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    Best Red Carpet Fashion At the Emmys: Jennifer Aniston, Ayo Edebiri & More

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    For people who like to look at clothes, there have lately been many opportunities on red carpets and off. Movie stars were in the spotlight at film festivals in Venice and Toronto. New York Fashion Week brought industry players and followers to parties, front rows and the city’s streets. Pop stars had their night at the MTV Video Music Awards.On Sunday, it was the TV world’s turn with the Emmy Awards. The event took place less than a year since the last Emmys ceremony in January, but the shorter-than-usual interim did not affect the spectacle of the red carpet.Actresses like Selena Gomez, Quinta Brunson and Sheryl Lee Ralph radiated sleek sophistication in black dresses that hugged curves and showed skin. Actors like Andrew Scott, Lionel Boyce and Dan Levy, who hosted the ceremony with his father, Eugene, chose modern interpretations of classic penguin suits. Over-the-top costumes worn by a group of contestants from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” amped up the camp.The fashion on the red carpet at the 76th Emmy Awards ran the gamut, but these 16 looks were among the most notable — for good reasons and bad.Jennifer Aniston: Most Familiar!Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesA career spanning more than four decades has taught the actress, a star of “The Morning Show,” a thing or two about red carpets. Among them: It is hard to go wrong with a simple silhouette like that of her columnar, beaded Oscar de la Renta gown.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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      In ‘Matlock,’ Kathy Bates Takes One Last Case

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      Kathy Bates was ready to quit. A movie shoot had soured (no, she won’t specify the movie) and she found herself alone, on her sofa in Los Angeles, sobbing. Bates, who won an Oscar for “Misery” and Emmys for “American Horror Story” and “Two and a Half Men,” has always taken her work to heart in an all-consuming way.“It becomes my life,” she said. “Sometimes I get jealous of having this talent. Because I can’t hold it back, and I just want my life.” She had given herself over to this part, and the gift had been ignored. The next day, she called her agents and told them she wanted to retire.A few weeks later, in January of this year, her agents sent her a script. It was for a procedural, which she hadn’t been looking for, and it was a reboot of a series that hadn’t especially moved her the first time: “Matlock,” a drama about a folksy attorney with a virtuosic legal mind and a wardrobe of seersucker suits. It endures in the cultural memory mostly as a punchline about shows old people like to watch.Still she began to read the script. And she kept reading. The protagonist, a woman who feels that age had rendered her invisible, was brilliant, canny, out for justice, and Bates has always had a strong sense of fairness. She feels the injustices of her career and her early life acutely, and the idea of playing a woman out to right wrongs called to her.So she paused her retirement. And “Matlock,” which debuts on CBS on Sept. 22 and will stream on Paramount+, became the unlikely vessel into which Bates, 76, can pour her talent, her vigor and surprisingly, given the shallowness of a typical procedural, all of her pain.“Everything I’ve prayed for, worked for, clawed my way up for, I am suddenly able to be asked to use all of it,” she said. “And it’s exhausting.”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 Family Affair’ Review: A Rom-Com With a Third Wheel

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      When Zara (Joey King) realizes that her mom (Nicole Kidman) is dating her boss (Zac Efron), she tries to split them up.Joey King is a bit of a unicorn: a genuine movie star brought into being by Netflix. As far as movies are concerned, the streamer does make a lot of them, but often seems at a loss to promote them or the actors. But in 2018, King starred in the Netflix-produced “The Kissing Booth” and made enough of an impression to power two sequels.“A Family Affair,” King’s newest film on the streaming service, may appear to be a kind of lab experiment — how does the buoyant actress react when thrown into a pool with Hollywood luminaries? King is not exactly outclassed by Nicole Kidman, Kathy Bates and Zac Efron. But the movie’s script, by Carrie Solomon, puts her at a disadvantage.Set in Los Angeles, “A Family Affair” finds King’s character, Zara, stuck in a personal assistant loop with Chris Cole (Efron), an action movie hunk who seems even more shallow and self-absorbed than the average caricature of such types. As is often the case in such arrangements, their relationship is creepily close; in the opening scene, Zara is late delivering the expensive but insincere gift Chris is about to bestow on a girlfriend he’s dumping.The movie serves up a light critique of Hollywood. Discussing Chris’s latest project, Zara repeats the log line, “It’s like ‘Die Hard’ meets ‘Miracle on 34th Street,’” to which her pal replies, “So it’s not about anything.”The beacons of integrity here are Zara’s mom, Brooke (Kidman), described by Zara in one of her frequent outbursts as a “Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award whatever,” and Zara’s paternal grandmother, Leila (Bates). Important plot point: Brooke is a widow who hasn’t been on a date in a long time. One afternoon, while dusting the house, Brooke is interrupted by Chris (semi-repentant, he’s looking for Zara, whom he’s just fired for the umpteenth time); they hit the tequila together and erotic attraction flares up. Awkward.But there’s “something real” between them, they insist to Zara, whose reaction to this development is vehemently off the charts. Until her grandmother gives her a good talking to, King’s character has three modes: peeved, indignant and grossed out. You could almost call the movie “The Longest Eye Roll.” (By contrast, Kidman, once a consistently expressive actress, performs with an inertia that could be read as a form of serenity.)King gets to show a little charm in the final third of the movie, and it’s refreshing. But every now and then you wonder whether “A Family Affair,” directed by Richard LaGravenese in a mode that vaguely recalls the work of Nancy Meyers, might have been more compelling as, instead of a rom-com, a drama about an entitled, manipulative daughter who almost ruins the lives of those around her.A Family AffairRated PG-13 for adult themes and language. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘The Miracle Club’ Review: A Pleasant Pilgrimage

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      Set in 1967 Dublin, this mild-mannered comedy explores grief and grievances with an ensemble that includes Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney.A camera soars above Dublin then glides toward a promontory where a solitary figure stands in front of a memorial plaque. A frothy score wrangles our emotions. Don’t get too sad, it seems to say, before the camera closes in on a sorrowful Lily Fox (Maggie Smith).Set in 1967, “The Miracle Club,” directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan, touches on grief and grievances, on unwanted pregnancies and the Catholic Church, while wearing the guise of a redemptive romp. It’s a delicate balance that — even with the impressive triumvirate of Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney — the movie doesn’t always sustain.Lily’s sojourn is one of multiple pilgrimages in the movie. The central journey takes Lily and her two closest friends, plus the estranged daughter of a recently departed third, to Lourdes, France, where miracles are sought by masses of people each year. Agnes O’Casey plays Dolly, the youngest of the trio and the mother of a boy (Eric D. Smith) who seems unable to speak. But Dolly is not the only member of the group in need of a miracle.With her taut mouth and vigilant gaze, Linney is especially nuanced as Chrissie, the wounded but self-contained and observant interloper who returns from the United States after a 40-year rift. And amid the star power, O’Casey is something of a revelation as the upbeat but wavering Dolly.The actor Stephen Rea does fine, grumbling work as Frank, Eileen’s unhelpful husband who must step in and care for their many highly amused children. Will he have an epiphany about home and hearth? The movie leaves little doubt about the answer. Indeed, the menfolk left behind, and their needs and demands, would provide the women reason enough for a sojourn.Dispensing wisdom throughout, Father Dermot (Mark O’Halloran) persuades Chrissie to join the pilgrimage. Later, he’ll offer an impromptu homily on unmet expectations, one that is surprisingly apt for those hoping for a movie that transcends the pleasant. The filmmakers go for too-easy laughs; the movie doesn’t seem to trust its audience to sit with the pain, much less to find the achy humor in it, as a more assured film might. The actors here are good, but they are not miracle workers.The Miracle ClubRated PG-13 for thematic elements and mildly salty language. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters. More