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    ‘Pets’ Is the Rare Documentary for Children, About Children

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    The movie, directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, celebrates animals while planting a seed of interest in rescue operations.Most documentaries are not really aimed at children. The film world seems to think they are only interested in animated movies about, frequently, talking pets. If a documentary is for families, on the other hand, there’s a good chance it involves wildlife.But “Pets” (on Disney+) remixes all of that: It’s a documentary about the title subjects and their humans, aimed at and largely populated by children. Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, it’s a sweet-tempered film that celebrates the animals we love and seems to have a secondary purpose, too: to convince viewers to support and even develop a love for animal rescue.Howard accomplishes this by taking a kind of segmented approach. Adorable children give studio interviews about their own pets — their names, their characteristics, the ways they seem to understand the children’s emotions. These are interspersed with home videos, largely the kind of vertical ones you might catch on a social media feed: dogs doing tricks, cats smirking, pigs waddling around and so on. Then there’s a series of mini-documentaries about people who work with animals, especially rescues or otherwise traumatized creatures. Among those subjects are Sterling “TrapKing” Davis, a rapper who is a contagiously enthusiastic cat guy; Rodney Stotts, a master falconer who dedicates his work to both the birds and local children; and Shinobu Takahashi, who runs the no-kill shelter Dog Duca in Nagoya, Japan.I don’t think anyone inclined to watch “Pets” really needs convincing that animals are cool and that we should like them. But this focus on rescuing those that are, for whatever reason, in harm’s way is rather lovely. And to Howard’s credit, the theme is integrated seamlessly into the celebration of life alongside animals, which might broaden the viewership but certainly will plant a seed of interest in youthful viewers.What struck me about the movie was an influence I have not often considered when thinking about documentaries. The segmented structure and varied style in “Pets” felt familiar, and about halfway through I realized I was thinking of “Sesame Street,” on which generations of kids have been raised. That show also has its own varied style and structure, broken up by different types of filmmaking, like interviews with children, fun kid-on-the-street clips and short documentaries about ordinary things that are somehow fascinating, including observational footage from factories that make crayons or saxophones.Kids are actually interested in the real world around them, the ordinary things they encounter, and curious about how everything works. Documentaries are good at feeding that curiosity, at giving children a peek into worlds they can’t necessarily access on their own. “Pets” is engineered to make a child not just want a pet if they don’t have one, but also want to find one that needs a home and some love. And in that way, “Pets” serves up both entertainment and something for its young audience to consider. More

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      ‘Argylle’ Review: A Cat Cannot Save It

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      A simulacrum of a spy movie offers few pleasures and plenty of headaches.Last year, while Hollywood’s actors and writers were on strike, people often asked me why the unions had such a bee in their collective bonnet about artificial intelligence. A.I. could never write a screenplay as well as a human, they said. Wouldn’t that ultimately spell doom for any studio that tried to replace their writers, and the whole thing would right itself on its own?My answer, then and now, was that it wouldn’t matter if the screenplay was good. Audiences have become so accustomed to watching movies and TV shows — excuse me, content, half-watched from behind a phone screen — that resembles something they liked once that A.I.’s regurgitations will not feel out of place. It doesn’t have to be better, I said. It just has to be adequate.“Argylle” was not, to my knowledge, written by A.I. (It was written by Jason Fuchs.) But it perfectly embodies the soulless, human-free feel that I worry about. It is ostensibly a tribute to spy movies of an earlier age, not clever enough to be a spoof and certainly not satire. But a homage shows affection for, understanding of and respect toward the thing it is honoring. “Argylle” feels pasted together by a robot manipulating some kind of spy Magnetic Poetry.What pleasure is extractable in “Argylle,” directed by Matthew Vaughn, lies in its mild surprises. Let’s just say the protagonist, Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard, very wide-eyed), is a best-selling spy novelist and, despite her protestations, the very epitome of a cat lady. (Her Scottish fold cat, Alfie, appears entirely computer generated even when I think they surely were using a real cat, and his presence seems calculated to add some whimsy to the plot. It does not.) She lives alone in a nicely appointed cabin nestled between mountains in Colorado, and she is afraid of dating and of flying. Instead she taps away at her novels, which have legions of fans.But stuck on the ending of the latest installment, she hops on a train to visit her mother (Catherine O’Hara), and has the bad luck to find herself seated across from a grungy-looking guy named Aidan (Sam Rockwell). He is reading her latest novel, “Argylle,” named for the fictional spy she both writes about and sees everywhere (played by Henry Cavill, sporting an overemphasized widow’s peak). She tries not to let on who she is; she fails; and then, out of nowhere, things go haywire.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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      ‘Jurassic World Dominion’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

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      Watch Bryce Dallas Howard’s Slow Escape in ‘Jurassic World Dominion’

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      The director Colin Trevorrow narrates a sequence featuring the actor, a testy Therizinosaurus and a murky pond.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.We’ve seen the character Claire Dearing, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, run from dinosaurs while wearing high heels in “Jurassic World.” We’ve seen her climb atop a sleeping T-Rex in “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.” But her rendezvous with a feathered dino in “Jurassic World Dominion” adds something new to the franchise.For the first time, Howard gets a harrowing solo sequence with a dinosaur. It’s the Therizinosaurus, a feathered creature that is no less menacing even as an herbivore.Discussing the moment, the director Colin Trevorrow said about Howard: “I built this sequence that I felt would both showcase her as an actor, her absolute best long-take looks of horrified terror, while also being able to collaborate with her as a director and really understand the intention of every single shot.”Trevorrow called Howard “one of the most precise and expressive actors. And because she’s also a director, she understands what the scene needs, not just from the perspective of performance, but from filmmaking and craft and form.”One part of the sequence involves a long take that keeps the focus on Howard as she enters a pond hoping to slowly evade the creature.“We tried to make sure that the camera was always very, very slowly moving at the same speed,” Trevorrow said. “So it had that same sense of heaviness and weight to it.”Read the “Jurassic World Dominion” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More