah-Mercedes, a rider who grew up caring for horses on Fletcher Street in the 2010s. Mercedes, who plays a fictional cowgirl in “Concrete Cowboy,” is one of a handful of riders — some still active there, others now based at different stables around the city — who got involved in the film, on both sides of the camera.The riders pointed to many details in the movie that were true to their own experiences, chief among them that riding has proved an indispensable form of healthy recreation in an environment where gun violence and other dangers can be difficult to avoid.Young people “need alternatives,” said Michael Upshur, 46, who began riding horses on Fletcher Street as a child in the early ’80s. “If they only see people on the street corner, that’s what they’re going to gravitate to.”Upshur said that he had boarded more than a dozen horses on Fletcher Street over the years. Like other riders there, he views the stables as more than a passion or a pastime.“Being with those horses taught me to have patience,” he said. “I found myself thinking a lot more before I act.”Upshur described methodically washing horses with a hose, watching as they playfully chomped at the stream of water. Over the decades, he has often ridden in Fairmount Park, about a 10-minute ride from the stables.“There’s something about you and that park,” Upshur said. “You can hear the sticks cracking while your horse is walking on those little twigs. You see the little squirrels running through, and the horse jumps a little bit — it calms you.”Michael Upshur on the set of “Concrete Cowboy.” He began riding horses on Fletcher Street in the 1980s.Aaron Ricketts/NetflixErin Brown, 37, remembers being told as a young rider that “your horse is a reflection of the type of person that you are.” Brown, who learned to ride on Fletcher Street in the early 1990s and later managed a barn there, said that caring for horses gave her a sense of responsibility when she was growing up. She said that for a period during her late teens, she “was headed down the wrong track,” but that the stables grounded her. She’s now a professional riding instructor.“I honestly don’t know where I would be today — and so many others can say the same thing — if it were not for the horses,” Brown said.Several Philadelphia riders teamed up with Staub and other members of the film’s creative team to create the Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy, a nonprofit that aims to maintain and preserve the history of Black riding in Philadelphia. (Brown is the organization’s executive director; Upshur and Mercedes are on its board of advisers.)Riders on Fletcher Street have long worried about the future of the stables, as gentrification and new development loom. Each stable in the cluster on Fletcher Street is individually owned and managed. There have been problems with conditions over the years, leading to run-ins with the city and the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. And the large, grassy field across from the stables — a set piece in the movie that has served as an open space for riders — is now being developed. The Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy’s goal is to create permanent stables where riders from Fletcher Street and elsewhere in the city can make a sustainable home for their horses.Brown, Upshur and Mercedes each emphasized that the history of urban ridership in Philadelphia should be preserved, and that the sense of empowerment and responsibility that horses offer riders is an invaluable — and irreplaceable — asset in the community. The Hollywood actors in “Concrete Cowboy” sensed that, too.Lorraine Toussaint, who plays one of the fictional riders, said she was struck by “the discipline involved with the care and maintenance and love of these extraordinary animals.”“I fell in love with horses so much,” she added, “that I actually went off and bought a horse farm after this film.”Elba himself felt the rush and grit that the real riders described.“These were really proud moments for me,” he said. “It felt very powerful jumping on a horse — you feel tall. You’re on this majestic beauty of a beast.”Elba was so committed to shining a light on the Philadelphia riding community that he signed on to produce “Concrete Cowboy” when it was still a script in search of financing and took up the challenge of playing opposite actual local riders. He even contributed a song to the film’s soundtrack.Elba did all of this despite an unchangeable, rather inconvenient truth: He’s allergic to horses. More

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      Five International Movies to Stream Right Now

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      Take a cinematic trip around the world with these fine options.In the age of streaming, the earth is flat — screen-sized, with travel to faraway destinations only a monthly subscription and a click away. But sifting the wheat from the chaff can be hard with so many options, and harder still if you don’t know what to look for in the bounties of different national cinemas and film industries.So let me be your travel agent each month: I’ll journey through the world of streaming and choose the best new international movies for you to watch. This month’s picks take you to Britain, India, Algeria (by way of France), Japan and Spain (by way of Germany). If you feel intimidated by the foreign languages, remember the wise words of Bong Joon Ho, the Oscar-winning director of “Parasite”: “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”‘Rocks’Stream it on Netflix.We hear the boisterous teenage girls of “Rocks” before we see them. Their affectionate banter plays over the opening credits, which cut to a rooftop in London from which the girls gaze at the city’s skyline. A rousing, wonderfully specific film about a 15-year-old whose mother suddenly leaves, forcing her to fend for herself and her brother, “Rocks” uses voices, noises and languages to conjure up an absorbing portrait of Britain’s working-class immigrant community.Rocks (Bukky Bakray) is of Jamaican and Nigerian descent, and her friend group comprises diverse nationalities and ethnicities: Somali, Romany, Bangladeshi, white. The girls’ conversations grapple with their cultural differences while never losing the natural rhythms of adolescent chatter. When Rocks encounters speakers of other languages, their dialogue is unsubtitled, faithfully capturing the aural fabric of a cosmopolitan city where the familiar mixes with the unfamiliar.Most of the film’s young actors, including Bakray, are first-timers, but their ebullient performances convey multitudes: They switch effortlessly between rebellion, seriousness, and playfulness. Even as the director Sarah Gavron paints a wrenching portrait of abandonment and poverty, she makes no sweeping judgments about the film’s characters. Life, “Rocks” recognizes, can be messy and difficult, but the bonds of community can sustain us when all else fails.‘Eeb Allay Ooo!’Stream it on Netflix.In this clever satire from India, a rural youth newly arrived in Delhi lands a strange job: shooing away monkeys from the city’s grand government buildings by making shrill sounds. It might seem like a gag out of a Tim Burton film, but “Eeb Allay Ooo!” draws from real life — some supporting roles are even played by actual “monkey repellers,” experts at the guttural calls that give the film its onomatopoeic title.As one of these veterans warns our hero, Anjani (Shardul Bhardwaj), the job may seem like a lark but the stakes are high. The workers are caught between the demands of ruthless contractors, snooty bureaucrats, animal rights activists and Hindus who hold monkeys sacred. And as the director Prateek Vats emphasizes through bustling shots of Delhi’s thoroughfares, trains and cramped slums, Anjani is just one of many precarious migrants trying to eke out a living in an unsparing city.But what sets “Eeb Allay Ooo!” apart from run-of-the-mill poverty-porn dramas is the mix of comedy and rage it taps into. Though no good at monkey chasing, Anjani starts to find release in the performative aspects of the job, and the film’s serene tableaux of working-class life soon give way to pricklier evocations of working-class discontent. Bhardwaj nails his character’s outward spiral, giving it all in a frenzied denouement set within a religious procession.‘South Terminal’Stream it on Mubi.Time and space ripple like the ocean in “South Terminal,” directed by the Algerian-French filmmaker Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche. The plot suggests that we’re in Algeria sometime in the 1990s, in the midst of a bloody civil war. But the film’s cobblestoned streets and sun-dappled coastlines are from southern France, and glimpses of cellphones and new car models scramble the period setting. Ameur-Zaïmeche never resolves these anachronisms, instead crafting an intentionally abstract film that powerfully evokes the repetitions of history and the troubling universality of violence.Even the characters are nameless. The protagonist is simply “the doctor” (played with gruff vulnerability by the French comedian Ramzy Bedia), a surgeon who stays put even as those around him flee the country’s growing sectarian conflict and surveillance. His mulish commitment to his lifesaving work lands him in trouble when he is kidnapped and forced to treat a rebel leader, which makes him a target of the army.The film is violent and fast-paced, and yet curiously spare, with stripped-down sound and languorous moments of mundanity. Ameur-Zaïmeche captures the resilience of ordinary lives caught in the cross-fires of war, while scenes of military checkpoints and oceanic escapes point to resonances with the contemporary crises of migration.‘Any Crybabies Around?’Stream it on Netflix.The title of Takuma Sato’s film is the chant of the Namahage: folkloric ogres that visit houses on Japan’s Oga Peninsula every New Year’s Eve to playfully scare children and teach them good values. Tasuku (Taiga Nakano) is one of the young men who don monstrous masks and straw capes to enact this annual ritual — until, on one of his runs, he drunkenly embarrasses himself on live TV. (I won’t spoil how; it’s a masterful exercise in straight-faced cringe comedy.)“Any Crybabies Around?” picks up a couple of years later when Tasuku is living in Tokyo, estranged from his wife and child. But when he hears that they’re struggling to make ends meet, he returns to his hometown to reconnect with his family and win his way back into his daughter’s life.Crisscrossing folklore with the classic movie trope of a man-child, Sato crafts a thoughtful meditation on alienation and masculinity, and the delusions of male saviors. Nakano pulls off a difficult balancing act with the piteous, whimpering Tasuku, who nevertheless invites our empathy with his sincere hope for change. It’s the Namahage that finally offer him some salvation, and the scenes featuring them are some of the movie’s best: gorgeous choreographies of color and slow motion, set to haunting beats of woodblock and drums.‘For the Time Being’Stream it on Mubi.Larissa, a German woman, arrives with her 9-year-old twins at her husband’s family home in the Spanish Sierra Morena mountains, where her mother-in-law and sister-in-law live a quiet, secluded life. Her husband is supposed to join them soon, but when his flight is delayed, the three women and two kids bide their time, waiting for his arrival.This is the entirety of what might be described as “plot” in Salka Tiziana’s “For the Time Being,” an atmospheric, slow-burning feature that turns uneventfulness into something thrilling. Larissa (Melanie Straub) and her in-laws communicate awkwardly across a language barrier, while the boys (Jon and Ole Bader) explore the lush outdoors with curiosity. The film’s growing sense of intrigue derives from sensory stimuli rather than narrative. Nearby wildfires make the air shimmer, and strange explosions from a military test punctuate the passing time. As days go by with no news of the father, Tiziana fills the characters’ uneasy limbo with thick, intoxicating natural sounds (whooshing winds, chirping cicadas) while alternating between drone shots and crackling, 16-millimeter images of the sun-faded landscape. It’s a lovely film to watch while at home during the pandemic, both for its transporting shots of the mountains and its charged depiction of stillness and anticipation. More