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      ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’: What Do Critics Say? What Do You Say?

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      The reviews all agree that the follow-up to “Fury Road” feels sadder and heavier. But is that a good thing? That’s where the disagreements start.Following up what is considered one of the greatest action movies of the last decade is no easy feat. But that was the task facing George Miller as he set out to make a prequel to his Oscar-winning 2015 blockbuster, “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The result, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” tells the origin story of the Imperator Furiosa, the breakout character who first appeared in “Fury Road” — played by Charlize Theron then and Anya Taylor-Joy now.The new film hits theaters on Friday, but critics weighed in when it premiered at Cannes last week. Comparisons with the other films in the “Mad Max” series (and especially the beloved “Fury Road”) were inevitable, and critics seem to agree that “Furiosa” feels heavier and sadder — but it’s less unanimous if that’s a positive or a negative. Read what they had to say, and let us know in the comments what you think of the movie.Manohla Dargis, The New York Times: “Scene for scene, ‘Furiosa’ is very much a complement to ‘Fury Road,’ yet the new movie never fully pops the way the earlier one does. As it turns out, it is one thing to watch a movie about warriors high-tailing it out of Dodge on the road to nowhere. It’s something else entirely to watch a woman struggle to survive a world that eats its young and everyone else, too. Miller is such a wildly inventive filmmaker that it’s been easy to forget that he keeps making movies about the end of life as we know it.” Read more.Owen Gleiberman, Variety: “What it all adds up to is a movie that can be darkly bedazzling, and that will be embraced and defended in a dozen passionate ways — but it’s one that, to me, falls very short of being a ‘Mad Max’ home run.” Read more.David Ehrlich, IndieWire: “Does ‘Furiosa’ deliver the kind of system shock that made its predecessor feel like such a violent rebuke to superhero-era Hollywood? Absolutely not — though its two bona fide set pieces both eclipse the most electric moments of ‘Fury Road,’ while also iterating on them in fantastic new ways (the much-hyped ‘Stowaway to Nowhere’ sequence is an out-of-body experience). But Miller’s decision to shift gears ultimately proves to be his prequel’s greatest strength.” Read more.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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      ‘Atlas’ Review: Jennifer Lopez Thriller Wonders Whether A.I. Is All That Bad

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      Jennifer Lopez stars in a sci-fi action thriller that wonders whether artificial intelligence is really all that bad.In 1927, a humanoid robot showed up and wreaked havoc in Fritz Lang’s expressionist science fiction film “Metropolis,” a memorable early example of cinema’s artificial intelligence antagonists. Since then, many a sci-fi movie, from “2001: A Space Odyssey” to the “Terminator” offerings to “The Matrix,” has proposed that some kind of A.I. will try to take us out.But it’s scarier now. No longer is a menacing A.I. a thought experiment, mere metaphor. Every script with an A.I. villain operates in a world where the audience has probably thought about, or used, an actual A.I. to do some kind of task. So the notion of an “A.I. terrorist,” as in Brad Peyton’s new sci-fi action movie “Atlas,” seems queasily plausible.That terrorist has a name: Harlan (Simu Liu). In a fast-moving prologue, we quickly learn how he came to threaten humanity with extinction, wiping out millions of people before abruptly decamping for outer space. Humans, left behind on a “Blade Runner”-looking earth, protected only by the International Coalition of Nations (I.C.N.), wait uneasily for Harlan’s return, like a cutting-edge second coming of Christ.After 28 years of peering nervously at the skies, the I.C.N. captures an A.I. bot known to be associated with Harlan. Something is afoot. A scientist named Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez) is called in as the world’s leading expert on Harlan — in part because her mother, Val Shepherd, the founder of Shepherd Robotics, created Harlan and raised him alongside Atlas. At the request of Gen. Jake Boothe (Mark Strong), Atlas boards a spacecraft commanded by Col. Elias Banks (Sterling K. Brown), headed for the planet where they’ve discovered Harlan has been hiding out.You can tell from these names that “Atlas,” which Peyton directed from a script by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite, is highly referential. (Or, perhaps, derivative.) Harlan shares a name with Harlan Ellison, the eminent speculative fiction author. Atlas is bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders; Lopez, who was also a producer on the movie, flings herself into the role with abandon, the kind of performance that’s especially impressive given that she’s largely by herself throughout. Her character’s last name, Shepherd, seems both metaphorical and maybe a link to a beloved character from the sci-fi show “Firefly.” I could keep digging, but you get the idea. At times “Atlas” feels like pure pastiche, and it looks, in a fashion we’re getting used to seeing on the streamers, kind of cheap, dark, plasticky and fake, particularly in the big action sequences. Science fiction often earns its place in memory by envisioning something new and startling — but with “Atlas,” we’ve seen it all before.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 Cannes Love Affair With American Cinema Takes Unexpected Turns

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      Whether it’s Demi Moore’s performance in “The Substance” or Sean Baker’s tale of a Brooklyn sex worker, this year’s jury will have a lot to ponder.One truism of the Cannes Film Festival is that no matter how alarming the news about the American movie world, Hollywood — however you understand that word — retains a powerful grip on this event. Cannes is a thoroughly French affair, but its love for le cinéma américain is evident everywhere from the faded images of Hollywood stars that are scattered about to the honorary awards that the event bestows. On Saturday, it will present an honorary Palme d’Or to George Lucas, the 11th American to get an award that it’s given out just 22 times.Given the United States’ long domination of the international film market, it’s no surprise that the country looms large here. The Disney adventure “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” it is worth pointing out, was No. 1 at the box office in France and in much of the rest of the world when Cannes opened last week; it still is. That said, the hold that American cinema maintains on this festival goes beyond market share. Americans have also won more top awards at Cannes than filmmakers from Britain, Italy or France. This fact that reminds me of the moment in “Kings of the Road,” the 1976 Wim Wenders road movie, when a character says, “The Yanks have colonized our subconscious.”There are always movies from around the world here, of course, but the selections that often generate the loudest chatter are either from the United States or are Hollywood-adjacent. Three such titles this year are a heat-seeking troika that involve American notables who, after a period of relative domestic quiet, have showily returned to the international stage. Kevin Costner is here with “Horizon: An American Saga,” a baggy western that’s the first chapter in a multipart series, and Francis Ford Coppola has a new epic, “Megalopolis.” Then there’s Demi Moore, who’s being hailed for her bold starring role in “The Substance,” an English-language horror movie from the French director Coralie Fargeat.Demi Moore as an actress of “a certain age” in “The Substance.” Universal PicturesA gross-out fantasy that suggests Fargeat has watched her share of David Cronenberg movies, “The Substance” centers on a beautiful actress, Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore), who is what’s often irritatingly called a certain age. When her TV show is canceled, the actress does what you might predict given the movie’s exaggerated look and tone: She despairs at what she sees in the mirror and reaches for an outrageous solution. This turns out to be the mysterious treatment of the title, which allows her to effectively generate (birth) a younger version of herself. This Demi 2.0, as it were, is played by Margaret Qualley, who, like Moore, bares her all in a 140-minute movie that’s as simple-minded as it is bloated.I am (personally!) sympathetic to the points about women, beauty and age that Fargeat seems to be trying to make. Yet the movie never gets beyond the obvious, and the whole thing soon becomes grindingly repetitive despite its two vigorous lead performances, all the many eye-catching shots of Qualley pumping her butt like a piston and the chunky tsunamis of gore. Far more successful on both feminist and filmmaking terms is “Anora,” Sean Baker’s giddily ribald picaresque about a Brooklyn sex worker, Ani (Mikey Madison), who, more or less impulsively, weds the absurdly juvenile son of a Russian oligarch.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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      Timeline: How ‘Furiosa’ Fits into the ‘Mad Max’ Series

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      “Furiosa” is a prequel that intersects with the earlier movies in surprising ways. Here’s a chronology, plus our ideal order for watching the whole series.“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is roaring into theaters, widely advertised as a prequel to the director George Miller’s 2015 hit, “Mad Max: Fury Road.” But that was the fourth film in a series that, until now, was chronological, so where does “Furiosa” fit in? How else do these movies intersect, with the numerous cast changes and recalibrations in the 45 years since the inaugural entry? Whether you’re approaching the franchise as a novice or looking for a quick refresher, here’s how it all fits together:The Films(All the older films are available for streaming on Max or for rental on most major platforms. “Furiosa” is in theaters.)“MAD MAX” (1979) Miller began his saga with this low-budget Ozploitation hit, which is not yet in the series’s signature style of postapocalyptic action extravaganzas — it’s more indebted to the exploitation cinema standbys of revenge thriller, ’70s car movie and ’60s biker flick. A then-unknown Mel Gibson stars as “Mad” Max Rockatansky, an Australian supercop with the Main Force Patrol. The world of “Mad Max” is in disarray, primarily because of oil shortages, but it’s not yet the wasteland of the later pictures; Max lives a life of relative normalcy, with a doting wife and child, though a roving gang of biker thugs escalates into the murder of Max’s family, turning him into a lone-wolf vigilante.In the first “Mad Max,” Mel Gibson played a relatively normal guy with a family.Film Forum/MGM“MAD MAX 2” (1981) Released in 1982 in the United States as “The Road Warrior” (the earlier film hadn’t made much of an impression here), the first sequel finds Max roaming an Outback that has further descended into lawlessness. He is only looking out for himself, seeking food and petrol to keep moving, but he stumbles on a commune of survivors hiding out in an oil refinery, and helps protect them from violent marauders. This is what we think of when we think of a “Mad Max” movie: a barren landscape, Frankenstein-ed vehicles, improvised weapons, gnarly deaths and a thrilling road-race set piece that takes up most of the third act.“MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME” (1985) Max lands in Bartertown, a trading post for necessities like oil and water. Entertainment is provided by fights to the death in the Thunderdome. (“Two men enter, one man leaves.”) He later falls in with children orphaned in an airplane crash, whom he reluctantly aids. This is the only PG-13 entry in the otherwise R-rated series, and worse for it (Mad Max is essentially turned into Peter Pan). Given the budget and resources of a major studio, though, Miller experiments with the scale and scope necessary for his next entry.“MAD MAX: FURY ROAD” (2015) After a 30-year hiatus, Miller returned to the series with this blistering bruiser, which plunges Max (now played by Tom Hardy) into the Citadel, controlled by the evil warlord Immortan Joe. One of his lieutenants, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), sabotages a routine run for petrol and ammunition by smuggling out Joe’s five wives, promising to take them to the idyllic Green Place of her childhood. Max (as usual, reluctantly) assists, and when they discover the Green Place is no more, the group turns back to take down Immortan Joe and take over the Citadel.“FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA” (2024) In “Fury Road,” Furiosa told of how she was taken from the Green Place and her mother, trying to rescue her, was killed. “Furiosa” relates that story in detail, as young Furiosa (played first by Alyla Browne, then Anya Taylor-Joy) was kidnapped by the gang of the Warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and made to watch her mother’s murder; he subsequently trades Furiosa to Immortan Joe as part of a deal for control of Gastown, and she learns how to be a road warrior so that she can exact her revenge against Dementus.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 Best Films of 2024, So Far

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      Our critics pick nine films that they think are worth your time on this long holiday weekend.Looking for a good movie to pass the time this Memorial Day weekend? The New York Times’s chief film critic, Manohla Dargis, and movie critic, Alissa Wilkinson, have you covered. Here are their top picks for the year so far. All are in theaters or available on demand.‘Hit Man’In theaters; June 7 on Netflix.The story: Glen Powell is a philosophy professor who moonlights for the police in New Orleans when he finds himself undercover posing as a hit man in this Richard Linklater movie. An encounter with Madison (Adria Arjona), a housewife looking to hire him, raises the stakes, comedically and romantically.Alissa Wilkinson’s take: “If I see a movie more delightful than “Hit Man” this year, I’ll be surprised. It’s the kind of romp people are talking about when they say that “they don’t make them like they used to”: It’s romantic, sexy, hilarious, satisfying and a genuine star-clinching turn for Glen Powell, who’s been having a moment for about two years now.” Read the review.‘Civil War’In theaters.Kirsten Dunst plays a war photographer in Alex Garland’s “Civil War.” A24, via Associated PressWe 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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      An Extraordinary Documentary About the Most Precious of Lives

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      Margreth Olin’s “Songs of Earth” works almost like a poem as she records her parents and the Norwegian landscape.It’s rare to see a film that feels not just poetic in nature, but like actual poetry. The rhythm and cadence, the imagery and metaphor, even the sense of movement and time that often accompany a great poem don’t translate easily to the screen. Filmmakers need a light touch and trust in the viewer to lean in and let their work wash over them, rather than trying to decode everything.Margreth Olin somehow pulled it off — and in a documentary, no less. Her “Songs of Earth” (in theaters) is tough to categorize as anything other than poetry, though there are elements of nature photography and personal narrative woven throughout.At the center of “Songs of Earth” are the relationship between Olin’s parents, Jorgen and Magnhild Mykloen, as they age, and the spectacular landscapes of her native Norway. The film moves through a cycle of seasons, during which the terrain changes from green to brown to white and back again. At the center of that terrain is Olin’s 84-year-old father, who returns repeatedly to the Oldedalen valley, in the western part of the country.Olin’s father tells her stories of his life and their ancestors. She learns about tragedies, about surgery he underwent when he was young, about the way the world has shaped him and his life. Both of her parents — who have been married for 55 years — talk about their relationship and what the future may hold for them, with grief inevitably on the horizon.The gentle stories are marked by periods of silence that are never silent: The earth produces its own noises of ripples and blusters and crackling, melting ice, sometimes harmonizing with a gorgeous score by Rebekka Karijord. It’s really quite an experience to watch, and what might tie it all together is Olin’s decision to film her father’s skin at very close range. There’s a point being made there: His wrinkles and crevasses echo the landscape, which has also been shaped by time and forces of nature. In the span of the earth’s life, an individual human’s time is minuscule, yet precious — we are the planet in microcosm.It’s an altogether extraordinary film, one I’ve thought about often since I first saw it, and I’m delighted that it’s playing in theaters — the immersive nature of the sounds, music and landscapes are worth experiencing with the full concentration a cinema affords. But even if you can’t see it that way, it’s worth watching whenever it’s available digitally. Just make sure you close the door, dim the lights and give yourself the gift of being immersed in it fully.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 Beach Boys’ Review: How to Make Good Vibrations

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      This Disney documentary looks at the family ties and sweet harmonies that turned a California band into a popular treasure.The wholesome ocean-breeze look of the Beach Boys could make the group a punchline if it weren’t for their sweet sunshine sound. The origins of their intricate harmonies undergird “The Beach Boys,” a Disney documentary directed by Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny that notes obstacles in the band’s career but mostly tries to keep the good vibrations going.Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson grew up in a musical household in Hawthorne, Calif., and eventually pooled their ample talents with a cousin, Mike Love, and a friend, Al Jardine. As told through a patchwork of polite interviews and mostly mundane clips from performances, the rise of their music was fueled by four-part harmonies, surf culture and entrancing orchestration not unlike Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound.Brian, who hated touring, was the band’s homebody musical mastermind, and he could imbue their pop with an outsider’s moods, while the Wilsons’ father, Murry, put on the pressure as their manager. Snippets from “Pet Sounds,” their landmark 1966 album, never fail to rejuvenate the movie. But after a while, you get the sense of a band that stopped growing, though the movie traces a fruitful competitive streak with the Beatles.Any deviations from the film’s obligatory timeline tour are very welcome, like a mortifying studio recording of Murry holding forth, and it’s a treat to hear the esteem for Brian among the Wrecking Crew, the storied group of session musicians. And for the pop romantics among us, the Beach Boys can still cast a spell with those four little words: Wouldn’t it be nice?The Beach BoysRated PG-13 for drug material and brief lapses into unsunny language. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More

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      Maria Bellow and Dominique Crenn Celebrate Their Union in Mexico

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      The actress Maria Bello and the Michelin-starred chef Dominique Crenn said they owe their journey to the “three C’s”: cancer, Covid and, now, commitment.Dominique Isabel Pascale Crenn receives countless DMs on Instagram from people trying to get a table at her San Francisco restaurant, Atelier Crenn. She doesn’t usually respond.But when Maria Elaina Bello sent her a DM in April 2018, the message resonated with her.Lorraine Silvera, a friend of Ms. Bello’s and a fellow food lover, had seen Ms. Crenn on the Netflix documentary series “Chef’s Table.” Ms. Silvera and Ms. Bello were flying to San Francisco from Los Angeles for dinner at Atelier Crenn, but reservations were fully booked.Ms. Bello, 57, sent a message to Ms. Crenn, 59, on Instagram: “My friend Lolo who started the first Italian restaurant in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, is coming to visit next week and wants nothing more than to eat your divine food. We will fly from L.A. Thursday if it’s possible to get into the restaurant.”As it happened, Ms. Crenn had been to Haiti the year before with her friend Michelle Jean, who is Haitian, to help farmers who had been affected by Hurricane Matthew, which devastated the country in October 2016. Their efforts to rebuild infrastructure included planting trees for coffee and cacao farmers. Ms. Crenn felt compelled to respond to Ms. Bello, and she made space at the restaurant for her and her friend.“It was the most amazing food I ever had,” Ms. Bello said. “She was so kind, we knew that night we’d be friends forever. But I wasn’t in a dating place. She wasn’t in a dating place.”Ms. Crenn said she immediately felt safe around Ms. Bello, and that Ms. Bello gave her a hug that made her feel at peace. “Especially in my industry sometimes, so many people come to the restaurant and everybody wants to be your friend,” Ms. Crenn 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