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    Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis Explain Their Letters in Danny Masterson Rape Case

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    The letters to a judge ahead of Masterson’s sentencing described their friendship with him and spoke glowingly of his character.Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher on Saturday spoke about letters they had written seeking leniency in the prison sentence of Danny Masterson, the actor best known for his role in the sitcom “That ’70s Show” who was found guilty of raping two women more than 20 years ago.Masterson was sentenced to the maximum, 30 years to life, on Thursday.The letters to the judge in the case, Charlaine F. Olmedo of Los Angeles Superior Court, which were published on Friday on Substacks of journalists who had covered the trial, described the couple’s friendship with Masterson.“I do not believe he is an ongoing harm to society,” Kutcher, who is married to Kunis, wrote of Masterson in a letter dated July 27, adding that “having his daughter raised without a present father” would be “a tertiary injustice in and of itself.”In her letter, Kunis vouched for Masterson’s “exceptional character and the tremendous positive influence he has had on me and the people around him.”Masterson, 47, co-starred on “That ’70s Show” with Kutcher and Kunis from 1998 to 2006. Debra Jo Rupp and Kurtwood Smith, two other co-stars from the show, also wrote letters to the judge in support of Masterson, praising their interactions with him while working together.Kunis and Kutcher defended their letters in support of Masterson in a recorded statement posted to Instagram on Saturday, saying they “were not written to question the legitimacy of the judicial system or the validity of the jury’s ruling.”“They were intended for the judge to read,” Kutcher said. “And not to undermine the testimony of the victims or re-traumatize them in any way. We would never want to do that and we’re sorry if that has taken place.”Comments were closed on the Instagram post addressing the letters, but other recent posts on the account were flooded with outrage and criticism, with many noting Kutcher’s longtime philanthropic efforts to combat sex trafficking.The letters from Kutcher and Kunis sought to portray Masterson as someone who was critical of drug use. Kutcher said he attributed “not falling into the typical Hollywood life of drugs directly to Danny.” Kunis said that “Danny played a pivotal role in guiding me away from such destructive paths.”Those statements appeared to be responding to specific allegations in the case.Prosecutors had accused Masterson of drugging and then raping three women at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles between 2001 and 2003. (The jury deadlocked on the charge that Masterson had raped a third woman.)In the video statement, Kutcher said that he and Kunis were “aware of the pain that has been caused” by the letters. Kunis added, “Our heart goes out to every single person who’s ever been a victim of sexual assault, sexual abuse or rape.”The couple said in the video on Instagram that Masterson’s family had asked them to write the letters “to represent the person that we knew for 25 years, so that the judge could take that into full consideration relative to the sentencing.”Tony Ortega, one of the journalists who published the letters on his Substack, “The Underground Bunker,” wrote that “these letter writers were probably aware that Judge Olmedo could really only choose between 15 to life and 30 to life.”“They knew they were not trying to convince her to let Danny walk out of prison,” he added. Another Substack, “Legal Affairs and Trials with Meghann Cuniff,” also published the letters.The case against Masterson drew widespread attention, in part because of accusations that the Church of Scientology, to which Masterson belonged, had pressured his accusers to keep quiet. The church denied that it pressured the victims.Kutcher and Kunis in their letters described deep connections to Masterson, with Kutcher saying that Masterson had been his friend and role model for 25 years.“We’ve traveled around the world together, raised our daughters together and shared countless family moments,” Kutcher said, adding “he is among few people that I would trust to be alone with my son and daughter.”Kunis added that Masterson’s “unwavering commitment to being an exceptional older brother figure to me has had a transformative impact on my life.”Masterson will be eligible for parole in 20 years, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. More

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      ‘Luckiest Girl Alive’ Review: Lean In, to Outrage

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      Mila Kunis plays a successful career woman who faces a horrific incident from her past in this drama based on the novel by Jessica Knoll.To become the “Luckiest Girl Alive,” a title this dramedy shellacs with sarcasm, a self-loathing magazine writer named Ani (Mila Kunis) has achieved a trifecta of status symbols: a prestigious education (acquired via scholarships), a slim body (acquired via an eating disorder), and a posh fiancé (acquired via emotional suppression). Marriage to blue-blooded Luke Harrison IV (Finn Wittrock) will cement her transformation from teenage pushover TifAni FaNelli (played in flashbacks by Chiara Aurelia) to her intimidating new identity as Ani Harrison — that is, if she can restrain herself from fantasizing about stabbing her husband-to-be in the neck.“Snap out of it, psycho,” Ani growls in the first of many harsh monologues that run the length of the film. Her fanged narration sets us up for a makeover movie in reverse where a carb-fearing perfectionist allows herself to enjoy pizza. In part, it is that movie. But readers of Jessica Knoll’s novel of the same name, which she here adapts for the screen, know that Ani is reeling from a high school gang rape compounded by a mass shooting. These intertwined tragedies rebranded one of Ani’s abusers, played as a student by Carson MacCormac and in adulthood by Alex Barone, into a grandstanding public moralist. At the same time, her own labels make her itch: survivor, victim, villain, hero, slut. Ani wears success like a bulletproof vest, until run-ins with her mother (Connie Britton), her former teacher (Scoot McNairy) and a documentarian (Dalmar Abuzeid) force her to re-examine her facade.Kunis’s alpha female appears at once ferocious and like a conspicuous sham. (Imagine Sheryl Sandberg as a “Scooby-Doo” villain.) Her performance carries the film — a fortunate break for the director Mike Barker, who has the near-impossible challenge of shepherding the tone from snark to painful sincerity. Too often, Barker resorts to shooting pat scenes of Kunis staring at herself in a mirror. Yet, he and the cinematographer Colin Watkinson also capture Ani’s callous gaze in glimpses, say when a crumb on the corner of Abuzeid’s lip symbolizes her suspicion that she can’t trust this klutz as her mouthpiece.It’s initially baffling that Knoll pointedly sets the film in 2015, the year her book was published. (What for? A one-liner about Hillary Clinton winning the presidency?) Still, Knoll took another year to speak openly about how Ani’s trauma overlaps with her own, and today, her script serves as a reminder of that recent history right before #MeToo, when strength passed for healing and misogyny hid behind a smile that sneered, Can’t you take a joke?“Yes,” Ani might counter — and she’s absorbed so many punch lines that, like the culture at large, she’s poised to explode.Luckiest Girl AliveRated R for sexual violence and language. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Zelensky, Roots in Show Business, Presses for an Oscar Appearance

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      KYIV, Ukraine — He has spoken with two movie stars by video call from the bombarded and encircled city of Kyiv.His aides lobbied the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for an Oscar night show of support. He rereleased his own television show on Netflix in the middle of the war.President Volodymyr Zelensky, the actor turned wartime leader of Ukraine, has dedicated most of his public appearances to appeals to Western nations for lethal weaponry to fight the Russians: tanks, jets and missiles.But Mr. Zelensky, who before he became president had starred in romantic comedies and performed stand-up routines, has also pressed for celebrities and artists to speak up for his country, in what aides say is a worthwhile effort to solidify Ukraine’s global soft power advantage over Russia.“We live in the modern world, and we know that opinion makers and celebrities are important,” said Ekaterine Zguladze, a former deputy minister of interior now involved in the Ukrainian government’s effort to win support from artists, musicians and celebrities. “Not only politicians shape the world.”Ms. Zguladze added: “Right now, there exists genuine solidarity around the world for Ukraine. And this solidarity is not because of the heartbreaking images of destroyed cities and human tragedy, but because of the values we all share.”But Ukraine’s appeal to the academy, the organization that awards the Oscars, has encountered drama of its own.Before the show, organizers said the war would be noted and the human toll honored, but had not committed to a video appearance by Mr. Zelensky, said Brian Keith Etheridge, a sitcom writer based in Los Angeles. He helped coordinate the Ukrainian government’s outreach to the academy, with help from Mila Kunis, an actress of Ukrainian origin, and her husband, Ashton Kutcher.“The concern that we were told is, they don’t want to overly politicize the show,” Mr. Etheridge said. “If Zelensky just says ‘thank you’ it will remind people, and it could raise millions of dollars. It’s such a giant platform just to have his face show up.”Sean Penn in Rzeszow, Poland, last week after leaving Ukraine, where he had been making a documentary about the Russian invasion.Angelos Tzortzinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSean Penn, who had been filming a documentary in Ukraine when the war broke out, has called for a boycott of the Oscars if Mr. Zelensky is not permitted to appear by video and vowed to smelt his own awards if the academy snubs the Ukrainian leader. The award statues are made of gold-plated bronze.If the Oscar producers do not allow an appearance for “the leadership in Ukraine, who are taking bullets and bombs for us, along with the Ukrainian children that they are trying to protect, then I think every single one of those people, and every bit of that decision, will have been the most obscene moment in all of Hollywood history,” Mr. Penn told CNN in an interview.Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, the producers said they intended to commemorate the war’s toll but did not commit to a video appearance by Mr. Zelensky.“We’re going to be very thoughtful about how we acknowledge where we are in the world,” Will Packer, a producer of the Oscar ceremony, said Thursday at a news conference.Of a possible appearance by Mr. Zelensky, he said: “The show is in the process, so that’s not something that we would definitively say one way or another at this point. As I’ve mentioned before, we want to be fun and celebratory, but we certainly are going to do that in a respectful way.”Preparations at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood on Saturday, before the Sunday’s Oscars ceremony.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesThe comedic actress Wanda Sykes, one of the ceremony’s co-hosts, noted of Mr. Zelensky, “Isn’t he busy right now?”While Mr. Zelensky’s aides have pressed for support during the show in whatever form it takes, seeking any avenue to win public backing in the West, the value of celebrity support in a shooting war is not universally acknowledged in Ukraine.“Ultimately, it’s important what is happening on the ground,” Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said. “Everybody is doing what they can. I don’t know if one more speech of Zelensky will make a difference. But it’s good those who initiate it want to do it. Everybody wants to help in any way possible.”But Mr. Danylyuk said that “in the end, you need results,” like supplies of fighter jets, tanks or missiles for the Ukrainian Army.Mr. Zelensky has pressed on all fronts to convey to a broad audience, and particularly to countries that are providing weaponry, the moral imperative of supporting Ukraine in the war.Mr. Zelensky addressing Congress by video this month. He has worked to persuade a broad audience of the moral imperative of supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times“In general, Zelensky is really following the news from Hollywood and looking for opportunities for support,” Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to the president’s chief of staff, said in an interview.The push for backing for Ukraine during the Oscars began a week ago, after Mr. Zelensky spoke on a video call from Kyiv with Mr. Kutcher and Ms. Kunis, to thank the couple for raising $35 million for Ukrainian refugees and humanitarian aid in a GoFundMe campaign, Mr. Leshchenko said.Ms. Kunis most recently starred in “Breaking News in Yuba County” and has a planned movie release by Netflix, “Luckiest Girl Alive.”“Ukrainians are proud and brave people who deserve our help in their time of need,” she wrote in the fund-raising appeal. “This unjust attack on Ukraine and humanity at large is devastating and the Ukrainian people need our support.”After the video call, Mr. Zelensky’s aides sought a last-minute slot at the Oscar ceremony.Mr. Zelensky has always had a keen sense of image and storytelling in politics. Earlier this month, he said he was aware that his repeated televised appeals for resistance, and continued presence in the beleaguered capital, had turned him into a symbol of bravery in many countries.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at a news conference early this month in Kyiv, the capital.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesThe Oscars are also a natural fit for an appeal by his government for humanitarian assistance, as many of his top aides are also movie industry veterans.The chief of the presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, was a media lawyer and movie producer. The head of the domestic intelligence agency, Ivan Bakanov, had been the director of the Kvartal 95 studio. A chief presidential adviser, Serhiy Shefir, was a screenwriter and producer whose major credits included a hit romantic comedy film, “Eight First Dates,” and a television series, “The In-laws.”Before becoming president of Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky played a president in his own television series, “Servant of the People,” which was rereleased on Netflix this month. The character, a teacher, is propelled to the presidency after he goes on a tirade against corruption, which is filmed by his students in a video that goes viral.Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Kyiv, and Matt Stevens from New York. More

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      Hollywood Has a New Way to Dramatize Addiction

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      Recent films dive into the profound grief experienced by so many families. What do they still get wrong?The first words in the film trailer, spoken over ominous piano, come from a doctor with a grim prognosis. “I’m going to level with you, Molly,” he says. “Opioids have a 97 percent relapse rate.” This is an exaggeration, but it has its effect on Molly and her mother, Deb. Deb is a deer in headlights, eyes wrinkled from years of worryand mistrust. Molly looks like Kurt Cobain in zombie makeup: unbuttoned flannel, skeletal frame, sunken eyes, bleached hair, pallid complexion. “You have gone through this 15 times,” the doctor says, and then there’s a fast cut to Molly in a twin bed, twitching in the fetal position, withdrawing from opioids.Next comes the premise. There is a monthly injection, the doctor explains, that “essentially makes you immune to getting high,” locking the brain’s opioid receptors behind a chemical cage not even heroin can penetrate. But there’s a catch. Before getting this injection of naltrexone, Molly must remain opioid-free for a week; otherwise, it could precipitate a severe sickness. Molly dreads this trial: “Four more days? Seriously?” We see a series of tense vignettes between mother and daughter, with Molly, played by Mila Kunis, screaming at Deb, played by Glenn Close: “I’m so sorry that my drug addiction is so incredibly difficult on you!”According to the C.D.C.’s provisional data, more than 90,000 Americans died from drug overdoses between October 2019 and September 2020, the highest rate ever recorded. Dramas about the addictions behind that number may not be fun to watch, but they do feel necessary, given the profound real-world grief they represent. Statistics make us aware of a crisis; art can help us metabolize it.And yet: When this trailer for Hollywood’s newest addiction drama — Kunis and Close in “Four Good Days” — emerged, and my Twitter feed lit up with commentary, most of it was biting. “There are a lot of bad movies about addiction, and this one seems ready to blow them all out of the water,” tweeted an emergency-​medicine physician in Ohio. “I watched this on mute and my god … the camera angles and lighting are every addiction movie cliché ever,” another advocate replied.That was Twitter. In the YouTube comments, I found a parallel universe. “The trailer had me in tears, spot on if you or anyone you love has dealt with any type of addiction,” one commenter wrote. “Them first 4 days are literally the worst,” another said. “This is such a good concept.” Hollywood has produced many vivid tales of druggy debauchery, especially about heroin. In the 1990s, “The Basketball Diaries” and “Trainspotting” showed audiences characters who injected heroin in the seedy underworlds of New York and Glasgow. In the 1970s, you had stories like “The Panic in Needle Park,” in which Al Pacino plays a Manhattan heroin user who falls in love with an innocent young woman and gets her addicted too.Today, many films about drugs have a different vibe. They take place not in cities but in upscale suburbs or in rural areas, and they tell their stories not from the perspective of drug users but of their terrified loved ones. Like “Ben Is Back,” “Beautiful Boy” and “Hillbilly Elegy” — some of Hollywood’s other swings at the opioid era — “Four Good Days” is ultimately a family drama about the power, and the limits, of a mother’s love.Close and Kunis’s family dynamic has the kind of raw verisimilitude only talented actors can recreate. But if anything here were to be praised for realism, it wouldn’t be the drama; it would be the boredom. In between scenes both poignant and preachy, Molly languishes in her mother’s suburban home, smoking unenjoyed cigarettes in a plastic chair in the garage. Kicking heroin involves skull-crushing levels of boredom, tired but wide awake, no hope of feeling comfortable; they call it “kicking” because of the way your legs grow cramped and restless. When Molly’s not smoking in the garage, she’s twiddling her thumbs, biding her time.Hollywood still needs to reduce a complex illness into something like a sports movie or boxing match.But a Hollywood movie cannot just be about boredom. It requires a meaty emotional conflict, preferably one that can be resolved in a couple of hours. Deb, for instance, says she blames doctors who overprescribed painkillers for Molly’s addiction, but the audience later learns that she left her family and that Molly grew up in a volatile, loveless home. A daughter’s feeling abandoned by her mother, the mother’s blaming herself for her child’s addiction — here is something we can chew on.The demands of mass-market Hollywood dramas seem almost engineered to prevent honest portrayals of addiction. The films now conceive of it as a medical illness instead of a moral failing, which is positive. But Hollywood still needs to reduce a complex illness into something like a sports movie or boxing match. Molly either wins or loses, gets high or not. Her illness must ultimately be conquered by valiant displays of will. She must survive a cold-turkey withdrawal while her mother, whom she has burned one too many times, musters her last ounces of support and compassion.The harrowing withdrawal, with its days of hellish sweats, is the most obvious aspect of addiction to dramatize: a trial of grit from which the character emerges transformed. Perhaps this is why naltrexone seems to be a favorite among some of America’s drug-court judges, who may view withdrawal as its own form of redemptive punishment. Maintenance treatments are arguably more effective and don’t require patients to be sick for a week, but they do not follow the dramatic path in which a character must reach a gripping, life-altering crisis point. Addiction, however, does not follow defined dramatic arcs. For some, treating it is a repetitive, yearslong process of trial and error. For others, it’s even more anticlimactic, and therapy and medication do the trick. Yes, some do recover after a cathartic breakthrough. But those stories tend not to bring viewers closer to addiction; if anything, they create distance, reducing tangles of human desire into melodrama and pity. You come away thinking, At least I’m not like that.In stories about “Four Good Days,” critics have marveled at how Kunis is “unrecognizable” in her “transformation” into what Hollywood thinks a heroin user looks like. Molly is gaunt, with rotting teeth and scabs dotting her face — a severe case. The film implies that this is her make-or-break shot at recovery, that it all comes down to this one moment. You’re unlikely to see less sensational arcs in today’s Hollywood dramas: say, people who make their progress slowly, who falter, who benefit from harm reduction, who learn that recovery is about more than their own will to endure suffering, whose addiction isn’t even their biggest problem in life. Such stories could surely be interesting ones. But in order to tell them, Hollywood would need to kick a very old habit. Source photographs: Screen grabs from YouTube More

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      ‘Four Good Days’ Review: Repairing a Mother-Daughter Relationship

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      In this drama, Mila Kunis plays a heroin addict and Glenn Close the mother trying to help her get clean.“Four Good Days” deals with the recoveries of two people: a heroin addict and her mother, who has given up on trusting her daughter.The first scene between Deb (Glenn Close) and Molly (Mila Kunis) establishes the wheedling strategies that Molly has used on Deb before. Molly shows up at Deb’s doorstep, claiming to want to detox at her home; Deb, pained by the interaction, musters the willpower to shut her out. But soon after, she’ll take her in. The four days represent a period during which Molly, with no place else to go, must stay clean: Once the drugs are gone from her system, she can take a monthly shot of naltrexone, which will prevent opiates from delivering a high and make it easier to get clean.But during the wait, the mother-daughter tension never relents. Deb can’t believe Molly, and Molly can’t regain credibility. If there is something familiar about watching movie stars de-glam themselves for roles (Molly has lost some of her teeth), the toggling gives the actresses something substantial to work with. As a relationship movie, not just for the pair but those around them, “Four Good Days” is more complex than its outward trappings and preachier scenes — like an anguished Molly addressing a high school class — suggest.The film is based on a 2016 Washington Post article by Eli Saslow, who wrote the screenplay with the director, Rodrigo García. The movie adheres to the crucial points, even if it relocates the characters from greater Detroit to Southern California. It also preserves the story’s power.Four Good DaysRated R for drug abuse and its consequences. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More