Movies

For her first stab at writing and directing, the actor Lynn Chen imagines resolutions for characters originally introduced in Dave Boyle’s 2011-2012 movies, “Surrogate Valentine” and “Daylight Savings.” The result is “I Will Make You Mine,” described in the press notes as a “semi-sequel” to Boyle’s films and — at least in look, tone and temperature — not dissimilar to its predecessors.Coasting on easy-listening tunes and a complete absence of all but the mildest drama, the plot has an amiable innocence and uniform generosity toward its characters (more than one of whom is playing a fictional version of themselves). Everyone is inoffensively nice, especially Goh Nakamura (himself), an ultra-mellow, almost phlegmatic singer-songwriter who strolls back into Los Angeles to attend a funeral. And unwittingly resurrect dormant desires in three women who haven’t quite gotten over his wistful rhymes and crooning guitar chords.[embedded content]Most vulnerable is Rachel (Lynn Chen), a dissatisfied wife whose wealthy husband (Mike Faiola) was unfaithful and is now making cringe-worthy attempts to reconcile. Then there’s Yea-Ming (Yea-Ming Chen), a frustrated musician inspired by Goh’s arrival to write a new song (about him, naturally). Last, we have his estranged wife, Erika (Ayako Fujitani), torn between her professorial career and the demands of caring for a young daughter (Ayami Riley Tomine).As Goh reconnects with all three in a series of gently pleasurable hangout scenes, the movie accumulates a rueful nostalgia. Soft black-and-white cinematography (by Bill Otto and Carl Nenzen Loven) and low-key humor help offset the limitations of its partly crowd-funded budget, as does the naturalism of the partly improvised performances. Slight and sometimes a little sleepy, “I Will Make You Mine” is about transitions and crossroads, its characters learning that processing disappointment is as essential as pursuing love.“I just wonder if my race has already been run,” Goh says near the end, in a line that could have been spoken by any one of the women whose lives he has so unexpectedly disturbed.I Will Make You MineNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

Our culture writers offer suggestions for what to watch or listen to while we’re housebound. More

A new movie by Lewis Klahr, who makes striking, personal assemblages out of cultural detritus. More

Like a potted fern held aloft by a forest of well-positioned stakes, Dakota Johnson claims the center of “The High Note” on the strength and general excellence of the actors around her. Every one of them is a blessing, even those (condolences, Ice Cube) enduring trite roles and formulaic setups in a movie that can’t decide if it’s a musical reworking of “The Devil Wears Prada,” an underdog romantic comedy or a feminist arrow to the heart of the entertainment industry.Not that it matters in a script (by Flora Greeson, a former music-industry assistant) that sometimes requires not just the suspension of disbelief, but its assassination. It’s something of a miracle, then, that this hokey tale of an aspiring young record producer and a prematurely written-off diva unfurls almost as smoothly as the vintage soul and R&B that greases the soundtrack: Clearly, the director, Nisha Ganatra, knows that no one can resist a dash of Donny Hathaway.[embedded content]Certainly not Maggie (Johnson), a harried personal assistant to an imperious superstar named Grace Davis (a magnificently intimidating Tracee Ellis Ross, working a cackling laugh and a killer wardrobe). Fearful of becoming irrelevant, Grace is unsure of her next move: Her longtime manager (Ice Cube) would like her to slide gracefully into a lucrative residency at Caesar’s Palace, while Maggie is tentatively urging her to release an album of new material. Weary of giving her boss enemas and cleaning out her closets, Maggie has her own ambitions.Enter David (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a velvet-voiced singer-songwriter and all-around sweetie who, wouldn’t you know it, needs only a talented producer to kick his career into orbit. With neither referral nor résumé, Maggie persuades him to hire her, magically conjuring a fully equipped recording studio and session musicians, then even agreeing to sing backup — a move that astonishingly fails to derail their romantic attraction.Pulsing with beats by the likes of Sam Cooke and Corinne Bailey Rae, “The High Note” is pleasant enough but disappointingly timid and thoroughly implausible. As wary of taking chances as its three lead characters, the film relies on corny contrivances, music-industry clichés — here we go again with the multicity tour montage — and a soapy plot reveal that would mortify daytime television.Counteracting Johnson’s regrettable blandness, a clutch of agile actors in minor roles inject color and life into otherwise small moments. June Diane Raphael is an airheaded delight as Grace’s acquisitive hired companion, and Bill Pullman is cozily credible as Maggie’s music-obsessed father. But it’s Eddie Izzard, as a jaded musical legend, who adds a welcome shot of acid: His perfectly delivered monologue feels imported from a harsher, braver movie.Such a film could have sharpened its claws on any one of the music-industry prejudices that this one pretends to care about, especially those faced by female recording artists. Instead, we get flyby comments about age and race and fame that don’t stick in any meaningful way, as well as an ongoing impression of talented women having their voices suppressed. But if all you do is whisper, you can hardly complain about not being heard.The High NoteRated PG-13 for cheeky words and sexy bangs. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Apple TV, FandangoNOW and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

Fashion and female friendship become tools of resistance in “Papicha,” Mounia Meddour’s partly autobiographical feature whose extreme tonal flips — from gaiety to trauma, tenderness to tragedy — only make it all the more touching.Set in the late 1990s during the Algerian Civil War and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the movie hovers protectively around Nedjma (Lyna Khoudri), 18, a university student and a talented designer. In a vibrantly shot opening sequence, she and a friend (Shirine Boutella) sneak out of their dorm to go to a nightclub, changing clothes and applying makeup in an illegal taxi.[embedded content]“Aren’t you scared?” a guard asks at a checkpoint, suspiciously eyeing their hastily donned head scarves. But “Papicha” (Algerian slang for a cool girl), like Nedjma, has no time for fear; and as groups of women wearing black hijabs patrol the streets and invade the campus, Nedjma persuades her friends to help her stage a fashion show in defiance of the unwanted moral policing.Marked by a fierce vitality and vivid emotional authenticity, “Papicha” thrives on the heat of Nedjma’s anger and the glorious bond among the mostly young female performers. (Male characters are unfortunately drawn far more thinly.) Terrible things happen; but by celebrating the women’s intimacy and naïve exuberance, Meddour eases the suffocating noose of religious extremism. And by making powerful visual choices — like Nedjma clawing frantically at the earth for beets to dye bloodstained fabric — the director and her cinematographer, Léo Lefèvre, forge a language of rebellion that’s as beautiful as it is bitter.PapichaNot rated. In French and Arabic, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. Watch on Film at Lincoln Center’s virtual cinema. More

Movies probably lack adequate sensory capacity to capture the cooking at Mugaritz, a celebrated restaurant in Errenteria, Spain, started by the chef Andoni Luis Aduriz. In “Stage: The Culinary Internship,” the menu is described as “a sequence of provocations.” Aduriz’s inventions have included “live cannelloni” (which looks like it could grow at the base of a tree) and “mallow with sake perfume.” A protégé says he was challenged to concoct a dish that “looks like it needs a condom.” The movie ends with a server bringing penicillium-rotted apples to a table.To this milieu of edible Surrealism, the film, directed by Abby Ainsworth, applies the standard format of the competition documentary, following unpaid trainees over a nine-month internship (or “stage,” pronounced the French way) at Mugaritz. Some will quit under pressure; an elite subset will stay and devise dishes during the restaurant’s research-and-development season.[embedded content]Who will make the cut? Pawel, from Poland, already has a tattoo of a Michelin star. Sara, from Spain, harbors inklings of impostor syndrome. Near the end, Kim, from South Korea, worries that the apprenticeship has turned him into a Mugaritz clone, diminishing his originality.Considering the imagination underlying Mugaritz’s cuisine, “Stage” takes a disappointingly conventional approach. The time-limited nature of the internship gives the documentary a clear exit point; the contrast of personalities has grown familiar from TV. Cooking that makes diners uncomfortable hasn’t inspired comparable creativity of cinematic form. “Stage” makes you want to eat, not watch.Stage: The Culinary InternshipNot rated. In English and Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. Watch on virtual cinemas. More

This documentary portrait of the formidable sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard is, by dint of its brevity, more tantalizing than satiating. But it’s still a welcome cinematic account of her work.Her sculptures, carved or molded from cedar, are towering, surprising mammoths that seem like organic growths bursting from the ground. They intertwine the abstract with the figurative.[embedded content]Unlike the giant steel statements of Richard Serra, they don’t intimidate; rather, they invite close examination and even physical touch. In “Ursula von Rydingsvard: Into Her Own,” this artist, now in her mid-’70s, lean and filled with a youthful energy and concentration, says she wants the people around her art — which is mostly exhibited in public spaces — to put their mark on it. “There’s acid on the tips of your fingers that can eventually eat away at the patina, and I like that look. It’s like the look of the Buddha’s belly that gets rubbed, and that part shines from all the rubbing,” von Rydingsvard says.The work requires the help of many assistants, the expertise of many subcontractors. The director, Daniel Traub, intersperses a biography of the New York-based artist — whose childhood in war-torn Germany informs her work — with a chronicle of her process, following her through the creation of several large works and showing her interactions with her assistants. “I like them all so much. We have lunch together every day,” she says.Like many documentaries about the art world, this one is disinclined to talk money — except when mentioning the ’70s real estate steals on SoHo studio/living space. A further exploration of that aspect of her process, and maybe fewer banal pronouncements from art critics (von Rydingsvard “makes things that unsettle us a little bit,” one of them chin-strokes) might have made a more illuminating picture.Ursula von Rydingsvard: Into Her OwnNot rated. Running time: 57 minutes. Watch on Film Forum’s virtual cinema. More