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      Directors Guild Nominations Focus on Veterans Like Jane Campion and Steven Spielberg

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      The Directors Guild of America announced its feature-film nominees on Thursday, recognizing Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”), Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”) and Denis Villeneuve (“Dune”). Branagh is the category’s sole first-time nominee; the others have each been nominated by the guild before and Spielberg holds the record for most DGA wins with three.All five of the nominated directors also saw their films recognized earlier Thursday by the Producers Guild of America, which suggests they comprise the upper tier of this Oscar season’s best-picture contenders. The Directors Guild’s nominees also tend to match four out of five when it comes to the Oscars’ best-director category. Last year, only DGA pick Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) fell out; he was replaced in the Oscar nominations by Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”). The year before, the Oscars went for Todd Phillips (“Joker”) instead of Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”).Campion’s inclusion marks the first time in DGA history that women were nominated in back-to-back years: Last season, both Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) and eventual winner Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) made the cut. And in the DGA category recognizing first-time filmmakers, four of the six nominees were women this year.Here is a rundown of the nominees in the major film and television categories. For the complete list, including commercials, reality shows and children’s programming, go to dga.org.FilmFeaturePaul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza”Kenneth Branagh, “Belfast”Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story”Denis Villeneuve, “Dune”First-Time FeatureMaggie Gyllenhaal, “The Lost Daughter”Rebecca Hall, “Passing”Tatiana Huezo, “Prayers for the Stolen”Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Tick, Tick … Boom!”Michael Sarnoski, “Pig”Emma Seligman, “Shiva Baby”DocumentaryJessica Kingdon, “Ascension”Stanley Nelson, “Attica”Raoul Peck, “Exterminate All the Brutes”Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, “Summer of Soul”Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “The Rescue”TelevisionDrama series“Succession,” Kevin Bray (for the episode “Retired Janitors of Idaho”)“Succession,” Mark Mylod (“All the Bells Say”)“Succession,” Andrij Parekh (“What It Takes”)“Succession,” Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman (“Lion in the Meadow”)“Succession,” Lorene Scafaria (“Too Much Birthday”)Comedy series“Hacks,” Lucia Aniello (“There Is No Line”)“Ted Lasso,” MJ Delaney (“No Weddings and a Funeral”)“Ted Lasso,” Erica Dunton (“Rainbow”)“Ted Lasso,” Sam Jones (“Beard After Hours”)“The White Lotus,” Mike White (“Mysterious Monkeys”)Television Movies and Limited Series“The Underground Railroad,” Barry Jenkins“Dopesick,” Barry Levinson (“First Bottle”)“Station Eleven,” Hiro Murai (“Wheel of Fire”)“Dopesick,” Danny Strong (“The People vs. Purdue Pharma”)“Mare of Easttown,” Craig Zobel More

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      Writers Guild Nominations: ‘Don’t Look Up,’ ‘Licorice Pizza’ and More

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      The path to the best-picture Oscar almost always winds its way through the screenplay categories, so Thursday’s feature-film nominations from the Writers Guild of America could clarify the top contenders of this awards season.But the list does come with some caveats. The organization has narrow requirements for eligibility that exclude films not written under a bargaining agreement from the WGA or its sister guilds, which is why you won’t see nominations for “Belfast” and “The Power of the Dog,” two movies that are hotly tipped as Oscar front-runners, in the screenplay categories. Other ineligible films include “The Lost Daughter,” “Passing,” “Cyrano” and international contenders like “A Hero,” “Drive My Car” and “Parallel Mothers.”With all that said, which films did make it in? The original-screenplay category is filled with previously nominated WGA favorites like Aaron Sorkin (“Being the Ricardos”), Adam McKay (“Don’t Look Up”), Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), and Wes Anderson (“The French Dispatch”), with Zach Baylin’s script for “King Richard” rounding out the race.In the adapted-screenplay category, three big-budget films were recognized: “Dune,” written by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth; “West Side Story,” by Tony Kushner; and “Nightmare Alley,” by Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan. They’ll compete against Sian Heder’s script for her film “CODA” and “Tick, Tick … Boom!” by Steven Levenson.Winners of the WGA Awards will be announced during a ceremony on March 20. Here is the full list of nominations.Original Screenplay“Being the Ricardos,” Aaron Sorkin“Don’t Look Up,” Adam McKay“The French Dispatch,” Wes Anderson“King Richard,” Zach Baylin“Licorice Pizza,” Paul Thomas AndersonAdapted Screenplay“CODA,” Sian Heder“Dune,” Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth“Nightmare Alley,” Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan“Tick, Tick … Boom!,” Steven Levenson“West Side Story,” Tony KushnerDocumentary Screenplay“Being Cousteau,” Mark Monroe and Pax Wasserman“Exposing Muybridge,” Marc Shaffer“Like a Rolling Stone: The Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres,” Suzanne Joe Kai More

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      ‘The Conductor’ Review: Seizing the Baton

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      In this biographical documentary, Marin Alsop recounts how she became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra.When Marin Alsop became the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007, she was the first woman to lead a major orchestra in the United States. Alsop, who concluded her tenure in that position last year, recounts her life in classical music in the documentary “The Conductor,” directed by Bernadette Wegenstein. Alsop’s biography is a story of continually challenging a field in which the sexist idea that women can’t conduct persists.The only child of a cellist and a violinist, Alsop recalls being a young girl and seeing Leonard Bernstein conduct; she saw his remarks to the audience as being directed straight at her. Alsop would eventually work under the mentorship of Bernstein (shown looking animated and, frankly, oblivious to the boundaries of personal space in old video) at the Tanglewood Music Center. But much of her career required taking initiative when opportunities were denied to her.She formed an all-female, mostly string swing band. (She speaks of how the demands of the genre ran counter to the perfection classical musicians aspire to.) After being rejected from Juilliard’s conducting program (she says a teacher told her she would never conduct), she founded her own orchestra. And in Baltimore, where her selection for the job originally rankled musicians, she started a music program for children.As filmmaking, “The Conductor” takes a fairly standard approach. The most engaging portions involve music-making itself. Alsop explains her ideas about Mahler. (“There’s a reason why Mahler put every single note in the piece,” she says in voice-over, as the movie shows her on a boat in Switzerland, where she likens a mist to the opening of a Mahler symphony; her job, she continues, is to understand his motivations.) Elsewhere, musicians and pupils describe Alsop’s encouraging approach.The ConductorNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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      At Sundance, Two Films Look at Abortion and the Jane Collective

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      In the years leading up to Roe v. Wade, a Chicago group helped thousands of women obtain the procedure safely. A documentary and a feature tell their story.Judith Arcana was 27 and recently separated from her husband when she began driving women surreptitiously for safe — but illegal — abortions. The year was 1970, she was an out-of-work teacher on the South Side of Chicago, and she was spending her days counseling women in need.“I don’t think we were crazy,” said Arcana, now 78. “I don’t think we were stupid. I think that we had found something that was so important, so useful in the lives of women and girls.”“We were radicalized in the arena of women’s bodies,” she said. “We knew that what we were doing was good work in the world. And we knew that it was illegal.”Arcana was part of the Jane Collective, a disparate, rotating group of women who ensured safe abortions for thousands of women in Chicago between 1968 and 1973. Despite the law, women were still getting abortions. But they were often performing them on themselves and winding up in the hospital, or paying the mob with no guarantee of survival.During these years, because of Arcana and other women, if you lived in Chicago and needed help, you could call a number and talk with a woman who would offer a safer alternative. Members of the collective provided counseling and arranged the procedures, which they eventually administered — 11,000 all told during that period. But then in 1972, Arcana and six other members of the group were arrested, each charged with 11 counts of abortion or conspiracy to commit an abortion with a possible 10-year sentence for each charge. Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision issued in 1973, saved them all.Mugshots of members of the Jane Collective who were arrested in 1972. HBONow, close to 50 years later, members of the collective are sharing their stories in a pair of movies at the Sundance Film Festival, which begins Thursday: the HBO documentary “The Janes”; and a fictionalized account titled “Call Jane,” starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, and looking for distribution.The movies are debuting at a particularly crucial time for abortion rights. The Supreme Court heard arguments in December over the legality of a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks; it is expected to issue a decision this summer. Should the court uphold the law, the ruling would be at odds with Roe v. Wade, which declared abortion a constitutional right and forbade states from banning the procedure before fetal viability (23 weeks). The Sundance filmmakers make no secret that they support abortion rights but say they want their work to show the complexity of the subject.In “Call Jane,” Banks plays Joy, a mother and housewife who seeks out an illegal abortion after learning that her pregnancy is life-threatening — her attempt to secure one legally having been denied by an all-male hospital board. The movie’s director, Phyllis Nagy (whose credits include the screenplay for “Carol”), said she wished she could show it to the Supreme Court’s conservative justices. “I would sit there and say, ‘Now, talk to me,’ and it wouldn’t make any difference, probably,” she said. “But artists need to start having the kinds of political conversations with society that aren’t didactic,” she added. “Nothing else has worked.”Elizabeth Banks in “Call Jane,” about a woman trying to terminate a life-threatening pregnancy. Wilson Webb, via Sundance InstituteThe makers of “The Janes” hope those with differing views will allow themselves a look at life before Roe v. Wade. “This is a glimpse at history; I don’t think it’s an advocacy film,” said Tia Lessin, who directed with Emma Pildes, whose father used to be married to Arcana. Arcana’s son, Daniel, and Pildes are producers on the film. Lessin added, “It’s a real life story about what happened and the lengths that women went to to have abortions and to enable other women to have abortions.”“Do I hope that people’s takeaway will be ‘let’s not go back there’? Sure. But I really hope it moves people to engage in conversation. Love the film, hate the film,” she said before Pildes jumped in: “Talk about the issue.”And there is plenty to discuss.The Jane Collective was formed when a college student, Heather Booth, now 76, received a desperate call from a friend looking for an abortion. Booth, active in the civil rights movement, found a doctor willing to help and passed along the information. “I made what I thought was a one-time arrangement,” she said in an interview. Soon another woman called. Then another. Booth found herself negotiating fees and learning the intricacies of the procedure so she could counsel women. After a few years, Booth, by then a mother working on her graduate degree at the University of Chicago, recruited others to fulfill the growing need.“I was working full time. The number of calls were increasing. It was certainly too much for one person,” she added.Marie Leaner, now 80, was raised Roman Catholic and taught to believe that abortion was a sin. At a community center on the West Side of Chicago, she ran a program for teenage mothers. “I just thought it was atrocious that these women didn’t want to carry the babies but they felt this was their punishment for being in love or being sexually involved with someone,” she recalled. “I decided I wanted to do something about it.”She offered up her apartment for the procedures and occasionally held the hands of the women who came through. As one of the few Black women in the group, she said, “I knew that Black and brown people wouldn’t partake of the service if they couldn’t see themselves involved in it.”The State of Abortion in the U.S.Card 1 of 5Abortion at the Supreme Court. More

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      ‘Salt in My Soul’ Review: Living, Even Thriving, With Illness

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      This documentary reconstructs the life of Mallory Smith, who died at 25 after a lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis.Making a documentary that doubles as a final testament is no easy task. But with access to family members, doctors, personal reflections and hospital footage (which includes a surgery), “Salt in My Soul” poignantly reconstructs the life of Mallory Smith, who received a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis at 3 years old. She died in 2017 at 25, just as she had started to undergo an experimental treatment aimed at destroying the antibiotic-resistant bacteria that had made her course with the illness much more difficult.Despite the challenges of living with the disease, she became an accomplished athlete, a Stanford graduate and an indomitable life force, judging from the testimonies of those close to her and from her own words. The director, Will Battersby, draws on audio and video that Smith recorded and a journal she kept privately over a decade. (She gave her mother the password to be used after her death.) Her writings were condensed into the 2019 book “Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life.”The movie becomes many things: a memorial; an awareness-raising tool about cystic fibrosis and the possibilities of bacteriophage therapies; and a consideration of how it’s possible to live as Smith said she endeavored to — assuming she would die the next day while still, as she put it in a diary entry, “prolonging my life + planning for my future.”Smith thought that knowing she didn’t have much time gave her a perspective most people lack. Her journal, a friend suggests, gave her an outlet for her frustrations that permitted her to stay outwardly optimistic.“Salt in My Soul” is extremely painful to watch, especially as it shows the roller coaster of Smith’s recurring hospitalizations. But it does paint a vivid portrait of who she was and what she believed.Salt in My SoulNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘A Cops and Robbers Story’ Review: Keep Your Enemies Closer

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      This documentary follows a police officer who rose through the ranks while concealing his criminal past.Corey Pegues, the subject of the slim and sober documentary “A Cops and Robbers Story,” started in law enforcement in 1992, eventually becoming a commanding officer in his 20-year career with the New York City Police Department. But as a Black officer, Pegues was often treated with suspicion by his fellow policemen, who would snidely comment that he was too close to the community he was patrolling.What these officers didn’t know was that Pegues had once been part of a drug gang in Queens known as the Supreme Team. When he trained new officers, his presentations included criminal data on his own friends and former associates. Pegues was, in effect, living a double life.Pegues’s story is told through photographs, home videos and, most significantly, through present-day interviews with him, his family, friends and former contacts in both the police department and among members of the Supreme Team. The director, Ilinca Calugareanu, also includes re-enactments to stage the dramatic episodes from Pegues’s life, such as his failed attempt to shoot and kill a man.The re-enactments are attractively filmed, with stark cinematography and colorful costume choices. But their inclusion disrupts the flow of the narrative, often looping back to demonstrate scenes that have already been explained.The repetition of verbal and visual storytelling points to the limited scope of this film. “A Cops and Robbers Story” explores Pegues’s split loyalties, but the talking head interviews tend to isolate characters whose very intimacy is the subject of the film. If the central problem of Pegues’s life was that his past and present could never interact, the documentary replicates rather than resolves this tension.A Cops and Robbers StoryNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Why Is We Americans?’ Review: A Family Synonymous With Newark

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      This documentary looks at Amiri Baraka and his loved ones, who have played a vital role in arts and politics in their city and beyond for generations.Historical accounts of revolutionary icons are often plagued by hero myths that exalt individuals at the expense of the community that formed them. With “Why Is We Americans?,” a documentary about the impact the poet and radical Amiri Baraka and his descendants have had on the city of Newark, the directors Udi Aloni and Ayana Stafford-Morris attempt a different approach. In this compressed account of the multiple generations of artists and activists that make up the Baraka clan, the patriarch, who died in 2014, is a single (if central) node. It’s a story that spans past and present, arts and politics, and kin and country — and the movie, with its haphazard editing, struggles to contain it all.”In the film’s opening minutes, archival footage of Amiri Baraka’s rousing address at the National Black Political Convention in 1972 in Gary, Ind. — “What time is it? It’s nation time!” — gives way to scenes of his son Ras’s campaign to become mayor of Newark, a position he currently holds. From Ras, we go on to the other children, including Amiri Jr., a political strategist who was active in student protests at Howard University, and Shani, a daughter whose murder led to the establishment of a women’s resource center in her name. Amiri’s wife, Amina, emerges as the film’s most arresting figure, sharing moving anecdotes and sharp, feminist critiques of the Black Power movement.But the film’s unfocused, grab-bag montages often raise more questions than the movie can answer. Amiri Baraka’s first wife, the poet Hettie Jones, is mentioned only in passing, and some other important themes, such as Baraka’s feelings about the sexual orientation of a lesbian sister and daughte, are touched upon too cursorily. These elisions feel even more jarring given the ample time devoted to Lauryn Hill, an executive producer of the film, who appears throughout to offer broad, mostly gratuitous cultural commentary.Why Is We Americans?Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Cheer’ Is Back. Here’s Where the Jerry Harris Case Stands.

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      The Emmy-winning Netflix documentary series returns for a second season on Wednesday without its breakout star, who is awaiting trial in a case involving child sexual abuse imagery.Last month, Netflix announced a surprise second season of its Emmy-winning documentary series “Cheer,” which follows a national champion cheerleading team from Navarro College, a small-town Texas community college.While the new season shifts the focus to a fresh group of cheerleaders, one recent graduate remains in the news: Jerry Harris, the Navarro cheerleader whose “mat talk” and constant optimism in Season 1 made him a talk-show darling, has cast a shadow over the show. Twin teenage boys sued Harris in September 2020, accusing him of sexual abuse. He was also arrested that month on federal child pornography charges and remains in custody.The nine-episode season addresses the case from the start and includes an hourlong episode featuring on-camera interviews with Harris’s former cheerleading teammates from Navarro; the team’s coach, Monica Aldama; the brothers who are suing Harris; their mother; and the USA Today reporters who broke the news.Here’s what to know about the accusations against Harris, who is now 22, the status of his case and where Season 2 picks up.Jerry Harris in “Cheer.”NetflixWhat is Jerry Harris accused of?In September 2020, the twin brothers, who were then 14 years old, filed a lawsuit in Texas accusing Harris of sending them sexually explicit messages via text and social media, demanding they send him nude photos of themselves, and, while at a cheerleading competition in 2019, asking one of them for oral sex. Harris befriended the boys when they were 13 and he was 19, USA Today reported. Harris, of Naperville, Ill., was arrested by the F.B.I. in September 2020 and charged with production of child pornography.In a voluntary interview with the F.B.I. after his arrest, Harris acknowledged that he had exchanged sexually explicit photos on Snapchat with at least 10 to 15 people he knew were minors; had sex with a 15-year-old at a cheerleading competition in 2019; and paid a 17-year-old to send him nude photos.In the months that followed, federal agents interviewed other minors who said they had had relationships with Harris. In December 2020, they filed additional charges against him including four counts of sexual exploitation of children, one count of receiving and attempting to receive child pornography, one count of traveling with the attempt to engage in sexual conduct with a minor and one count of enticement, for a total of seven counts related to five minor boys. The indictment says these acts took place between August 2017 and August 2020 in Florida, Illinois and Texas. If convicted, Harris could face 15 to 30 years in federal prison.How has Harris responded to the accusations?In December 2020, he pleaded not guilty to the multiple felony charges. Harris’s lawyer, Todd Pugh, did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.Where does the new season of “Cheer” pick up?When we left the Navarro College team at the end of the first season, it was after they had won the 2019 junior college division of the National Cheerleaders Association and National Dance Alliance Collegiate National Championship in Daytona, Fla. Cue a “Today” show invite, an “Ellen DeGeneres Show” appearance and an “S.N.L.” parody.Season 2 began filming in January 2020 but came to a halt amid the pandemic shutdowns. The 2020 national championship was canceled because of Covid. Filming resumed in September 2020, tracking the team’s journey to the 2021 championship in April. (We won’t spoil it here, but if you want to know how they fared, well, we won’t stop you.)From left, Grant Lockaby, Lexi Brumback, La’Darius Marshall and Morgan Simianer in Season 2 of “Cheer.”NetflixThis season, the series follows the new cheer team as they get ready to compete against the rival Trinity Valley Community College. It also follows a few cast members from Season 1 (Gabi Butler, La’Darius Marshall, Lexi Brumback and Morgan Simianer all return).It addresses new challenges the team has faced since it claimed the 2019 title, including the departure of the head coach, Aldama, to compete on “Dancing With the Stars” in Los Angeles. She made it to Week 7 out of 11, but was 1,500 miles away from her squad when the allegations against Harris became public in September 2020.How does “Cheer” address the allegations?After Harris’s absence is mentioned in Episode 1, the show devotes almost the entire hour of Episode 5 to examining the case. It includes interviews with the twins, who discuss their decision to go public and the fallout from the accusations.The episode also includes interviews with Harris’s former teammates, who struggle to reconcile the bubbly, positive cheerleader they thought they knew with the crimes he is accused of committing. Aldama reveals that Harris wrote her a letter in which he said he hoped to become a motivational speaker one day.The one person we don’t hear from is Harris. In the press notes for the series, the “Cheer” director, Greg Whiteley, said he hadn’t talked to him, adding that Harris’s lawyers had prevented it. Netflix said Harris’s lawyers declined to comment for the series.Where is Harris now?Harris has been held without bond at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago since his September 2020 arrest after a judge suggested he would pose a danger to the public if released. No trial date has yet been set. A case status hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. More