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    ‘My Mom Jayne’ Review: An Exceptional Family Tale

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    Mariska Hargitay sets out to learn about her mother, the Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield, through intimate conversations with her siblings.When Mariska Hargitay was three years old, her mother, the Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield, was killed in a car accident. Hargitay was seated beside her brothers in the back of the vehicle, and was lodged under a seat during the crash. She was almost left behind by rescuers, until her brother asked about her. In her moving documentary “My Mom Jayne,” Hargitay relays this past trauma with a mixture of sorrow and gratitude.Best known for starring as Olivia Benson, the dogged detective in “Law & Order: SVU,” Hargitay begins the film — her feature directorial debut — by explaining that she set out to learn about Mansfield, the mother she hardly knew. But instead of the typical biographical approach of interviewing historians and writers, Hargitay sits down for intimate conversations with her three elder siblings, whose testimonies she pairs with archival material depicting Mansfield’s life in the public eye.As Hargitay shows, the grainy footage tells one story while the family’s recollections tell another. Over her career, Mansfield curated an image of a ditsy coquette. She affected a Minnie Mouse speaking voice and received leering men with a genial giggle. This performance of vacuity belied Mansfield’s profound intellect and talents as a classically trained violinist, but it was an easier sell in Hollywood, and so she used the persona as a stepladder to climb to the top.For much of her life, Hargitay judged her mother for these acts, and although she doesn’t draw a line from Mansfield’s work as an actress to her own, it’s tempting to wonder whether Hargitay’s powerhouse role in “SVU” was a disavowal of the blonde bimbo archetype. It’s this tension that makes “My Mom Jayne” as much an experiment in autobiography as in biography, closer in kind to Sarah Polley’s “Stories We Tell” than the polished or salacious celebrity profiles clogging up streaming platforms.Like that predecessor, “My Mom Jayne” eventually builds to a brave personal disclosure where Hargitay shows how the mysteries encircling her mother’s life complicated her own identity as a daughter and sister. She makes the revelation with gentle courage, in a spirit of honesty and appreciation for the small ring of people who loved her family enough to avoid sharing the information.Folded into the project are questions about what defines a person’s legacy. Is it the face one puts on for the world or the private one shared with kin? Since Hargitay has little memory of Mansfield, how does she reconcile her mother’s many selves? Hargitay explores these ideas in voice-over, and settles on a generous understanding of Mansfield that centers on her talent for music. These efforts offer a clean conclusion, but it is the exquisitely relatable messiness of this exceptional family tale that lingers.My Mom JayneNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Max. More

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      HBO Brings Hot Fellas Bakery From ‘And Just Like That’ to Life

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      “Who wants a hot croissant?” asked the actor Mario Cantone, reprising his character Anthony Marentino from the HBO show “Sex and the City.”Mr. Cantone, brandishing an apron and a cake server, added an emphasis on the word “hot” and wagged his eyebrows, turning the otherwise ordinary tray of freshly baked pastries into an innuendo.A group of fans in front of him — most of whom were women with their phones at the ready — giggled and took photos.When “Sex and the City” was brought back to life in 2021 as “And Just Like That …,” Mr. Cantone’s character pivoted from a career in wedding planning to starting up a bread delivery business, called Hot Fellas. As the name suggests, his business is staffed by sexy men in short denim rompers so tight that every arm flex or squat teases a wardrobe malfunction.The fictional business became “a fan favorite story line from the moment it first appeared,” Dana Flax, a marketing vice president at HBO Max said in an emailed statement, citing the engagement and enthusiasm for the Hot Fellas on social media.In the most recent episode of Season 3, which was released last week, Anthony opened a Hot Fellas brick-and-mortar cafe (using a pun for male genitalia to alter that phrase) and his current lover, Giuseppe, an aspiring poet played by Sebastiano Pigazzi, temporarily became a Hot Fella to help with its launch — thanks largely to his ability to fill out the skin-tight uniform.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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      ‘Malditos’ Is a Brooding, Operatic French Drama

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      Set amid a traveler community in southern France, the Max series is a fresh and surprising story about family, superstition and a legacy of violence.The French drama “Malditos” (in French, with subtitles, or dubbed), on Max, is set within a traveler community whose members are about to be displaced from the dilapidated carnival fairgrounds where they live and work. The show hits brutal, operatic highs, with its deadly scheming playing out against the dramatic landscape of Camargue, in southern France. Give us blinding fraternal strife, and give it to us on a sun-bleached salt flat.Sara (Céline Sallette), who instead of a crown and a scepter has a scowl and a cigarette, is determined to keep the clan together. But everyone around her has different ideas about how to scrounge up enough money — and enough mutual will — to do so.Especially her sons. The brash, excitable son, Tony (Darren Muselet), wants to get into the lucrative drug market — or maybe he wants to run away with his girlfriend, who is from a rival clan. The brooding, bitter son, Jo (Pablo Cobo), who was forced to abandon his career ambitions, has his own vision for leadership, one he honed during years of estrangement from his mother and brother. Sara, Tony and Jo all think they are keeping the same secret, but they aren’t quite.The show wears its Shakespearean power-jockeying as comfortably as its track jackets. “You’re a real prince,” a vulnerable man stutters at Jo, begging for his life. Every bright idea just illuminates the path toward a more severe catastrophe, and pretty soon, the bodies are piling up. Some are even being exhumed.Violence abounds, both in harebrained shoot-em-ups and in the startling volatility of a bull. One person might be leveled by a mob-led beat-down or by the punishing rains of an unrelenting storm. Another might be swallowed up by oppressive gender roles or spit out by expensive real estate regulations.A few of the twists and turns here can feel a little predictable, and all that glowering starts losing its impact after a while. But the show has plenty of fresh ideas and true surprises in its specifics and realism, in its characters’ rites and traditions. “Malditos” teases out how religion, superstition and harshly enforced cultural customs are both the fabric and the rend. There’s a bright beauty to a tough-guy dad tenderly officiating a poetic marriage ritual, and also a cold horror at the bride’s numb concessions and deep despair.Four episodes are available now, and the remaining three arrive on Fridays. More

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      Harry, Hermione and Ron Are Cast for HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’

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      After tens of thousands of auditions, three newcomers were selected to play the television show’s leading roles.Accio Harry, Hermione and Ron!After years of intense speculation and tens of thousands of auditions, three young actors have been cast for HBO’s upcoming television series about the boy wizard. The newcomers Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton and Alastair Stout will play Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, Warner Bros. Discovery announced on Tuesday.Last month, HBO announced it had cast John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid. The show, which will air on HBO and stream on Max, still does not have an official title or air date.“The talent of these three unique actors is wonderful to behold, and we cannot wait for the world to witness their magic together onscreen,” Francesca Gardiner, the showrunner of the series, and Mark Mylod, who will direct several episodes, said in a statement about the child actors. They added, “It’s been a real pleasure to discover the plethora of young talent out there.”This is Stanton’s first onscreen role, but she previously starred in “Matilda” on London’s West End in 2023. She was one of four girls who played the title role.The “Harry Potter” film franchise accelerated the career of Daniel Radcliffe, who has since anchored movies like “Swiss Army Man” and won a Tony Award last year for his work in “Merrily We Roll Along.” Radcliffe starred in eight “Harry Potter” films from 2001 through 2011 alongside Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who played Hermione and Ron.HBO has said the new television series will be a “faithful adaptation” of the seven books written by J.K. Rowling that were published between 1997 and 2007. More

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      How Sarita Choudhury, the ‘And Just Like That …’ Star, Spends Her Sundays

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      When Sarita Choudhury joined the cast of “And Just Like That …” in 2021 as Seema Patel, she said the role initially felt “bigger” than her.But three seasons into the show, a revival of “Sex and the City” on HBO Max, the actress has found herself much more settled in playing the glamorous, sex-positive real estate broker who steals scenes in sophisticated neutrals, gesticulates with cigarettes and dons old-Hollywood head scarves.“Just like I grew into playing Seema, Seema also has grown through mistakes, through hanging out with Carrie and being free within her power,” said Ms. Choudhury, referring to Carrie Bradshaw, the character played by Sarah Jessica Parker.Ms. Choudhury has played Seema Patel on “And Just Like That …” since 2021. She also spent many seasons on Showtime’s “Homeland” and starred opposite Denzel Washington in a 1991 romantic drama.Craig Blankenhorn/MaxWhile she has always taken it as a compliment that Seema reminds viewers of the original series’ sexually liberated Samantha Jones (played by Kim Cattrall), Ms. Choudhury believes Seema has carved her own lane. “Her ability to dive into, whether it’s an affair or a quick advice, is similar,” she said. “But apart from that, I find them very different.”In the new season of “And Just Like That …,” which premieres Thursday, she said she is looking forward to more “character growth” emerging in Seema’s arc.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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      ‘Reformed’ Is a Charming Show About a Young Rabbi

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      Sitcom shenanigans nestle alongside philosophical musings in this French dramedy on Max.The French dramedy “Reformed,” on Max (in French, with subtitles, or dubbed), follows a young rabbi who moves back home to begin her career. Léa (Elsa Guedj) is smart, knowledgeable and capable, but she is also new at this and nervous. It doesn’t help that those around her, including members of her own family, scoff at the idea of a female rabbi — when they’re tired of scoffing at religion in general.“There was Galileo, there was Freud, there was Auschwitz,” says her father (Éric Elmosnino), a therapist. “I thought we’d figured it out. God doesn’t exist.”Doubt is a constant presence in “Reformed,” both grandly and in the sense that “Eh, aren’t we all just muddling through?” The show is based loosely on the book “Living With Our Dead,” by the French rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, and the episodes center on life cycle events: a bris, a bar mitzvah, a wedding, a funeral, shiva. Most of the people availing themselves of Léa’s services aren’t particularly observant, and they’re not sure if or how to engage with the rites.And Léa isn’t sure either, so she rehearses different voice memos. Yes, do it. No, don’t. Oh no, uh, there was a family emergency, I can’t help you. But invariably, she does help them, with real care and curiosity, not in trite or Pollyannaish ways. She is doctrinal but not doctrinaire, and all these rituals of change for her congregants are rituals of change for her, too. She becomes more confident and mature ushering a reluctant bar mitzvah boy through the process. She hones her discernment skills while officiating a wedding.The most intriguing relationship on the show is between Léa and Arié (Lionel Dray), the local orthodox rabbi and her former teacher. There’s a magnetic pull and constant fascination between them, a lot of trust but also a sense of betrayal. He’s her mentor, and they have an intense erotic energy, but each also sees the other as practicing religion incorrectly — a tension that can be playful right up until it is profoundly hurtful. The goings on at their respective shuls highlight their own misgivings about their denominational choices: Maybe her practice is shallow; maybe his practice is misogynistic. Let’s resolve to smolder at each other about it.In addition to being charming, “Reformed” is interesting. Sitcom shenanigans nestle alongside philosophical musings. A farce unfolds at a seder, and goofy sibling banter segues into deeper conversation and back. Seven episodes are available now, and the season finale arrives on Friday. More

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      The 50 Best Movies on Max Right Now

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      In addition to new Warner and HBO films, the streamer has a treasure trove of Golden Age classics, indie flicks and foreign films. Start with these.When HBO Max debuted in May 2020, subscribers rightfully expected (and got) the formidable catalog of prestige television associated with the HBO brand. But its movie library drew from a much deeper well. Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO, is a huge conglomerate, and its premiere streaming service comprises decades of titles from Warner Bros., Turner Classic Movies, Studio Ghibli and more. Viewed in that light, its recent rebranding as Max seems fitting.That means a lot of large-scale fantasy series and selections from the DC extended universe. Max is also an education in Golden Age Hollywood classics and in independent and foreign auteurs like Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray and John Cassavetes. The list below is an effort to recommend a diverse range of movies — old and new, foreign and domestic, all-ages and adults-only — that cross genres and cultures while appealing to casual and serious movie-watchers alike. (Note: Streaming services sometimes remove titles or change starting dates without notice.)Here are our lists of the best movies and TV shows on Netflix, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video and the best of everything on Hulu and Disney+.A24‘Aftersun’ (2022)Memory pieces about childhood are nearly always touched by nostalgia, however bittersweet, but Charlotte Wells’s gorgeous, semi-autobiographical debut feature is graced instead by perspective. The memory in “Aftersun” encapsulates a few days in 1999 at a downscale Turkish resort, where an 11-year-old (Frankie Corio) went on her last vacation with her 30-something father (Paul Mescal), who did a credible job at the time of masking his personal anguish in order to make her happy. The MiniDV camera footage the girl captured of the trip tells a different story about him, and the film seizes on it subtly and beautifully. A.O. Scott admired Wells for directing with “the unaffected precision of a lyric poet.”Stream it on Max‘Logan’ (2017)Superhero franchises like the MCU and the DCEU have developed such a predictable template that each new entry can feel at least partially like a paint-by-numbers exercise. Though it extends from the popular “X-Men” series featuring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Patrick Stewart as Professor X, James Mangold’s “Logan” has the somber tone and feel of an old-school Western, emphasizing the exhaustion of an aging, battered hero dragged reluctantly to another mission. Having retired to Mexico to look after a sick Professor X, Jackman’s Logan is tasked with protecting a vulnerable young girl (Dafne Keen) whose powers (and history) overlap mysteriously with his own. Manohla Dargis called the film “a strong argument for bringing the comic-book movie down to earth.”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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      ‘Harry Potter’ HBO Series Casts Dumbledore, Hagrid and More Major Roles

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      John Lithgow will play the Hogwarts headmaster in the HBO show, with Paapa Essiedu filling the role of Severus Snape.Potterheads are one step closer to seeing a television series about the boy wizard come to life, two years after it was announced.HBO said on Monday that it had cast John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid.Casting for major roles like Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley has not been announced, and the series — based on the best-selling books by J.K. Rowling — does not have an official title or air date.HBO also said that Luke Thallon and Paul Whitehouse were joining the cast as Quirinus Quirrell and Argus Filch.“We’re delighted to have such extraordinary talent onboard, and we can’t wait to see them bring these beloved characters to new life,” Francesca Gardiner, the showrunner of the series, and Mark Mylod, who will direct several episodes, said in a joint statement. (They are both also executive producers of the show.)Paapa Essiedu will play Severus Snape in the show.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockLithgow starred in the 1990s television series “3rd Rock From the Sun” and won Emmys for his roles in “Dexter” and “The Crown.” He has also won two Tony Awards and has an extensive movie career; he played one of the cardinals contending for the papacy in last year’s “Conclave.”He told ScreenRant in February that he had signed on to play Dumbledore, a role played in the original “Harry Potter” films by Richard Harris, who died in 2002, and Michael Gambon, who died in 2023. (Jude Law played a younger Dumbledore in “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” a spinoff film.)“It was not an easy decision because it’s going to define me for the last chapter of my life, I’m afraid,” Lithgow said then. “But I’m very excited. Some wonderful people are turning their attention back to ‘Harry Potter.’ That’s why it’s been such a hard decision. I’ll be about 87 years old at the wrap party, but I’ve said yes.”The new show will air on HBO and stream on Max. HBO said in 2023 that the series would be a “faithful adaptation” of the seven books published between 1997 and 2007. Eight hit films were released between 2001 and 2011. More

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      ‘Cowboy Bebop’ Creator Discusses His New Anime ‘Lazarus’

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      In an interview, Shinichiro Watanabe discusses his latest anime, “Lazarus,” a pharmaceutical mystery set in the near future.Shinichiro Watanabe’s first anime, “Cowboy Bebop,” was quite an opening act. A story of space bounty hunters trying to scrape by, its genre mash-up of westerns, science fiction and noir, with a jazzy soundtrack, was a critical and commercial success in Japan and beyond. Its American debut on Adult Swim, in 2001, is now considered a milestone in the popularization of anime in the United States.Not one to repeat himself, Watanabe followed up “Bebop” with a story about samurai and hip-hop (“Samurai Champloo,” 2004); a coming-of-age story about jazz musicians (“Kids on the Slope,” 2012); a mystery thriller about teenage terrorists (“Terror in Resonance,” 2014); an animated “Blade Runner” sequel (“Blade Runner Black Out 2022,” 2017); and a sci-fi musical show about two girls on Mars (“Carole & Tuesday,” 2019).Now, he has returned to the kind of sci-fi action that made his name with “Lazarus,” streaming on Max and airing on Adult Swim, with new episodes arriving on Sundays. The show is set in 2055, after the disappearance of a doctor who discovered a miracle drug that has no side effects. Three years later, the doctor resurfaces with an announcement: The drug had a three-year half-life, and everyone who took it will die in 30 days unless someone finds him and the cure he developed.Watanabe has never been shy about being a fan of cinema. “Cowboy Bebop,” for instance, makes specific references to films like “Alien” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.” For “Lazarus,” Watanabe went further, teaming with a Hollywood filmmaker, the “John Wick” director Chad Stahelski, to design the thrilling, kinetic action sequences of the anime.In a video interview, Watanabe, speaking through the interpreters (and co-producers on the series) Takenari Maeda and Saechan, discussed the making of “Lazarus,” the timeliness of the show’s story and how watching the original “Blade Runner” inspired his multicultural and inclusive anime casts. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Unlike your previous sci-fi projects, “Lazarus” takes place not on a distant planet or far into the future, but in our world just 30 years from now. Why was that important?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