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      In ‘Godzilla x Kong,’ Destruction, But Not Much Concern

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      The latest sequel in the Monsterverse has plenty of destruction, but little concern about the death toll.This article contains spoilers for “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.”By the end of “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” the latest in the so-called Monsterverse franchise from Warner Bros., multiple cities around the world have been rendered essentially uninhabitable and treasured monuments have been turned to dust. Godzilla, Kong and their adversaries flatten sections of Rio, ripping buildings in half during their climactic brawl, as a monster that can shoot ice from its mouth coats the coastal setting, presumably freezing a bunch of citizens as well.Earlier, the two big guys punch their way through the pyramids in Cairo as tourists and locals scramble away from falling rocks. On top of that, at one point, Godzilla also takes up temporary residence in the Colosseum in Rome after he stomps through that locale. It’s frankly pretty cute the way he curls up to nap in the ancient amphitheater like a puppy, but the fact that he probably killed thousands of people getting to his makeshift bed isn’t really addressed.Directed by Adam Wingard, the film cares more about the beasties than it does anything else. Given the cartoonish tone Wingard is working in — Godzilla turns pink in this one while he and Kong fight a giant evil ape named the Skar King with a bone whip — it makes sense that there isn’t much dwelling on the human toll. Still, the sheer level of destruction is so outsize it’s almost amusing. Sure, you go into a Godzilla flick expecting for some structures to crumble, but this just feels extreme, especially in how casually it shrugs off the fact that monsters have just toppled thousands of years worth of history and countless lives.Over the years, films starring Godzilla and his pals have varied wildly in how they deal with the creatures’ victims — they have been serious and outright silly. While sometimes Godzilla can be a way to explore very human fears, at other times he’s just an outlet to watch things go boom. “Godzilla x Kong” puts him firmly in this noisy camp, which makes the treatment of death just seem careless.Perhaps one of the reasons “Godzilla x Kong” is so striking in how little it seems to think about damage is that the last “Godzilla” movie to hit theaters was entirely concerned with Godzilla as a representation of trauma.A scene from “Godzilla Minus One.”Toho CompanyWe 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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      Louis Gossett Jr., 87, Dies; ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ and ‘Roots’ Actor

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      His portrayal of a drill instructor earned him the Oscar for best supporting actor. He was the first Black performer to win in that category.Louis Gossett Jr., who took home an Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman” and an Emmy for “Roots,” both times playing a mature man who guides a younger one taking on a new role — but in drastically different circumstances — died early Friday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87.Mr. Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett confirmed the death. He did not specify a cause.Mr. Gossett with Susan Sarandon and Christopher Reeve after winning the Oscar for “An Officer and a Gentleman” in 1983.Associated PressMr. Gossett was 46 when he played Emil Foley, the Marine drill instructor from hell who ultimately shapes the humanity of an emotionally damaged young Naval aviation recruit (Richard Gere) in “An Officer and a Gentleman” (1982). Reviewing the movie in The New York Times, Vincent Canby described Sergeant Foley as a cruel taskmaster “recycled as a man of recognizable cunning, dedication and humor” revealed in “the kind of performance that wins awards.”Paramount, via Everett CollectionMr. Gossett told The Times that he had recognized the role’s worth immediately. “The words just tasted good,” he recalled.When he accepted the Oscar for best supporting actor in 1983, he was the first Black performer to win in that category — and only the third (after Hattie McDaniel and Sidney Poitier) to win an Academy Award for acting.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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      Paula Weinstein, Hollywood Veteran and Political Activist, Dies at 78

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      Raised by a McCarthy-era rebel, the producer and journalist Hannah Weinstein, she followed her mother’s path into movies and television, advocacy and action.Paula Weinstein, a movie producer, studio executive and political activist who became a fierce advocate for women in her industry, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 78.Her sister Lisa Weinstein confirmed the death. She said the cause was not yet known.In the boy’s club of Hollywood, Ms. Weinstein was the rare female top executive: Over her long career, she was president of United Artists, a vice president of Warner Bros. and an executive vice president at 20th Century Fox. She was just 33 when she was hired at Fox in 1978, and when she was promoted to vice president a year later, The Los Angeles Times called her “the highest-ranking woman in the motion picture industry.”“A man can be mediocre in almost everything, but a women’s got to be perfect,” she told Life magazine that year, when she was included in an article about Hollywood’s “Young Tycoons.”But Ms. Weinstein, who colleagues said possessed a wicked sense of humor — her sister described her laugh as an infectious cackle — and a steely commitment to social justice, was unusual in Hollywood beyond her gender. As Ken Sunshine, the veteran public relations consultant and longtime Democratic activist, put it in a phone interview: “Unlike so many, she didn’t play at politics. To her, social and political change was paramount. She was the antithesis of a phony Hollywood activist looking for good P.R. or a career boost. She was unique in a sea of pretenders.”Ms. Weinstein accepted the Emmy Award for the HBO movie “Recount” in 2008. She was an executive producer on the film, which was based on the 2000 presidential election.Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesActivism was the family business: Her mother, Hannah Weinstein, was a journalist and speechwriter who in 1950 took her three young daughters to live in Paris and then London, fleeing the grim and punitive politics of the country’s McCarthy era. In Britain, where the family lived for more than a decade, Hannah Weinstein produced movies and television series using blacklisted actors and writers like Ring Lardner Jr. and Ian McLellan Hunter. She repeatedly told her daughters, as Lisa recalled, “If you believe in something, you have to be willing to get up off your ass and do something, and if you don’t get up off your ass, you really didn’t believe in it.”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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      Louis Gossett Jr. Streaming Guide: ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ to ‘The Color Purple’

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      His range was wide, as evidenced by performances in projects as different as “Roots,” “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “Diggstown.”When most people think of the venerable character actor Louis Gossett Jr., who died Friday at 87, they understandably summon up his Oscar-winning turn in the 1982 drama “An Officer and a Gentleman.” But he accumulated over 200 credits over a screen, stage and television career that spanned more than 60 years, and brought a skill set that included not only drama but also comedy, science fiction, action and horror. Here are a few highlights from his illustrious career and where to stream them.1977‘Roots’Rent or buy it on most major platforms.Gossett had already established himself as an actor of note onstage, and in television guest shots and small but memorable appearances on film (“The Landlord,” “Skin Game”) when he was cast in the ABC mini-series adaptation of Alex Haley’s best seller. He plays the key role of Fiddler, an older enslaved man who becomes a mentor to the central character, Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton). Fiddler allows Gossett to display several of the gifts that would distinguish him throughout his career: an inherent dignity, a no-nonsense toughness and a (seemingly contradictory) warmth and humanity. The mini-series was a cultural sensation, breaking records for television viewership, and Gossett would win an Emmy for his unforgettable work.1982‘An Officer and a Gentleman’Stream it on Max; rent or buy it on major platforms.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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      A Georgia Town Basks in Bountiful Filming. The State Pays.

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      When movies are made in Thomasville, Ga., it welcomes celebrities and an infusion of cash. But the financial incentives that attract studios have cost the state billions.It is no wonder that moviemakers saw potential in Thomasville, Ga., as a stand-in for Main Street U.S.A. Cobblestone streets and mom-and-pop stores speckle the downtown of this city of 18,000 that is caked in red clay soil and nestled among rolling hills.Just as attractive to some of those producers are Georgia’s lavish filming incentives, which have made Thomasville a cost-effective place to make modest pictures with major stars. Dustin Hoffman came for the rom-com “Sam & Kate.” A children’s book adaptation, “The Tiger Rising,” brought Dennis Quaid and Queen Latifah to town.But what is good on the ground for local economies — Thomasville says each of the six movies filmed there has provided an economic boost of about $1 million — can simultaneously be a drain on state coffers.Some Georgia lawmakers wondered whether it might be wise to put some limits on an uncapped tax incentive program that has given billions of dollars to Hollywood studios, scrambling this week in hopes of passing a bill that would modify the program. More

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      Stream These 12 Movies Before They Leave Netflix in April

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      A Ryan Gosling detective comedy, a Formula One racing drama and the romantic musical “Mamma Mia!” are among the movies exiting the streaming service.Fast cars, jazz drummers, time travelers, bounty hunters — you’ll find everything but the kitchen sink in this month’s roundup of noteworthy titles leaving Netflix in the United States. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘The Nice Guys’ (April 8)Stream it here.Ryan Gosling is having a bit of a moment — he may not have won the Oscar for best supporting actor, but he won the Oscars telecast for his performance of “I’m Just Ken” — and those who prefer the intense actor in his loosey-goosey comic mode would be wise to check out this 2016 comedy-mystery. Gosling stars as a bumbling private detective who teams up with a bone-breaker-for-hire (an uproariously gregarious Russell Crowe) to solve a convoluted missing person case. The co-writer and director is Shane Black, who helped popularize the buddy-action comedy with his “Lethal Weapon” screenplay, and subsequently perfected it here and in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Keep an eye out for the up-and-comers Angourie Rice (“Mean Girls”) and Margaret Qualley (“Drive Away Dolls”) in supporting roles.‘Rush’ (April 15)Stream it here.Ron Howard spent a fair amount of his youth appearing in vroom-vroom car movies like “American Graffiti,” “Eat My Dust” and “Grand Theft Auto” — the latter marking his feature directorial debut — so it’s not surprising that he was drawn to this thrilling dramatization of the mid-70s glory days of Formula One racing. He tells the story of a rivalry between two of the sport’s stars: James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), a study in contrasts, the matinee idol and the ugly duckling, the party boy and the teetotaler. The nuanced screenplay by Peter Morgan (who penned Howard’s earlier “Frost/Nixon,” and would go on to create “The Crown”) mines the complexities of their relationship, while the thrilling race sequences effectively place us in the driver’s seat through the hairiest moments of trading paint.‘Synchronic’ (April 15)Stream it here.Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead make brainy sci-fi pictures, small-scale indie movies like “The Endless” and “Something in the Dirt” that traffic in ideas over special effects. This 2019 effort was the closest they’ve come to a play for the cinematic mainstream, casting Marvel mainstay Anthony Mackie and “Fifty Shades” star Jamie Dornan in the leading roles. But their signature style and thematic occupations remain thankfully intact in this tale of two New Orleans paramedics who discover the mind-bending effects of a new designer drug. The central conceit is ingenious, but the filmmakers don’t just rely on its cleverness; there are genuine, human stakes, and the payoff is refreshingly poignant.‘The Hateful Eight’ (April 24)Stream it here.Quentin Tarantino followed “Django Unchained” by again riffing on the venerable Western genre, this time by crossing it with the Agatha Christie-style “locked room” mystery. He populates his story, of a poisoning in a tucked-away haberdashery during a deadly blizzard in the post-Civil War West, with faces familiar from his previous films, including Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen; they’re joined by an Oscar-nominated Jennifer Jason Leigh, in a particularly foul-mouthed and ill-tempered mood. Tempers flare, blood is shed and vulgarities fly in typical Tarantino fashion, but in its unflinching portraiture of the racial hostilities of a splintered country, the work is by no means exclusive to its period setting. (Also leaving on April 24: the Netflix-exclusive “The Hateful Eight Extended Version,” which adds footage and breaks the film up into four one-hour episodes.)‘Malignant’ (April 26)Stream it here.James Wan started out directing bone-crunching horror pictures like “Saw,” “Insidious” and “The Conjuring” before going mainstream with “Furious 7,” “Aquaman” and its sequel. Between those two superhero flicks, he directed this gloriously unhinged, go-for-broke horror thriller, in which a young woman (Annabelle Wallis) is haunted by visions of grisly murders — visions that prove to be true, and suggest some sort of a psychic link to the brutal killer. If that sounds slightly peculiar, boy, just you wait. The screenplay by “M3GAN” writer Akela Cooper (with story assists from Wan and Ingrid Bisu) is an admirably unrestrained trip into the genre’s wilder corners, full of inventive kills, bananas story turns and cuckoo supporting characters, all rendered in a baroque, hurdy-gurdy visual style.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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      ‘Romancing the Stone’ and Its Screenwriter’s Tragic Tale

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      Diane Thomas was a waitress when she made headlines for the script sale of what would become a box office smash. But the Cinderella story had a sad ending.Each day, before her waitressing shift began, Diane Thomas would plop herself onto the floor of her tiny Malibu studio apartment, in front of a low-slung desk, and begin typing. Throughout late 1978 and early 1979, she worked daily, hours on end, conjuring the tale of Joan Chase, a mousy romance novelist suddenly thrust into a life-or-death adventure.“I wanted to write about a woman who became her own heroine,” Thomas would offer of her inspiration. “The notion that we can be whatever we imagine ourselves to be interested me.”Forty years ago, Thomas’s story, “Romancing the Stone” — and its heroine, renamed Joan Wilder — reached big screens, becoming one of the top box office hits of 1984 and an enduring classic, owing to a perfectly measured blend of action, comedy and romance. “It’s still the most well-rounded script I’ve ever read,” Michael Douglas, the film’s producer and co-star, said in an interview. “In many ways, it was a reflection of Diane — she wasn’t quite as shy as Joan Wilder, but she poured a lot of herself into this story of a writer who experiences a metamorphosis.”During a golden era of action-adventure pictures, the novice Thomas turned the genre on its head. “A woman being the impetus for that kind of movie hadn’t been done, certainly not in that way,” said Kathleen Turner, who played Wilder. “I mean, the girls in those types of movies were just that — they were always sidekicks or scenery.”Thomas’s friends, like her fellow writer Betty Spence, said the sweep of the story — which moved from the posh Upper West Side of Manhattan to the raw jungles of South America — was the product of a fertile imagination. “Diane was a pure storyteller,” Spence said. “She could sit there and spin a tale out of nothing, and it would have a perfect beginning, middle and end.”When Thomas sold her script in the summer of 1979, she went from minimum-wage worker to one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood. It was the start of a meteoric career that would include a pair of major movie hits and multiple projects with Steven Spielberg. Yet “Romancing the Stone” would be the only film to ever bear a Thomas writing credit because her life was tragically cut short.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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      ‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ Review: Running Out of Steam

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      The latest in the Warner Bros. Monsterverse franchise shows signs of an anemic imagination.Nothing about “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” makes sense, which is not, on the face of it, a problem. We have not settled into cushy cinema seats with our comfortingly stale popcorn to engage in discourse about metaphors and science; we are here for the stars in the title. About that title: “Godzilla x Kong” (meant to echo various other titles in other, non-Hollywood Godzilla movies) could mean Godzilla times Kong, or Godzilla crossed with Kong, or Godzilla against Kong — some permutation of titans. Whatever it is, there will be punching. We are here for the punching.What we’re not here for is the humans, which is lucky, because they’ve been dropping like flies. Most of the characters from the last few films — including the 2021 “Godzilla vs. Kong” (also directed by Adam Wingard) — have disappeared, largely without explanation. Our main character now is Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), adoptive mother to a tween, Jia (Kaylee Hottle), a member of the Iwi tribe, who communicates with Kong directly via sign language. I particularly missed Alexander Skarsgard’s Dr. Nathan Lind, whose absence is sort of explained but not mourned, and who has been replaced, for narrative reasons, by a kooky veterinarian to the titans played by Dan Stevens. (For some reason, I assume to signal the kookiness, Stevens sports an exaggerated Australian accent.)They’re joined once again by Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), the conspiracy podcaster-blogger-documentarian-weirdo from the last film. For some reason, he’s convinced that nobody believes his stories about the titans, even though actual Godzilla is roaming the Earth and shown on the nightly news. (I’m more stuck on the strangely fantastical idea that he’s a popular blogger. Wouldn’t he have a Substack by now?)These humans are pretty boring, more anemic than they were in the last movie. They’re there purely for narrative propulsion through this story, which begins with Kong living in the Hollow Earth (exactly what it sounds like) and Godzilla up on the surface. As long as the twain never meet, we’re good — and by we, I mean humankind.Which means, of course, they’ll meet. The scientists spot Godzilla napping in the Colosseum, then stomping his way through Europe and northern Africa, seemingly absorbing as much nuclear power as he can because he senses some confrontation coming. At the same time, something is very wrong in Kong’s world down below. And Jia is having strange dreams, too — dreams that lead to an expedition into the Hollow Earth. More