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      ‘The Last Autumn’ Review: The Majesty of Shepherds

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      This observational documentary about an aging farming couple on the Icelandic coast unfolds like an elegy to a life lived off the land.“The Last Autumn” feels like a missive from another planet, even as it chronicles the most mundane activities of terrestrial life: eating, cooking, farming, tending to animals. The ordinary life and routines of the documentary’s subjects, the aging farming couple Ulfar and Oddny, take place against an extraordinary backdrop: a desolate village on the Icelandic coast, nestled amid green mountains that slope into the frigid blue of the Arctic Ocean.The director, Yrsa Roca Fannberg, follows the couple as they prepare for the annual autumnal ritual of herding their sheep down the mountain — though this year’s descent is tinged with doom. Ulfar and Oddny are selling their farm, and their beloved stock will either be sold or slaughtered. The film unfolds like an elegy to a life lived off the land. The camera closes in on the protagonists’ hands as they work meat or wood or fur, driving home the quiet majesty of manual labor.Haunting music, a remote, aerial view and lens flares that tint the image blue and red turn the film’s shepherding sequences into a grand spectacle straight out of a horror or science fiction movie. As Ulfar, Oddny, their grandchildren and their neighbors herd the sheep down the mountain, they become dark figures chasing cloudy-white blobs across a mysterious, craggy expanse, while their walkie-talkie exchanges crackle eerily on the soundtrack.By the time we get to the film’s closing scenes, in which the farmers crack open the skull of a ram and lime its hide, all while exchanging fond reminiscences about the animal, this modest documentary becomes something epic — a microcosm of the eternal cycles of life.The Last AutumnNot rated. In Icelandic, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. Watch on Film Movement Plus. More

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      ‘Only in Theaters’ Review: A Family Business in Changing Times

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      Laemmle theaters have fed generations of Los Angeles cinephiles. This documentary looks at their past and present.Is it said that the comic poet Ogden Nash, noting the hiring practices of a certain founder of Universal Pictures, once wrote the couplet “Uncle Carl Laemmle/has a very big faemmle.” Carl Laemmle made no secret of his nepotism, and frankly it’s hard to argue against its results. His son, Carl Laemmle Jr., for instance, produced visionary 1930s monster movies including “Dracula” (1931), “The Mummy” (1932) and “The Bride of Frankenstein” (1935). One of the elder Laemmle’s cousins, like Laemmle a European immigrant, was William Wyler, who became a protean American director.There are still Laemmles in the movie business, and any Los Angeles cinephile will avow that the family is doing God’s work. “Only in Theaters” tells the story of Laemmle Theaters, a set of art houses that dot the Los Angeles area.The small theater chain was founded by two nephews of Carl Laemmle Sr., who turned it over to Robert Laemmle, who then passed the baton to Greg Laemmle‌, his son. The theaters once hosted the West Coast premieres of powerhouse international films by the likes of Ingmar Bergman and François Truffaut, who became friends of the Laemmle family.This documentary’s director, Raphael Sbarge, had his eyes opened to these movie houses when screening a film at one of them. His decision to chronicle the theaters and the family that runs them coincided with a major turning point for the business. By 2019, Greg Laemmle contemplated selling the movie houses. There’s footage of him agonizing over the idea. And then the coronavirus pandemic arrived, which compelled Greg to make a substantial sacrifice.Ultimately the movie is as scattershot as it is enthusiastic. When the French director Bertrand Tavernier is mentioned, the screen displays a shot of the French director Bertrand Blier. Repetitive paeans to the theatrical experience (from interviewees including the critic and historian Leonard Maltin, and the filmmaker Ava DuVernay) are offered willy-nilly. But the narrative about the theaters’ present-day fight for survival is undeniably compelling.Only in TheatersNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Ability to Say Yes’ to Stories Long Neglected on the Screen

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      Like so many anxious filmmakers the week before the start of the Sundance Film Festival, Erica Tremblay was tucked inside a dark room in Los Angeles, prepping the final sound mix for her feature debut, “Fancy Dance.”Ms. Tremblay has one of those quintessential Sundance tales: abandoning her career in publishing at age 40 to pursue filmmaking, specifically to tell stories centered in her Seneca-Cayuga Nation in Oklahoma. Her first short film, “Little Chief,” premiered at Sundance in 2020. Her script for “Fancy Dance” was accepted into the 2021 Sundance Lab, and with the help of the Sundance Institute, she secured financing to make the movie. Production concluded in September, and just three months later, her film was chosen out of 10,000 submissions to be shown at this year’s festival, which begins Thursday.None of it would have happened without her financiers. One, Nina Yang Bongiovi of Significant Productions, has been financing indie films like “Fruitvale Station” and “Passing” since 2013. Another, Tommy Oliver, the founder and chief executive of Confluential Films, is relatively new to the finance game after spending the past decade producing and directing his own films.“The thing that I like the best about working with Tommy is that I had creative autonomy,” said Ms. Tremblay, who has been working in one of Mr. Oliver’s bungalows on his Confluential campus since Thanksgiving. “Even though it’s hard to trust first-time filmmakers, whatever he saw in this, he was like, let’s do it. He has been there for the project but also been there for me as a creator. He was somewhat of a resident therapist in that regard.”Mr. Oliver and his wife, Codie Elaine Oliver, created the popular TV series “Black Love.”OWNMr. Oliver is one of a number of financiers of color with films debuting at the festival whose mission is to elevate underrepresented voices with financial investments, including Charles King, Luis A. Miranda Jr., Kimberly Steward, Doug Choi and Ms. Yang Bongiovi.It’s a far cry from how things used to be and a sign that diversity efforts have moved from the periphery of the business more toward its center.“When I started in the business, in the ’80s, I was so used to being not only the only Asian American but the only minority at the table ever,” said Chris Lee, a former president of production at Sony’s TriStar Pictures. He is executive producing the Justin Chon film “Jamojaya,” which received financing from Starlight Media, a Los Angeles-based Chinese financier that backed “Crazy Rich Asians.” “Now, you want an A-list director, you can go to John Chu, you can go to Destin Daniel Cretton, you can go to Justin Lin. There’s so many choices to put people in front of the camera now that people didn’t think of before.”Still, just appearing at Sundance is not the endgame. The true standard for success for these financiers will be how these movies perform at the festival and if they are bought by distributors. Alexis Garcia, from the independent studio Fifth Season, previously known as Endeavor Content, said distributors have told him the festival’s lineup of films this year doesn’t look commercial and it could be a soft year for acquisitions.Should that be the case, that could be a setback for the financiers who are just getting started.“When you are working with directors who are from an underrepresented group, there is actually more at risk, because if it doesn’t work, it just perpetuates the mythology,” said Kevin Iwashina, Fifth Season’s senior vice president of documentaries, who helped finance the Sundance doc “Going Varsity in Mariachi” and fully financed “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World,” a documentary about the cult responsible for the 1995 sarin gas subway attack in Tokyo. “And so decisions become that much more precise. There is more at risk than just financial capital.”Mr. Oliver is staking a lot in the four films he has headed to Sundance, in something of a coming-out party for Confluential Films. Mr. Oliver began the operation in 2013 as a label for his own productions — he is also a writer and director — but has recently expanded his ambitions. Mr. Oliver hired Charlotte Koh, formerly of Searchlight Pictures, as Confluential’s president in 2021 and has dedicated the company to financing projects by creators of color. Goldman Sachs helped raise $100 million to $150 million that Confluential will use for operating and production costs.Best known for creating the popular OWN series “Black Love” with his wife, Cody Elaine Oliver — the two own the show and all its ancillary products: podcasts, live events and merchandising — Mr. Oliver’s ambitions run from indie films to prestige pictures to helping finance studio movies.In addition to “Fancy Dance,” the producer has invested in “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” a documentary about Ms. Giovanni, the American poet, and the narrative features “Young. Wild. Free.” and “To Live and Die and Live.” The upcoming Netflix movie “The Perfect Find,” starring Gabrielle Union, is also being produced by Confluential after the company optioned the novel by Tia Williams. “We have the ability to say yes, and not just say yes, but to look at what the makeup of those projects are, and that’s significant,” said Mr. Oliver. “What I’m really excited about building is something that is sustainable to support, not just one director, but a bunch of directors. We can do something now where we have a different type of seat at the table.”Luis A. Miranda Jr. invested in the documentary “Going Varsity in Mariachi.”Sundance InstituteMr. Miranda is using the money he made from the theatrical hit “Hamilton” — created by his son, Lin-Manuel Miranda — to invest in young artists, many of whom are from underrepresented groups and communities. After receiving an unsolicited email from the producer James Lawler, Mr. Miranda invested in the Sundance documentary “Going Varsity in Mariachi,” which depicts high school Mariachi contests popular in the border towns in Texas. It’s one of the better-known documentaries scheduled to debut in competition. To Mr. Miranda, a veteran political strategist, the film was the perfect combination of storytelling and politics and showed where he wants to put his money.“We are a huge part of the audience of movies but not a large number of the ones that are financing films,” he said in an interview, referring to his Latino roots. “And I know that there are a lot of voices out there who have not been able to tell their stories. I know that because my son was one of them. If I would have had the money then, Lin-Manuel would not have had to go through three years of rewriting and knocking on doors. So if I can make young, talented people’s lives easier in telling their stories, I will do that.”Ms. Yang Bongiovi said finding financing for films featuring people of color remains challenging. She recalled her experience with “Passing,” from the writer and director Rebecca Hall, starring Tessa Thompson (“Thor: Ragnarok”) and Ruth Negga (“Loving”). The film was bought by Netflix for a healthy sum out of Sundance in 2021 and was lauded by critics. Yet getting it made was “practically impossible,” she said, “and that was not that long ago.”Nina Yang Bongiovi says that when more people of color are financing films, they can work together to support projects.Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images“I was told, ‘You have two women of color starring in it, that’s challenging,’” Ms. Yang Bongiovi said. “And then I remember telling folks, ‘Tessa Thompson is a Marvel superhero. She’s Valkyrie!’ But it just didn’t equate. It was a reminder that we still have a long way to go.”The growing number of financiers like her from underrepresented groups has Ms. Yang Bongiovi feeling hopeful. It means that instead of competing for projects, they can work together, reduce their individual risk and contribute the money needed to make these films.“Because there are more multicultural financiers and producers, we are teaming up,” she said. “We don’t see each other as competitors. We’re like, ‘Hey, we’re allies. We got to go in together, to force the tide to come through for us.’”Ms. Yang Bongiovi and Mr. Oliver worked together on “Fancy Dance,” while Mr. King and Mr. Oliver both backed “Young. Wild. Free.,” a film directed by Thembi L. Banks about a high school student whose life turns when he is robbed by the girl of his dreams. Mr. Oliver and Ms. Yang Bongiovi are also supporting “To Live and Die and Live” from the director Qasim Basir.“Young. Wild. Free.,” directed by Thembi Banks, is being backed by Mr. Oliver and Charles King, the founder and C.E.O. of the media company Macro.Sundance Institute“To me, that’s where you see real change, how we have found ways to partner and come together to move entire ecosystems,” said Mr. King, founder and chief executive of Macro, an eight-year-old company that has helped finance films like “Judas and the Black Messiah” with Warner Bros. and “Sorry to Bother You” with Ms. Yang Bongiovi. The latter was sold to Annapurna Pictures out of Sundance in 2018.“When I launched Macro, it was with a vision for building a multibillion-dollar media company that is going to have global impact, but also economically empower our communities and help to shape culture,” he said. “That companies like Confluential and others who’ve raised capital, who are financing, that they’re doing it as well, and then to be able to do things together, that’s fantastic. That’s only creating more opportunities for all of us.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Independent Lens’ and ‘Night Court’

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      A documentary about racial reparations in the United States airs on PBS. And NBC reboots the 1980s and ’90s sitcom “Night Court.”Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 16-22. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: THE BIG PAYBACK (2023) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). In 2021, Evanston, Ill., became the first American city to approve a compensation program intended to address historical racism and discrimination, a significant step for proponents of racial reparations, an issue that has long been frozen by political concerns. This documentary looks at how the measure passed, paying particular attention to a former alderman, Robin Rue Simmons, who was a primary architect of it, and to its place in the context of the larger conversations about race in the country.JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (2021) 9:30 p.m. on TNT. Daniel Kaluuya won an Oscar for his portrayal of Fred Hampton, the Illinois Black Panther Party leader who was killed in an infamous 1969 police raid, in this drama. Directed by Shaka King, the film is told from the perspective of William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), an informant who helped the F.B.I. orchestrate Hampton’s killing. The result is a “tense, methodical historical drama,” A.O. Scott said in his review for The New York Times. “The script,” Scott wrote, “by King and Will Berson, is layered with ethical snares and ideological paradoxes, and while King’s fast-paced direction doesn’t spare the suspense, it also makes room for sorrow, anger and even a measure of exhilaration.”TuesdayMelissa Rauch and John Larroquette in “Night Court.”Jordin Althaus/NBCNIGHT COURT 8 p.m. on NBC. Melissa Rauch (“The Big Bang Theory”) picks up the gavel once held by the actor Harry Anderson in this reboot of “Night Court,” the 1980s and early ’90s NBC sitcom that followed a young judge, Harry Stone (Anderson), working the night shift in a Manhattan municipal court. The new version of the show casts Rauch as Stone’s daughter, Abby, who lands in her father’s old gig (the latest example of a nepo baby?) and has to contend with a cast of bizarro characters. One of them is Dan Fielding, a now-former prosecutor played by John Larroquette, reprising his role from the original series.WednesdayDIRTY OLD CARS 10:03 p.m. on History. Car enthusiasts and neat freaks alike might take some pleasure in this new series, which follows a group of vehicle restorers who bring moldy, rusted-out old cars back to life. (It’s more “Revive My Ride” than “Pimp My Ride.”) The first episode includes a pair of classic American cars: a 1981 Chevrolet Camaro and a 1972 Ford Maverick.ThursdayFrom left, Stephanie Hsu, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”A24EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) 4:30 p.m. on Showtime. “An exuberant swirl of genre anarchy” is a label A.O. Scott used to describe “Everything Everywhere All at Once” in his review for The Times. That swirl turned out to be a potent mix: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s universe-bopping tale of a laundromat owner (Michelle Yeoh) fighting evil in a multiverse has turned into an awards-season heavy hitter. Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, one of her co-stars, won Golden Globes last week for their performances in the film. And it’s set to be a wonderfully weird presence in the Oscars discussion.FridayGAME THEORY WITH BOMANI JONES 11 p.m. on HBO. The sharp sports commentator Bomani Jones returns for a second season of his HBO series. The show mixes commentary, comedy and reporting — it’s something like a “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” for sports. The first season included episodes about nepotism among N.F.L. coaches, the draw of historically Black colleges and universities for many sports recruits, and the N.F.L. draft.GLASS (2019) 5 p.m. on FXM. The filmmaker (and twist-maker) M. Night Shyamalan is set to return to theaters early next month with a new movie, “Knock at the Cabin.” For a refresher on Shyamalan’s style, consider revisiting “Glass,” which brings together characters from two of his previous movies — “Unbreakable” (2000) and “Split” (2016) — for a superhero story with horror trappings.SaturdayRUNNING ON EMPTY (1988) 5:45 p.m. on TCM. Judd Hirsch, the veteran stage and screen actor, leaned into a juicy supporting role recently in Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” in which he plays an oddball great-uncle who briefly shows up and injects some idiosyncratic, chaotic energy into the titular family’s home life. Hirsch played a father dealing with a different kind of familial chaos in this 1988 drama directed by Sidney Lumet. The plot centers on Arthur (Hirsch) and Annie (Christine Lahti), a husband and wife who for years have been on the run from the F.B.I. because of their involvement with extreme antiwar activities during the Vietnam War. Their children, Danny (River Phoenix) and Harry (Jonas Abry), have been brought up to play along with the fugitive life — until Danny, the elder sibling, starts to wrestle with a desire to break free of it. In her review of the film for The Times, the critic Janet Maslin wrote that the screenplay is uneven, but that “the actors are often so good that they’re able to be real and touching even when the material sounds strained.”SundaySissy Spacek in “Carrie.”United ArtistsCARRIE (1976) and CHRISTINE (1983) 4:45 and 7 p.m. on AMC. Cars and teenagers. These are two things that can be frightening and bewildering — especially when mixed — both in our own world and in Stephen King’s fictional ones. And both factor heavily into these two King adaptations. Up first, Brian De Palma’s take on King’s debut novel, “Carrie,” about a bullied 16-year-old (Sissy Spacek) who learns she has supernatural powers and uses them for revenge. Next, John Carpenter’s adaptation of King’s “Christine,” which follows another socially challenged teenager, Arnie (Keith Gordon), who buys a psychotic car. More

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      Film Forum Director Karen Cooper to Step Down After 50 Years

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      Karen Cooper, who took over the nonprofit cinema in 1972 and transformed it into a $6 million-a-year operation, will step down in July after five decades.When Karen Cooper took over Film Forum in 1972, the theater was a projector and 50 folding chairs in a loft on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, showing what were then known as underground films. The annual budget was $19,000. Cooper projected the films — sometimes herself — on a single 16-millimeter machine no larger than a microwave.“I’d say to someone, ‘I show independent films,’ and they’d say, ‘You mean pornography?’” Cooper, 74, recalled with a laugh in a recent conversation at the nonprofit art house cinema’s offices, now located across the street from the theater in Greenwich Village.But now, Cooper, who has become synonymous with Film Forum — which has grown into a four-screen space with a $6 million-a-year budget and an influence that reaches far beyond New York City — is stepping down from the director role she’s filled for half a century, the organization announced on Monday.“I’ve thought about this for years,” said Cooper, whose last day will be June 30, though she will remain on staff as an adviser. “I wanted to have a smooth transition.”Succeeding her will be Sonya Chung, 49, the theater’s deputy director, who began working at Film Forum in 2003 as the director of development. Chung, who has a master’s degree in fiction writing from the University of Washington, in Seattle, left in 2007 to write and publish two novels (she also taught literature and writing for three years at Columbia University and for nine years at Skidmore College, both in New York). She returned in 2018 as a programming consultant and a member of the advisory committee, and was hired as deputy director in February 2020.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Meet the Newer, Bolder Michelle Williams: Why she made the surprising choice to skip the supporting actress category and run for best actress.Best-Actress Battle Royal: A banner crop of leading ladies like Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett rule the Oscars’ deepest and most dynamic race.‘Glass Onion’ and Rian Johnson: The director explains why he sold the “Knives Out” franchise to Netflix, and how he feels about its theatrical test.Jostling for Best Picture: Weighing voter buzz, box office results and more, here’s an educated guess about the likely nominees for best picture.“Sonya has great taste and a way of articulating it,” Cooper said. “It immediately occurred to me when I met her — unbeknownst to Sonya — that she had the ability to be the director of the theater.”Cooper has been the director of Film Forum since 1972.Emma Howells/The New York TimesCooper was a newly minted 23-year-old Smith College graduate when she took over the theater founded by two film buffs, Peter Feinstein and Sandy Miller, in 1970. Over her 50-year tenure, she built a beloved cultural institution that has introduced the work of now-prominent filmmakers to American audiences, earning the affection of critics and patrons alike.She has led the theater through three relocations — Film Forum moved to its current space on West Houston Street in 1989 — and oversaw a $5 million expansion and renovation in 2018 that upgraded the seating, legroom and sightlines in all screening rooms and added a fourth, which increased the venue’s capacity to nearly 500 seats.Cooper said she was most proud of working to broaden the scope of Film Forum’s programming, introducing audiences to major German filmmakers of the 1970s like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders. She was also honored to have programmed the New York premieres of ambitious documentaries such as “Asylum,” Peter Robinson’s 1972 look inside the psychiatrist R.D. Laing’s therapeutic community of people with schizophrenia living together in a group home in London; and Spike Lee’s “Four Little Girls” (1997), about the children killed in the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala.It’s the meticulously curated slate of new films — which Cooper, Chung and the artistic director Mike Maggiore map out on a dry erase board in the cinema’s offices as far as six months in advance — that serves as part of the draw for Film Forum’s approximately 200,000 visitors each year, along with a robust lineup of classic films programmed by the repertory artistic director Bruce Goldstein, a concession stand menu of decadent baked goods and a robust lineup of talkbacks with filmmakers.Chung says the biggest challenge facing Film Forum, which is one of the few theaters regularly to feature independent movies in New York, is competition from streaming services. It can be tough, she said, to convince people who’ve become used to watching at home to bundle up, take the subway to the theater and pay $15 for a night out.One solution, she said, is creating a memorable experience that people can’t get anywhere else. They recently hosted Q. and A. events with the filmmaker Lizzie Gottlieb, who directed the documentary “Turn Every Page — The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb,” and the film’s subject, the book editor and her father Robert Gottlieb; as well as with the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, whose dark tale about the life of a donkey, “EO,” has been shortlisted for an Academy Award. Both events sold out, she said.“Especially post-pandemic, when we have so much streaming overload, younger people are antsy for an IRL experience,” she said, using the acronym for “in real life.”Chung also wants to cultivate a younger and more diverse audience, with a particular focus on people of color from outside the theater’s white, more affluent neighborhood. For the last several years, she has created a young members program and developed partnerships with cultural and community-based organizations like Girls Write Now, a creative writing and mentoring nonprofit for young people from underserved communities in New York City; and ArteEast, a nonprofit that presents work by contemporary artists from the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporas.And now, starting this month, the theater’s internship program — which places three college students each semester in roles in the theater’s repertory program, outreach and administration departments — will be paid.“We decided we should pay them in order to attract a more diverse group of young people to be able to work here,” Chung said.As for Cooper, a longtime resident of the far West Village who walks to work each day, she will remain an active member of the organization’s programming team. She’ll continue to represent Film Forum at the Berlin and Amsterdam film festivals. She intends to maintain her schedule of watching at least 500 films per year. She’ll continue to focus on fund-raising for the nonprofit, which raises approximately $3 million of its operating budget each year.“I never thought I’d stay here 50 years,” she said. “But where would I go? What do they say — the hedgehog knows one thing, the fox knows many things?“I’m a hedgehog,” she said. “I know one thing — how to run a movie theater.” More

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      ‘January 6th’ Review: Scenes of a Riot

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      A new documentary from Gédéon and Jules Naudet recounts the day of the U.S. Capitol attack.As with their previous projects, the directors Gédéon and Jules Naudet (“9/11,” “November 13: Attack on Paris”) have crafted a documentary that revolves around a national tragedy. “January 6th,” about the U.S. Capitol riot, posed a similar challenge: How exactly does one go about telling a story whose drama and horror is being seen and reported on in real time, and that continues to inundate the country in fragmented pieces in the two years since?The filmmakers take a rather straightforward approach — one that lends the film its power. “January 6th” sticks strictly to a chronological recounting of events, piecing together the progression of the violence that day through video footage and details from talking-head interviews with those who were either defending the grounds or hiding within them.Strikingly, it mostly abstains from theorizing on the political context that could foment an attack like this (see “This Place Rules,” another new Jan. 6 documentary, as the flip side to this coin); instead, we are left simply with what happened on the ground, as told by Capitol Police officers, journalists and lawmakers. In this sense, the film does not offer any particularly new insights, but witnessing the events of Jan. 6 this way — as a matter-of-fact, two-and-a-half-hour montage that seems to occur at once in slow motion and with shocking speed — creates a terror that is perhaps newly visceral and sustained.Across the film is a constant, dreaded creep — of violence escalating and piercing through fences and windows, of the sound of a mob getting closer to barricaded doors. It all adds up to a frightening and necessary document of a deadly day, and also, as the camera continually swoops through a 3-D rendering of the Capitol to transition to a new scene of horror, a grave understanding that things could have gone far worse.January 6thNot rated. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. Watch on Discovery+. More

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      ‘Don’t Make Me Over’: Dionne Warwick’s Documentary Encore

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      A conversation with the five-time Grammy-winning singer who is the subject of a new career-spanning documentary, “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over.”Dionne Warwick refuses to stay put. At 82, the five-time Grammy-winning artist is making stops in Hawaii and Vancouver on her One Last Time tour — she won’t say whether it’s truly her last — tweeting (or “twoting,” as she calls it) to her more than half a million followers, and making appearances on “S.N.L.” and on movie soundtracks like Jordan Peele’s “Nope.” When she retires, she said, she’ll move to Brazil.“I will be laying in Bahia, where I want to spend the rest of my life, enjoying the sunshine, the music, the people and me,” Warwick said.In the meantime, Warwick’s next venture is onscreen. In the documentary “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” (which premieres on CNN Jan. 1 and begins streaming on HBO Max thereafter), she, along with well-known interviewees like Bill Clinton, Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys, discusses her life and her 60-plus-year music career.Directed by Dave Wooley and David Heilbroner, the film details moments from Warwick’s childhood, including singing in her grandfather’s church in Newark, N.J., and chronicles chart-topping hits like “Walk On By” and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” which were made with the producing and songwriting duo Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Those songs challenged the racial barrier between rhythm and blues and pop. (In 1968, Warwick became the first African American woman to win a Grammy in the pop music category.)As Warwick munched on cheese and crackers at the CNN offices in Manhattan, she talked about being a spokeswoman for the Psychic Friends Network, her motivation to support AIDS research and how she met Snoop Dogg and Chance the Rapper. Following are edited excerpts from the conversation.Warwick being interviewed in the documentary. “The fortunate thing is I could not be categorized,” she said. “I continue to preach the fact that music is music.”CNN FilmsThe documentary is titled “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over.” What inspired the name?“Don’t Make Me Over” was my first recording, my very first one, and the genesis of that was something I said to both Burt and Hal. I was promised a certain song, “Make It Easy on Yourself,” and they gave that song to Jerry Butler. I was on my way down to do a session with them and when I walked into the studio, I had to let them both know that I was not very happy about them giving my song away, first of all. That was something that they could never, ever do. Don’t even try to change me or make me over. So David put pen to paper.The documentary discusses your upbringing. What was it like growing up in East Orange, N.J.?It was virtually the United Nations. We had every race, color, creed and religion on our street. We were friends, we walked to school together, I had dinner at their homes, they had dinner at my home. We played at the playground together. We were just kids and hung out with friends. How were you able to create music that appealed to all audiences during the 1950s and 1960s, when rhythm and blues and pop music was racially classified?The fortunate thing is I could not be categorized. That was a joy. I look at — I still do this very day — and I continue to preach the fact that music is music. I don’t look at myself as the person that threw the door open. I just paved the way to let people know, “Yeah, Gladys Knight deserved a Grammy, yeah, the Temptations deserved the Grammy, yeah, Diana Ross deserved it.” Of course! We’re singing music that all of you are listening to, so why are you going to put us in a little box? I ain’t going.By donating all the proceeds of the chart-topping song “That’s What Friends Are For,” you’ve helped raise millions for AIDS research. What led you to get involved with the cause and how does it feel to leave such a lasting impact?We were losing performers, we were losing dancers, we were losing hair people, we were losing wardrobe people, cameramen, lighting people.I’ve lost two people in my group of people around me: my hairdresser and my valet both contracted AIDS. So, now, that’s too close. Let me find out what this is about. And I proceeded to get involved with W.H.O., World Health Organization, and we went to all the health departments in different countries to get a handle on not only what they were doing, but why they were not acknowledging that it’s happening in the country. I was able to help them bring their heads out of the sand and face reality.Warwick performing at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1968.David Redfern/Redferns, via Getty ImagesIn the ’90s, you got involved in the Psychic Friends Network. What encouraged that decision?It was during a period of time when my recordings were not being played on radio as much. It was a way to earn a very, very comfortable living. It paid very well — had to keep my lights on, too. So that’s how that all began.I can’t nor would I ever think about taking it seriously. And anybody that does, you have to look at them with a jaundiced eye.You felt very strongly about gangster rap, and set up an early meeting with Snoop Dogg, Suge Knight and others to encourage them to reconsider their lyrics. How did that conversation go?I called a meeting with them, and I gave them a time to be at my home. I told them not one minute before and not one minute after 7 a.m., I want that doorbell to ring. And it did. We sat and talked for quite a few hours. I told them, “You think I’m part of the problem? Make me part of the solution. Tell me what it is.” I said, “I have no problem with you saying whatever you’re feeling; however, there’s a way to say it.”Have you reached out to any other rap artists recently?Chance the Rapper, that was a funny thing as well. Why would you have to put “rapper” in your name when we all know you rap? Duh.He was more surprised that I even knew who he was, and as a result we’ve become friends. He has my phone number, I have his and we do talk. We recorded together, a wonderful song and not one curse word — a very, very positive message. So it’s not like they can’t do it, and if they need to be led a little bit, hey, that must be my job to do.Amid the pandemic, you rose to Twitter royalty. What’s it like to be crowned the queen of Twitter?They gave me the title. I didn’t take it. I didn’t give it to myself. They all decided I was the queen of Twitter. So yeah, OK, I’ll be your queen of Twitter. In fact, I started a new way of saying Twitter, I call it twoting.Twoting? Why twoting?I didn’t want to say “tweet.”When can we expect the next tweet (or twote) from you?I do it when I feel it. I also follow a lot of tweets that are going on, and when I find one that’s not too pleasing to me, you’ll hear from me.What do you think about the Whitney Houston biopic, “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody”?I’m very protective of her, and I usually don’t talk about her. She’s at rest now, and I will let her do that. She’s at peace, thank God. He’s [Clive Davis, the record producer] assured me that it is about her music, about her legacy, what she was really all about. There’s no need for it to be anything other than that.What do you hope people will gain from the “Don’t Make Me Over” documentary?I’m hoping that people will finally get to know me, and not think they know me. They’ll get to know Dionne. I’m as human as everybody else. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Finding Your Roots’ and ‘Mayfair Witches’

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      Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s genealogy series returns on PBS. And a TV adaptation of an Anne Rice trilogy debuts on AMC.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 2-8. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: CHILDREN OF LAS BRISAS (2023) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The aspirations and creativity of young musicians tug against political turbulence and humanitarian crises in “Children of Las Brisas,” a documentary that follows members of a Venezuelan youth orchestra coming of age during that country’s revolution and the fallout of the death of its former president Hugo Chávez. When the film played at the DOC NYC festival in 2022, its director, Marianela Maldonado, described the intent behind it. “It’s about the pain of growing up with dreams of being an artist while living in a dysfunctional society,” she said. “It’s a story of survival and redemption through music.”WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME (2017) 6:15 p.m. on Showtime. There’s a dramatized version of the singer Whitney Houston’s life in theaters right now: the biopic “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” For a nonfictional portrait, consider this feature-length doc, which pairs the voices of some of Houston’s friends, family members and collaborators with tour footage from the late 1990s. The result, Ben Kenigsberg wrote in his review for The New York Times, is “a surprisingly conventional, dutifully respectful behind-the-scenes portrait.”TuesdayFINDING YOUR ROOTS 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). In the first episode of the new season of his genealogy show, the scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. presents the actress Julia Roberts with a book filled with research about Roberts’s family history. Roberts, lifting the tome, looks at Gates with a smile. “This has got some heft to it,” she says. That’s often true — in more ways than one — of the research that anchors the series, which uses D.N.A. analysis and historical sleuthing to uncover the often-complicated backgrounds of its celebrity guests. Tuesday’s episode, which kicks off the show’s ninth season, features Roberts and Edward Norton. Other guests this season include the movie stars Claire Danes, Viola Davis and Danny Trejo; the pop star Cyndi Lauper; and the activist and scholar Angela Davis.WednesdayBULLITT (1968) 8 p.m. on TCM. When this now-classic neo-noir opened at Radio City Music Hall in the fall of 1968, the critic Renata Adler wrote in her review for The Times that it was “a terrific movie, just right for Steve McQueen — fast, well acted, written the way people talk.” But McQueen, the human celebrity, had to share the spotlight with a material co-star: a 1968 Ford Mustang, which has become as much a symbol of the movie as McQueen. Watch man and machine undulate and snap over San Francisco streets as McQueen’s Lt. Frank Bullitt chases mafiosos.ThursdayWes Studi, left, and Dale Dickey in “A Love Song.”Sundance InstituteA LOVE SONG (2022) 8 p.m. on Showtime. With a grand landscape and a modest story, this debut feature from the filmmaker Max Walker-Silverman centers on a widow, Faye (Dale Dickey), at a lakeside campsite in Colorado. She’s waiting on the arrival of her childhood friend Lito (Wes Studi), whom she hasn’t seen in years. Faye is isolated before Lito arrives, but things remain quiet even after he shows up; the chemistry between the two is expressed as much in silences and facial expressions as in words. It’s a “tender, laconic” movie, Jeannette Catsoulis said in her review for The Times. “More than one kind of love is being celebrated in that title, including the director’s affection for his home state, its wide-open spaces and wandering souls.”FridayRUPAUL’S DRAG RACE 8 p.m. on MTV. RuPaul’s mighty drag competition show moves to MTV from its old home, VH1, for its new, 15th season, which kicks off on Friday night with a two-hour special. The new season gathers 16 drag queens from around the country — the show’s largest cast ever — and is set to include guest appearances from Ariana Grande, Janelle Monáe and other celebrities.BOYS IN BLUE 8 p.m. on Showtime. In this four-part documentary series, the filmmaker Peter Berg (who brought “Friday Night Lights” to television) follows a high school football team in Minneapolis after the 2020 killing of George Floyd. The students had a unique and potent experience of that moment: Their team is mentored by Minneapolis police officers. Berg focuses on the tensions and conversations between players and officers.SaturdayPedro Pascal, left, and Nicolas Cage in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.”Katalin Vermes/LionsgateTHE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT (2022) 9 p.m. on Starz. Nicolas Cage plays a fictionalized version of himself in this action comedy, which has its tongue stuck so solidly in its cheek that it would be hard to say “I’m going to steal the Declaration of Independence.” The plot, such as it is, involves Cage attending the birthday party of a mega-rich fan (Pedro Pascal). “It’s another Nicolas Cage joint, a romp, a showcase, an eager-to-please ode to him in all his sui generis Caginess,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The Times. “That’s the idea, at any rate. Mostly, though, it is a single joke sustained for 106 minutes, amid many rapid tone shifts, mood swings and set changes.”SundayAlexandra Daddario in “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches.”AMCANNE RICE’S MAYFAIR WITCHES 9 p.m. on AMC. The novelist Anne Rice’s “Lives of the Mayfair Witches” book trilogy — “The Witching Hour” (1990), “Lasher” (1993) and “Taltos” (1994) — gets a TV adaptation with this new show, which casts Alexandra Daddario as Dr. Rowan Fielding, a neurosurgeon who learns that she is a descendant of a family of witches haunted by a menacing force. If “neurosurgeon” sounds like surprisingly scientific territory for a novelist whose primary interest lies in the supernatural, consider this point that Rice made in an interview with The Times in 2021, shortly before her death. “I think some might be surprised by the sheer volume of science writing I own,” Rice said. “When you invent alternate worlds and supernatural cosmologies, it can be incredibly inspiring to read about how little we still know about the underlying fabric of the universe.” More