Movies

The underwater photographer Amos Nachoum’s white whale is no whale at all, but rather a polar bear. He’s swam with sharks, anacondas and crocodiles to capture stunning stills during his four-decade career, but never the Arctic predator. In fact, no one has ever shot the polar bear the way Nachoum wants to — while swimming with it — and for good reason: These animals consider humans part of their food chain, the cinematographer Adam Ravetch points out in the film.In “Picture of His Life,” the directors Yonatan Nir and Dani Menkin provide abundant newspaper clippings about polar bear-related deaths while underlining Nachoum’s nearly fatal attempt years before. Determined to get it right this time, the photographer embarks on a five-day Canadian Arctic expedition with a small crew; what follows is less thrilling than the buildup.[embedded content]For a film granted so much up-close access with its subject, “Picture of His Life” hears surprisingly little from Nachoum himself. Between vérité clips of the journey, the film is inundated with archival footage.We learn of Nachoum’s Israeli upbringing and army past, and his move to New York. His eventual foray into diving led to his photography. In voice-over segments, Nachoum’s sisters along with marine experts try to dissect his death wish, speculating that he wants to stay relevant or that he finds similarities between the animal and his disapproving father. Nachoum’s father briefly appears in a scene that is almost more tense than the face-off with the bear: He says his son is a fool who doesn’t give to others.Nachoum remains so reticent about his true motivations that by the time he achieves his life goal, one aches for greater catharsis.Picture of His LifeNot rated. In English, Hebrew, and Inuktitut, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 12 minutes. View through virtual cinemas. More

In “Miss Juneteenth,” the charming feature directing debut of Channing Godfrey Peoples, giving voice to black girls is a priority, not an option.Available on demand, the film follows Turquoise Jones (Nicole Beharie, playing her part to perfection), a single mother in Fort Worth who wants her 15-year-old daughter, Kai (Alexis Chikaeze), to win the Miss Juneteenth pageant, an annual competition that awards the winner a scholarship to a historically black college or university of her choice. Turquoise — who won the title in 2004 — is convinced that Kai will take better advantage of the opportunity and secure a brighter future. But Kai has other aspirations and desires: She wants to try out for the school dance team, hang out with her crush and live a life generally unencumbered by her mother’s puritanical rule.[embedded content]The road to the pageant is a challenging and expensive one. Turquoise, who works two jobs to make ends meet, struggles to just keep up with her bills, let alone the costs associated with the pageant — from the registration fee to Kai’s dress. She tries to lean on Kai’s father (Kendrick Sampson) for support, but he consistently shows himself to be unreliable and a source of added stress in her life.The movie tackles multitudinous themes in its roughly 100 minutes, from the significance of Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, to the legacy of racism in predatory bank lending practices. But what’s most impressive is the amount of space Peoples’s black female characters inhabit in the narrative.Instead of just depicting the myriad ways black women carry their communities, the movie goes further to explore how these women and black girls support each other in a world that often fails them. Even during their tensest moments, Turquoise and Kai share kisses and knowing smiles, or play fight and cuddle, repeatedly underscoring the tenderness in their relationship.The movie also takes time to consider what it means to come of age as a black girl. Its best moments are the ones focused on Kai — when she is hanging out with her mother, teaching her father a viral dance or practicing her own moves in front of the mirror. They show that Kai’s present is just as worthy of a cause to fight for as her future.Miss JuneteenthNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. Rent or buy on Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

“Bully. Coward. Victim.” is not the title you would expect for a documentary on Roy Cohn, the infamous Joseph McCarthy ally and Donald Trump mentor who built his name prosecuting Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. “Victim” seems especially perverse considering that the director, Ivy Meeropol, is a granddaughter of the Rosenbergs. The HBO film was originally scheduled to debut on Friday, the anniversary of their execution in 1953.But “Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn” is often not the film you would expect. Long stretches are not a personal reckoning but an overview; many details overlap with “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” from last year, although the clips here are at least as good. It is also more sympathetic to Cohn than either Cohn’s reputation or the familial animosity would suggest. The title comes from a panel on the AIDS Memorial Quilt that Meeropol and her father, Michael Meeropol, stumbled upon when they visited.[embedded content]It’s hardly new to observe that Cohn was untroubled by rules or ethics, or that he was a raging hypocrite. A foe of gay rights who all but dared people to observe that he was gay, he died of AIDS in 1986. Tony Kushner, who used Cohn’s biography as one of the axes of hypocrisy in “Angels in America,” appears here, as does Nathan Lane, who won a Tony for his (to my mind miscast) recent performance as Cohn.As for Cohn’s influence on Trump, the film suggests that he helped convince the then-real estate developer that he had the aptitude to be a nuclear-arms negotiator. The vintage footage of Cohn discussing Trump plays as alternately prescient and groan-worthy. Cohn says that Trump dislikes “anything political” but suggests that “not too far in the distant future, you’re going to see Donald Trump in other parts of the country.”What’s most striking are the marginal anecdotes of Cohn’s shamelessness. The writer Peter Manso, a consultant on the documentary, sifts through Cohn’s old bills to illustrate Cohn’s habit of stiffing people. The gossip columnist Cindy Adams, who tells her own amusing anecdote about Cohn’s derelict payments, admits that he exploited her perch at The New York Post. The taste-flouting filmmaker John Waters recalls being appalled spotting Cohn summering in the gay haven of Provincetown, Mass.Given the filmmaker’s connection to the material and her access, it is surprising, even strangely admirable that much of “Bully. Coward. Victim.” plays so conventionally. True, Ivy Meeropol has examined the Rosenbergs case onscreen before (in the 2004 documentary “Heir to an Execution”), and she interweaves family history here. In one fiery TV clip, Michael Meeropol confronts Cohn to his face, though it didn’t necessarily take a relative to find that scene.Cohn was a paradox, and so is this documentary — a brisk, entertaining, quite full primer that nevertheless feels like it missed an opportunity for a unique angle or approach.Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy CohnNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Watch on HBO. More

In the mythologized version of the Johnny Cash story, his wife and collaborator, June Carter, is portrayed as the saintly woman who rescued the country singer from the dark side of fame. That story was immortalized in the 2005 film “Walk the Line,” for which Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar for best actress. Cash’s first wife, Vivian Liberto (played in that film by Ginnifer Goodwin), on the other hand, was made to look like a petty shrew on the sidelines when really she was the inspiration for the song “I Walk the Line.”The documentary “My Darling Vivian” attempts to salvage the reputation of a woman believed to be misconstrued and shoved into obscurity. Directed by Matt Riddlehoover and produced by his husband, Dustin Tittle (a grandson of Cash and Liberto’s), this may be the most comprehensive film portrait of Liberto yet, but the absence of her own voice is still achingly felt. (She died in 2005.)[embedded content]
Supported by abundant archival footage, Liberto and Cash’s four daughters — Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara — make revisionist cases for their mother in separate talking-head interviews. They recall the increasingly longer stretches of their father being away. Alone, their mother warded off everything from rattlesnakes on their property to threats from the Ku Klux Klan, who thought that Liberto, an Italian-American born in Texas, was Black.“My Darling Vivian” (its title is taken from Cash’s letters to Liberto) also chips away at Carter’s public persona; the daughters say she took credit for raising them. Such revelations are illuminating, but too much of the film harps on the same points about how Liberto was underappreciated. The film, ultimately, still lacks Liberto’s own sense of agency.My Darling VivianNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on virtual cinemas. More

Here are a few of the best events happening Thursday through Wednesday and how to tune in (all times are Eastern).Rock the Vote’s ‘Democracy Summer’ ConcertThursday at 8 p.m. on Democracy Summer’s websiteKaty Perry and the Black Eyed Peas will headline Rock the Vote’s virtual “Democracy Summer 2020” concert, a virtual event to encourage eligible voters to register. Other performers include Ne-Yo, Chuck D, Eve, Big Freedia and Lucy Hale. The senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, and the former Obama cabinet member Julián Castro, will also participate. Rosario Dawson and Logan Browning will host.When: 8 p.m.Where: Democracy Summer’s website.‘Inspired: Together #forStJude’Thursday at 6 p.m. on YouTubeSt. Jude is hosting a two-hour livestreaming event to raise money for the treatment of those with sickle cell disease. Throughout the evening, called “Inspired: Together #forStJude,” St. Jude patients battling the disease will share stories, and stars of gospel and R&B will perform. Participants include Anthony Brown, Erica Campbell, Major, George Willborn and Anthony Hamilton.When: 6 p.m.Where: St. Jude’s YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.‘Praying with Our Hearts, Hands, and Feet’Thursday at 5 p.m. on YouTubeAs part of the 92nd Street Y’s new “Confronts Hate” programming, the friends Rabbi Peter Rubinstein and Imam Al-Hajj Talib ’Abdur-Rashid will come together (virtually) for the session “Praying with Our Hearts, Hands, and Feet.” They’ll discuss searching for a way forward during this time of upheaval, according to the values of their faith. Attendees can ask questions during the live chat.When: 5 p.m.Where: The 92nd Street Y’s YouTube channel, and its website.An Adventure in New York CityThursday at 1 p.m. on the New York Adventure Club websiteThe New York Adventure Club wants to take you down one of the most storied stretches in Manhattan: the Bowery. And you don’t even have to wear a mask. During the webinar “The Bowery: Rise, Fall, & Resurgence of NYC’s Oldest Street,” the historian Stephen Paul DeVillo will guide viewers through over four centuries of a Manhattan corridor that has taken on many personas: a Native American trail, a shadowland of hard-knuckle saloons, a cultural hot spot. A Q. and A. with DeVillo will follow. Tickets are $10.When: 1 p.m.Where: Register on the New York Adventure Club’s website.A Juneteeth ReadingFriday at 10 p.m. on ZoomMore than 30 Bay Area theaters are teaming up to present a virtual reading of Vincent Terrell Durham’s “Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids.” The event will be held on Juneteenth, an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, and is led by PlayGround, the Lorraine Hansberry Theater and Planet Earth Arts. While it’s free to attend, donations are encouraged and will benefit black theater projects.When: 10 p.m.Where: Reserve tickets here to receive a Zoom link.Allison Williams and Christopher Walken in ‘Peter Pan Live!’Friday at 2 p.m. on YouTubeIf you missed “Peter Pan Live!,” a television special broadcast by NBC in 2014, now is your chance. The show stars Allison Williams as the title character and Christopher Walken as Captain Hook. When the three-hour production initially aired, Alessandra Stanley wrote in a review for The New York Times that Williams had “a lovely singing voice — as smooth as double-churn caramel ice cream,” and that she “convincingly pulled off a British accent and was, all in all, a confident, lively and suitably impudent Peter Pan.”When: 2 p.m., and it will be available for 48 hours.Where: The Show Must Go On’s YouTube channel.A Conversation with Joyce Carol OatesFriday at 7:30 p.m. on ZoomJoyce Carol Oates, the celebrated author of novels, short stories, essays and plays, will join Emily Mann, the resident playwright at the McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, N.J., for a conversation that will touch upon their long friendship, influence on each other and lifetime achievements.When: 7:30 p.m.Where: Register here. The conversation will also stream on the McCarter’s Facebook page.A 12-Hour Electronic Dance FestivalSaturday at noon on MDL Beast’s websiteThe 12-hour digital music festival Freqways, hosted by the Saudi Arabian lifestyle brand MDL Beast, will feature a host of popular D.J.s including Steve Aoki, Afrojack, Maceo Plex, who’ll spin from locations around the globe. Some of the Saudi D.J.s will be performing their sets from beautiful environs — some of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites — in Diriyah, Abha, Al Baha, Jeddah and more. Other D.J.s will play from Berlin, Washington, Miami, Las Vegas, Amsterdam, New York, Dallas and elsewhere.When: NoonWhere: MDL Beast’s website.Raising the Stories of Poor and Low-Income PeopleSaturday at 10 a.m. on the June 2020 websiteWanda Sykes, David Oyewolo, Danny Glover, Erika Alexander, former Vice President Al Gore, Jane Fonda and Debra Messing are among the artists, activists and leaders joining the digital assembly “Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.” The stories of poor and low-income people across the country will be the focus of the program.When: 10 a.m. and again at 6 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, and 6 p.m. on Sunday.Where: June 2020’s website. MSNBC will also air the assembly on some of its platforms.‘SOS Rainforest Live’Sunday at 3 p.m. on YouTubeSting, Manu Chao, Gilberto Gil and Maná are headlining a virtual concert in support of Indigenous peoples’ fight against the coronavirus and the destruction of the rain forests in which they live, in Africa, Asia and South America. In addition to live performances, this three-hour event, “SOS Rainforest Live,” will include messages from Indigenous leaders, scientists and activists. Oona Chaplin, an Indigenous-rights activist and actress starring in the next “Avatar” film, will host.When: 3 p.m.Where: The Rainforest Foundation’s YouTube and TikTok channels.‘All in Washington’ With Pearl Jam and MacklemoreWednesday at 10 p.m. on TwitchPearl Jam, Ben Gibbard, Brandi Carlile, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Macklemore, Dave Matthews and other stars from Washington State (and beyond) are gathering virtually for the “All in Washington” concert, to raise money for Covid-19 relief efforts across the state.When: 10 p.m.Where: Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. It will be available on Amazon Prime Video after it airs. In the Seattle area, the concert will air on the local NBC affiliate.A Concert to Help Minority-Owned BusinessesSaturday at 4 p.m. across social mediaBrittany Howard, 2 Chainz, Brandi Carlile, T-Pain, Leon Bridges and more will bring attention to the small businesses close to their hearts during “Small Business Live”: a music event to help minority-owned small businesses across the United States, with a focus on those run by women and people of color. Proceeds will benefit the Accion Opportunity Fund, which provides grants to at-risk small businesses hit hard by the coronavirus crisis.When: 4 p.m.Where: YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, Twitter and LiveXLive. Find out where to watch by visiting the festival’s website.Celebrating the Music of New OrleansSaturday at 9 p.m. on YouTubeFor decades, Preservation Hall has been protecting New Orleans’s musical traditions and helping to care for elder musicians. On Saturday, the organization will present “’Round Midnight Preserves,” featuring a series of musical collaborations, and never-before-shared performances from past Midnight Preserves. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Dave Grohl, Irma Thomas, Elvis Costello, Dave Matthews and Beck are among those participating. Funds raised during the program will benefit the 60 musicians who make up the Preservation Hall Musical Collective. Spotify is matching all donations.When: 9 p.m.Where: Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s YouTube and Facebook pages, and Preservation Hall Foundation’s Twitch channel.A Father’s Day ConcertSunday at 5 p.m. on City Winery’s websiteInspired by his song “Dear Father,” the singer-songwriter Colin Hay, a former Men at Work frontman, has teamed up with City Winery for a digital Father’s Day concert. The lineup includes Billy Bragg, Bruce Cockburn, Joan Osborne, Dar Williams, Martin Sexton, Fantastic Negrito, Citizen Cope and Jorma Kaukonen. Tickets are $12.When: 5 p.m.Where: City Winery’s website.Rethinking the Global EconomySunday on World Localization Day’s website and ZoomThe Dalai Lama, Noam Chomsky, Jane Goodall, Russell Brand, Annie Lennox, Vandana Shiva, Brian Eno and many other public figures, economists, artists and leaders will be participating in this program of inspirational talks, interviews, films and music for World Localization Day. This festival, which is expected to last about three hours, was organized in response to the pandemic with the mission of rethinking of the global economy.When: The prerecorded segments will be made available at midnight and will be accessible all day Sunday. Ticketholders will be emailed links to the live Zoom webinars, which will be held at 6 a.m., 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.Where: The prerecorded segments will be posted on World Localization Day’s website. Register to join here.A Weeklong Theater Festival BeginsMonday at 5 p.m. through June 28 at 6 p.m. on ZoomRattlestick Playwrights Theater and New York Theater Salon will showcase over 30 theater artists from 28 different countries during the Global Forms Theater Festival, a weeklong event that aims to uplift voices of international artists during the pandemic. The festival will include online performances, videos, documentaries, workshops and panel discussions, and will explore themes of humanity, freedom, home and isolationism.When: 5 p.m. on Monday through 6 p.m. on June 28Where: Zoom and other platforms. See the full schedule, and find out how to attend, here.A Virtual Festival for Fans of Virtual RealityWednesday through June 26Do you have a virtual reality headset? Dust it off. “Cannes XR” — part of the Cannes Film Festival and Marché du Film Online, and in partnership with Tribeca Film Festival — is dedicated to immersive entertainment and will offer 55 interactive works over three days. Content will be provided or supported by leaders in VR, including the Museum of Other Realities, VeeR VR, Positron and Kaléidoscope. There will also be dozens of panels, conferences and other sessions.When: Wednesday through June 26.Where: Various platforms including the Marché du Film Online, Tribeca Film Festival and Kaléidoscope websites. Learn more here.Peter Libbey contributed research. More