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      ‘Yannick’ Review: First Act Problems

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      Audience members revolting against bad art isn’t a new thing, but Quentin Dupieux puts a fresh twist on that theme in his surreal new comedy.At first glance, you might think that with around a dozen movies to his credit, Quentin Dupieux is finally settling down. The French director’s latest takes place entirely inside a Parisian theater, during a play — we are far from superheroes with a giant rat for a boss (“Smoking Causes Coughing”), time-travel passages (“Incredible But True”) and serial-killing tires (“Rubber”).Dupieux’s fans will be happy to know that his surreal humor is gloriously intact, while newcomers might find in this movie a gateway into one of contemporary cinema’s most idiosyncratic universes.“Yannick” starts by bringing to life a fantasy many theatergoers might have had at some point. Frustrated by a dreary, unfunny farce made even worse by a terrible cast (which is expertly played by Pio Marmaï, Sébastien Chassagne and the comedian Blanche Gardin), Yannick (Raphaël Quenard) stands up from his orchestra seat and loudly complains. After overhearing the actors mock him, he pulls out a gun and holds both the cast and the sparse audience hostage.Shot in only six days, this compact comedy (it barely clears the hour mark) doesn’t go easy on either side. Because he bought a ticket then endured a long journey to the theater, Yannick feels entitled to be entertained, and has a certain smugness about it. The play’s snotty actors, meanwhile, clearly consider their foe a proletarian rube and airily patronize him. A funnier skirmish from the culture-war front would be hard to find — and then Dupieux provides a final twist dabbed with unexpected emotion.YannickNot Rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 7 minutes. Watch on Mubi. More

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      ‘Scoop’ Review: The Story Behind That Prince Andrew Interview

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      In 2019, the prince went on air to respond to accusations involving Jeffery Epstein. The drama here is in how the BBC convinced him to do it.The exposés that brought public attention to Watergate, the predations of Harvey Weinstein and the abuse tolerated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston have all been the subjects of movies. The drama revolved, in part, around the difficulty of getting people to talk.Now comes the story of how the BBC program “Newsnight” landed its bombshell interview with Prince Andrew in 2019. Over a bizarre 49-minute segment, he unconvincingly addressed his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender, and repeatedly denied accusations by Virginia Roberts Giuffre that, at 17, she had sex with the prince after being trafficked to him by Epstein. The interview was less world historic than David Frost’s conversations with an out-of-office Richard Nixon (themselves the basis for a play-turned-movie), but the fallout was real. Faced with widespread criticism, Prince Andrew resigned from public duties just days later.How do you score an interview with a scandal-plagued royal? “Scoop,” directed by Philip Martin, chronicles the determined efforts of the producer Sam McAlister (Billie Piper), on whose book, “Scoops,” the film is based. Attending meetings at Buckingham Palace may lack the grit of shoe-leather reporting, but there is genuine psychology involved in convincing a famous figure that countering disapproval requires acknowledging it, and that the questions asked will be fair. Sam makes her case over multiple discussions with the prince’s personal secretary, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), and eventually in a pitch to the prince himself (Rufus Sewell in significant makeup) alongside Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson), the journalist who hopes to interrogate him.The film finds sufficient suspense in these negotiations and in Maitlis’s preparations for the encounter, a grilling that, in real life, she skillfully pulled off without ever registering as discourteous. Why Prince Andrew’s answers were so tone-deaf — he was panned for not expressing sympathy for Epstein’s victims — is a mystery that “Scoop” sidesteps. (McAlister and Thirsk exchange ambiguous glances as the taping concludes.)What “Scoop” offers is the modest pleasure — to which any journalist is susceptible — of rooting for a reporting team to get a story. That, and mimicry: exceptional on Anderson’s part, less on that of Sewell, who has a raspier voice and a more passably serious manner than the prince displayed on TV.ScoopNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘The People’s Joker’ Review: A Wild Card

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      Pure chaos is at play in a scrappy and unauthorized new parody about a character who looks a lot like the Joker. It’s a daring slice of queer cinema.The director Vera Drew got in hot water making this DC Comics-inspired origin story about a transgender simulacrum of the Joker, Batman’s frozen-smile nemesis. A disclaimer that now starts the film calls it an unauthorized parody, and any trademark infringement “was not done intentionally.”Drew’s fearless but illicit approach to filmmaking tracks the film itself: It’s aggressively self-indulgent, cinematically topsy-turvy and exhausting. It’s also singular, daring and an uncompromisingly cannonball into the queer cinema pool.Co-written by Drew and Bri LeRose, the story is standard queer movie stuff: A young, closeted transgender girl gets the hell out of small-town America and comes to terms with her identity in big bad Gotham City. But as she’s stymied in her quest for romance and stardom, our heroine morphs into a droll, nasty-minded comedian named Joker the Harlequin.Visually, the film is a manic but charged assemblage of live action, low-watt digital effects, crude animation and even puppetry. It’s as if Drew storyboarded using the angry diary entries and superhero doodles of the 100-some artists she collaborated with on the film. Too bad her relentless, insider jabs at New York’s comedy scene — she’s no fan of “Saturday Night Live” or Lorne Michaels — come across as sour grapes, offering few universal stakes for people who don’t know U.C.B. from a USB.Within the film’s confessional chaos lives the spirit of Vaginal Davis, Ryan Trecartin and other maverick queer filmmakers who toyed with genre to torpedo gender. It’s reviving to see an artist take up the cause.The People’s JokerNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Kim’s Video’ Review: Following the Tapes to Italy

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      This documentary details how the coolest video collection in downtown New York ended up in a small Italian town.Longtime New Yorkers of bohemian bent may be intrigued by the prospect of a documentary about Kim’s Video, the downtown rental outlet, retailer and shambolic hangout that shut its doors, as video stores tended to do, in 2014. Its title notwithstanding, “Kim’s Video,” co-directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin and narrated by Redmon, is less a retail history than a shaggy dog story. One that actually appears to be true. Go in knowing that and you might get a kick out of it.The movie begins with someone bringing a hand-held camera to St. Mark’s Place, where a Kim’s superstore once stood, and asking passerby if they can direct him to Kim’s Video, which seems a contrived, disingenuous setup. It then segues into Redmon’s autobiographical musings. “My parents were 17 years old when I was born,” he recalls. No one’s asking, but OK.Redmon’s soft-spoken narration is, among other things, peak film bro-ish, but it’s crucial to the narrative, which eventually chronicles the documentarian’s obsession with rescuing an all-but-stranded video collection. The collection was going to be housed at a library in Salemi, Italy, when Kim’s Video’s owner, Yongman Kim, made a deal to ship thousands of tapes and discs there. As it happened, this scheme turned out to be even more harebrained than was evident at face value.Despite not even possessing Duolingo-level Italian (the segments in which Redmon yammers in English at people who don’t understand him are particularly irritating), the filmmakers uncover a chaotic web of corruption and incompetence. And soon “Kim’s Video” morphs into a heist movie of sorts. The documentary is presented by Alamo Drafthouse, the movie house that (as you may already know) figures prominently in the narrative, which resolves in a cult happy ending.Kim’s VideoNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Housekeeping for Beginners’ Review: Daddy Nearest

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      Sad news forces a diverse group of friends to take unorthodox action in this volatile, affecting drama.For his third feature, “Housekeeping for Beginners,” the writer and director Goran Stolevski returns to his birthplace, North Macedonia, to capture the tumbling energy and volatile emotions of a household in crisis.The home, a haven of sorts for racial and cultural outsiders, belongs to Dita (Anamaria Marinca), a middle-age social worker whose partner, Suada (Alina Serban), has received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. While Dita anxiously seeks treatment options, the more abrasive Suada accuses her doctor of ill-treating patients who, like her, belong to the maligned ethnic group known as Roma. Suada fears for the future of her daughters: Vanesa (Mia Mustafa), an astringent teenager, and little Mia (a ridiculously charming Dzada Selim). Desperate to give them a better life, she begs Dita to adopt the girls and fraudulently register them as white. And as lesbians are not permitted to adopt, Dita will have to marry a man.This setup might sound depressing or even farcical, but “Housekeeping” is deeply sincere and occasionally joyous. As Dita and a gay housemate, Toni (Vladimir Tintor), reluctantly plan a Potemkin wedding, Naum Doksevski’s supple, hand-held camera swerves and dodges around raucous dance parties and rowdy arguments, visually mapping the residents’ tangled fates and churning feelings. A furiously grieving Vanesa rebels by seeking out her Roma grandmother. And playful Ali (a terrific screen debut by Samson Selim), Toni’s latest hookup, entertains Mia and mediates quarrels. Intimate, partly improvised conversations affirm the group’s rough affections and peppery personalities.This stylistic pliancy is a far cry from Stolevski’s beautifully controlled feature debut, “You Won’t Be Alone” (2022), yet both share an interest in difference and the restrictions of approved gender roles. In its cheerfully disordered way, “Housekeeping” tells us that families, like last-minute meals, must sometimes be created from whatever ingredients are at hand.Housekeeping for BeginnersRated R for bad language and good vibes. In Macedonian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Girls State’ Review: One Nation, Under Girls

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      Balancing confidence with broad smiles, the high school students in this documentary understand that camaraderie goes hand in hand with political ambition.In 2018, over 1,000 boys gathered in Texas for an elaborate, weeklong program aimed at students interested in politics. This meeting of teenage minds — part of a countrywide initiative sponsored by the American Legion — was captured in the Sundance hit “Boys State,” a vérité chronicle of the event, where participants are elected by their peers to different positions in government.Considering that movie’s success, it hardly comes as a surprise that the filmmakers, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, used their momentum to produce the follow-up “Girls State.” The directors shot the documentary in 2022 at Lindenwood University, in St. Charles, Mo., where, the movie repeatedly notes, it’s the first time that the boys and girls groups are holding their events simultaneously on the same campus.If you are imagining coed frivolity or drama, though, think again: These motivated girls are only concerned about the boys insofar as their proximity highlights the lack of parity between their programs. We meet Emily Worthmore, one of the film’s central subjects, as she ticks off achievements. At Girls State, Emily, a conservative Christian, hopes to be elected governor, a goal she shares with the left-leaning Cecilia Bartin, who canvasses the lunchroom by shouting from a chair. Others, including Nisha Murali, eye seats on the program’s Supreme Court, which the attendees anticipate will hear an abortion case.If the vibe of “Boys State” is that of a Young Republicans conference, the atmosphere at “Girls State” suggests a freshman orientation. By turns giddy and gutsy, the students share in communal songs, icebreakers and empowerment sessions. They seem to intuit that camaraderie goes hand in hand with political ambition, and that they shouldn’t take the curriculum, or themselves, too seriously. Here, cute selfies and résumé building receive equal attention.Modesty, sympathy, generosity — these are valuable qualities in life and not necessarily in documentary cinema, where tension often acts as a narrative engine. The film tries to complicate its sororal ethos by pointing to the ways in which women are socialized to strive for perfection and avoid raising a stink. But as the film goes on to track a series of frictionless exercises in campaigning, litigation and reporting, one wishes there were more complex ideas introduced in tandem.“Girls State” uncovers a fascinating division early on after Emily remarks that she has no trouble identifying the girls who lean liberal. “Maybe they’re just,” she pauses, searching for a diplomatic term. “Louder?” The filmmakers pair this observation with a shot in which a cluster of attendees, led by Cecilia, joyfully chant Pitbull lyrics while Emily and others watch from the side.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 First Omen’ Review: The Days Before Damien

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      A prequel to the original franchise, this debut feature from Arkasha Stevenson is a thrilling mash-up of horror tropes that gives the story new life.If the “Omen” franchise left us with memorable tropes — the boy Antichrist, lurking among us; those dreaded three repeated numbers — the content of the movies themselves did little else. The original horror trilogy, kicked off by “The Omen” in 1976, never had the sticking power of other classics in popular consciousness, and a 2006 revamp came and went. What could another attempt, this time a prequel to a middling franchise, really offer?In Arkasha Stevenson’s hands, it can take us on a pretty fun ride. “The First Omen” is about everything before Damien (a.k.a. the Antichrist incarnate), following Margaret (Nell Tiger Free), an American nun-to-be that is sent to an orphanage in 1971 Rome, where social mores are shifting and things quickly begin to get weird. It’s a period piece that Stevenson’s debut feature plumbs effectively, giving the story both scale and some nice compositional punches, while setting the stage for an often delightfully pulpy narrative (the Catholic Church is not so holy after all) to how the Antichrist came to be.The film revels in mashing up familiar genres: the monster movie, body horror and the Gothic church thriller. But it injects a revitalizing juice into the franchise — smartly edited and well paced, with a good cinematic eye.And most important, Free is a game partner to Stevenson’s vision. She naturally embodies the seemingly delicate innocence of young Margaret, a softness that, of course, must eventually harden against darker forces. Eventually she is taken over, her body jolting and writhing to something beyond her control in an arresting scene that gives the oft-discussed subway sequence from Andrzej Zulawski’s “Possession” a run for its money. It’s another familiar nod with just enough of its own delirium.The First OmenRated R for violent content, grisly images, and brief graphic nudity. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters. More

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      ‘Chicken for Linda!’ Review: A Comedy That Cooks

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      In this madcap film, a mother’s apology leads to a delightful misadventure that begins with mourning and ends with a father’s favorite recipe.In the animated French feature “Chicken for Linda!,” directed by Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach, a mother accuses her young daughter of stealing a ring of great and mournful value. When the mother, Paulette (voiced by Clotilde Hesme), discovers her error, she promises to do whatever Linda (Mélinée Leclerc) wishes by way of apology. Linda was an infant when her father died, so she asks her culinarily challenged mother to cook her father’s go-to dish: chicken and peppers.A general strike — Vive la France! — tosses a slapstick wrench into Paulette’s pledge, closing stores and forcing her to secure the chicken by other means. Police officers give slapstick chase. A watermelon truck and its kindly driver enter the fray. Paulette’s older sister, Astrid (Laetitia Dosch) — a yoga teacher who self-medicates with candy — is dragged into the mess. And the children and denizens of the congenial apartment complex observe and participate in the increasingly madcap antics of mother and child.For all its playful color-block hues and deceptively casual illustrations, the movie delivers a sharp mix of pathos and humor. “Chicken for Linda!” explores the differences in grief and memory for child and spouse with a touch as wisely light as the movie’s score, by the composer Clément Ducol’s, which lands festive, thrilling, sorrowful notes instrumentally and in songs.As the indomitable chicken makes break after break for it, and more and more people are involved in its capture, you’d be right to wonder: What about the tray of peppers one of Linda’s friends left cooking in the oven?Chicken for Linda!Not Rated. In French and Italian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 13 minutes. In theaters. More