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      ‘Origin’ Review: Ava DuVernay’s Film Explores the Roots of Our Racism

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      Ava DuVernay’s new feature film, adapted from the Isabel Wilkerson book “Caste,” turns the journalist into a character who examines oppression.Ava DuVernay’s “Origin” is as audacious as it is ambitious. At its core, it concerns an intellectual argument about history and hierarchies of power, but it’s also about the fraught process of making this argument. It’s a daunting conceit that DuVernay has shaped into an eventful narrative that is, by turns, specific and far-ranging, diagnostic and aspirational. It is a great big swing about taking a great big swing, and while the film is more persuasive as a drama than the argument it relays, few American movies this year reach so high so boldly.The inspiration for “Origin,” which DuVernay both wrote and directed, is Isabel Wilkerson’s acclaimed, best-selling 2020 book “Caste.” In it, Wilkerson argues that to fully understand the United States and its divisive history, you need to look past race and grasp the role played by caste, which she sees as an artificial and static structural “ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups.” Caste, she writes, separates people — including into racially ranked groups — and keeps them divided. These separations, as the subtitle puts it, are “The Origins of Our Discontents.”For the film, DuVernay has turned Wilkerson into a dramatic, at times melodramatic character of the same name — a moving Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor — who develops her thesis while traversing history and continents on a journey from inspiration to publication. The movie also includes segments of varying effectiveness that dramatize Wilkerson’s understanding of specific caste systems: One is set in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, another in Depression-era Mississippi and a third in India over different time periods. This last interlude focuses on Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar (Gaurav J. Pathania), who helped draft India’s Constitution and championed the rights of Dalits, people once deemed “untouchables.”Isabel’s intellectual quest is bold, sweeping and determinedly personal — a handful of close relatives have decisive roles — and DuVernay’s version of that venture is equally expansive. She gives it tension, tears, visual poetry, shocks of tragedy, moments of grace and many interlocking parts. “Origin” opens in 2012 with a re-enactment of the last night in the life of Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost), the unarmed 17-year-old who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. The killing becomes the catalyst for her thesis about caste because, the more she considers it, the more she believes that racism alone can’t explain it. Racism, she says at one point, has become “the default” explanation.Isabel’s process unfolds rapidly and is framed by her resistance to the default. Her resistance surfaces in a discussion that she has with her husband, Brett (a sympathetic Jon Bernthal), and mother, Ruby (Emily Yancy), as they watch President Obama address Martin’s death on TV. It also informs Isabel’s talks with an acquaintance (Blair Underwood), who early on urges her to write about the case, pushing her to listen to the 911 calls that were made the night Martin was killed. (Wilkerson is a former bureau chief for The New York Times; her first book is “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”)Isabel does listen to the 911 calls one quiet evening at home. Steeling herself, she begins the recordings, at which point the scene shifts to the night of the killing; it’s as if she had hit play on a grotesque movie. As DuVernay cuts back and forth between Isabel and that night, you hear George Zimmerman, a largely offscreen presence, talking to a dispatcher as he follows the worried teenager in his car. (“He’s running.”) You also watch as a terrified Martin struggles for his life. DuVernay’s staging here is blunt, visceral and harrowingly intimate. Isabel is shaken and so are you, in part because the 911 calls in the re-enactment are real.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?  More

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      ‘The Archies’ Review: A Masala Milkshake at Pop’s, Anyone?

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      Archie and pals get radicalized when their hometown, now conveniently relocated in India, is threatened by corporate overlords.Namaste from Riverdale! In “The Archies,” the director Zoya Akhtar transplants the all-American comic book hamlet to India, where the Anglo-Indian teenager Archie Andrews (Agastya Nanda) is up to his usual tricks, dating both Betty (Khushi Kapoor) and Veronica (Suhana Khan).Set in 1964, this inessential Bollywood-tinged fantasia is two and a half hours of soda shops, chaste dates, candy-colored petticoats, and athletic musical numbers choreographed to a mix of modern-ish new tunes and classics like “Wooly Bully.” Akhtar, who wrote the script with Ayesha Devitre Dhillon and Reema Kagti, is fearless in her fanciful reorientation. Why not?It’s an extravagant stunt perked up by moments of absurdity. Reggie (Vedang Raina) invents beat-boxing; the kids applaud a quote from Jean-Luc Godard: “Cinema is truth 24 times a second.” Mostly, however, it’s rote shtick. Jughead (Mihir Ahuja) chows down on some kind of burgers while Archie and his girlfriends flirt, fight and flirt some more.Suddenly, the focus shifts from how much Riverdale hasn’t changed to how much it might under threat of a corporate takeover. This wheezy old save-the-town plot only holds our interest because of our long acquaintance with the characters who are now being radicalized. It’s strangely compelling to watch Archie transform into an anticapitalist activist. “I can’t just live my life for kicks,” he sings, “Everything is politics — hey, hey!”The cast is tasked solely with looking chipper and gyrating enthusiastically. The ladies do a saucy number on roller skates; later, Khan’s vampy Veronica lands a back flip. The film does its darnedest to dazzle from its lavish production design to its showboating cinematography. For good measure, Akhtar slaps cartoon-style exclamations on the screen: “Smack!” “Pow!” and, for Hindi speakers, “Dhishoom!”The ArchiesNot rated. In Hindi and English, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 21 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Obamas’ Vision for Hollywood Company: ‘This Isn’t Like Masterpiece Theater’

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      With three new films on Netflix, Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground, is pursuing projects in different genres that aren’t always uplifting.The film “Leave the World Behind” centers on the idea of mistrust and how easy it is for humans to lose empathy for one another when faced with a crisis. It is at once unnerving, misanthropic and bleak and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, it’s produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground.Set to become available on Netflix on Friday, it is one of three films from Higher Ground that will be released within a month of one another on the streaming service. The others are “Rustin,” a biopic about a gay Civil Rights era activist, Bayard Rustin, and “American Symphony,” a documentary tracking the relationship between the musician Jon Batiste and his partner, Suleika Jaouad. Together, the films provide the best evidence of the five-year-old company’s attempts to evolve from an earnest, feel-good brand to one that is more complex and focused primarily on good storytelling centered around, Mr. Obama said, people who are dealing with “the tensions that are in our society.”“It’s taken a while for us to remind our team at Higher Ground, as well as the creative community in Hollywood, that this isn’t like Masterpiece Theater — not everything we do has to fit on PBS,” Mr. Obama said in a phone interview. “We are known to watch other things.”Those familiar with Mr. Obama’s lists of his favorite books, movies and TV shows know that his interests are varied. (When he named Amazon’s raunchy superhero show “The Boys” as one of his favorites in 2020, it shocked the show’s creator and its fans.)“I’m a bit of a sucker for science fiction, dystopias or thrillers,” he said. “Michelle jokes that my favorite movies involve horrible things happening to people and then they die, whereas she actually likes fun, uplifting stories that make her laugh.”In the past 18 months, the company has made its ambitions known to Hollywood by signing with the talent agency Creative Artists Agency to improve its access to new material; agreeing to an audio deal with Amazon’s Audible Originals after parting ways with Spotify; and, in April, hiring a senior executive with film and television experience, Vinnie Malhotra from Showtime.Ethan Hawke, Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali in a scene from “Leave the World Behind.”NetflixSam Esmail, the director of “Leave the World Behind,” is known for a paranoid and dark outlook on society, as represented by “Mr. Robot,” the acclaimed thriller series he created. He was surprised his path ever crossed Mr. Obama’s. But when they discussed “Leave the World Behind,” which is based on Rumaan Alan’s novel that was a pick of Mr. Obama’s, Mr. Esmail said he was heartened that the former president was not interested in shying away from the themes of the film, whose starry cast includes Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali.“He really didn’t want to pull punches,” Mr. Esmail said. “He wanted to have these characters face the truth about the fragility of our society and how do we reckon with that. I found that refreshing.”Some in the Hollywood trade press criticized Netflix’s deal with Higher Ground, struck in 2018, as being more about name recognition than actual content. “Rustin” and “Leave the World Behind” are the first narrative feature films from the company.“There’s plenty of reason to believe that it could be a vanity brand,” said Ted Sarandos, the co-chief executive of Netflix, who last year extended the initial four-year deal for another two years. “But they got street cred right out of the gate.”He referenced Higher Ground starting out with “slightly lower stakes things,” like Ms. Obama’s kid-oriented food show “Waffles + Mochi” and documentaries like “Crip Camp,” which centered on disability rights, “American Factory,” which highlighted the plight of blue-collar workers in a globalized society and won an Oscar for best documentary.Michelle Obama in a scene from “Waffles + Mochi.”Adam Rose/Netflix“I think this year, with ‘Rustin’ and ‘Leave the World Behind,’ you can see the scope and scale and potential for the ambitions that they have, and we have for them,” Mr. Sarandos said.Among the projects Higher Ground has in development is a film adaptation of “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David W. Blight. Regina King is set to direct, with a script by Kemp Powers, reuniting the duo behind “One Night in Miami.”But now the company is also expanding into other genres: It has grabbed the rights to S.A. Cosby’s best-selling crime thriller “All the Sinners Bleed,” which it will produce with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, and to “Hello, Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano, a family drama that was a pick in Oprah Winfrey’s book club. Both will be made into series for Netflix.Ms. Obama is also working closely with Lupita Nyong’o, who will produce and star in a romantic comedy called “Fling,” based on a novel by J.F. Murray. An unscripted series called “Boomin Love,” about older people finding companionship, is currently in production with a Harvard-trained behavioral scientist, Logan Ury, who is serving as one of the on-air experts.“These might not be something people expect,” Mr. Obama said of the upcoming projects. “I think we’re now in a place where we’re branching out into different genres, and people are starting to probably get the signal that ‘Oh, if we’ve got a good story that doesn’t neatly fit into what we expect Higher Ground might be interested in, they still might be a good partner for us.’”In a scene from the documentary “American Factory,” two women working at Fuyao glass company in Ohio, in 2019.Netflix, via Everett CollectionProducing projects based on high-profile novels, which have a built-in fan base, could augur well for Higher Ground, whose output so far has had respectable reviews though none have topped Netflix’s weekly top 10 most-watched lists.Still, there are plenty in Hollywood who find themselves star-struck by the Obamas. When Mr. Obama visited C.A.A.’s offices in September, agents flooded into the company’s conference room and later described the day with words like “magical” and “the greatest.” Matthew Heineman, who in his 20 years as a documentary filmmaker has embedded with vigilantes fighting drug cartels and American special forces stationed in Afghanistan, said he was “nervous” walking into the restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard for what he described as a “surreal” meeting with the former president about “American Symphony.”The couple is known to give notes on scripts and will look at various edits as a project moves through post production, though Mr. Obama says he does so “with great humility.”“One of the great pleasures of being president is everybody having an opinion about how you can do your job and frequently from people who have no idea what it’s like to do your job,” he said.“Michelle and I do not aspire to be full-time Hollywood moguls,” Mr. Obama said.Stephen Voss/NetflixDespite the projects ahead, Mr. Obama said the couple intended to continue spending just 10 to 15 percent of their time nurturing Higher Ground, especially as the 2024 election approaches and they are called to the campaign trail.“Michelle and I do not aspire to be full-time Hollywood moguls,” he said.For the projects they do choose, however, their support can make the difference. Bruce Cohen, a producer of “Rustin,” credits the Obamas with getting his film made after HBO passed on it years earlier.“Once you have them in your corner, it gives you a really good chance,” he said.And Mr. Heineman, whose film documents Ms. Jaouad’s battle with leukemia, was able to form a partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Be the Match organization, which helps connect patients to bone marrow donors, because of Higher Ground, he said. “The idea of trying to make an impact with the film was something that was important to him and important to me,” Mr. Heineman said, referring to Mr. Obama.While Mr. Obama was no stranger to Hollywood — since his early days of campaigning for the presidency he found a welcoming audience among the show business elite — he has found that working in this business has taken some getting used to.“It’s ironic that the private sector is made out to be this hyper-efficient thing, and the government is plodding, slow,” he said. “I think part of it is ideological and part of it is people’s experience with the D.M.V.“Everything takes so long — decisions, contracts, scripts,” Mr. Obama said. “We organized a major address or a G20 meeting in three weeks. Getting somebody to read a script in three weeks is lucky, much less write a script in three weeks.” More

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      Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott on ‘All of Us Strangers’

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      “Have you seen the sausage ad?” Andrew Scott asked me.“No, no, we’re not going to talk about that,” Paul Mescal said.It was a mid-November morning in Los Angeles, and I was having breakfast with two actors who have created some of the most indelible romantic leads of recent vintage: Scott, 47, played the “Hot Priest” on the second season of “Fleabag,” while the 27-year-old Mescal broke through — and broke hearts — as the conflicted jock Connell in Hulu’s “Normal People.”Now, instead of aiming those love beams at women, they’ll point them at each other in the drama “All of Us Strangers,” due Dec. 22 in theaters. It’s like an Avengers-level team-up, if the Avengers recruited exclusively from the ranks of sad-eyed Irish heartthrobs who caused a sensation over the 2019-20 television season.But before we could talk about their sexy, shattering new movie, Scott gently ribbed his co-star about an ad for an Irish sausage brand, Denny, that Mescal had starred in just out of drama school. (Though the rest of the world was introduced to Mescal in “Normal People,” Ireland already knew him from the ubiquitous sausage commercial.)“Look, I needed that job in a massive way,” Mescal said. “That paid my rent for the rest of the year. But if I could take it back …”“Ah, no, it’s lovely you have that!” Scott said. “I actually thought the character you created in the sausage ad was …”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?  More

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      What to Read After Watching ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

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      Now that the Scorsese epic is on demand, you can catch up with the drama from home, then go down a rabbit hole with our guides.“Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese’s telling of the terrible history of the killings of at least 60 Osage people in the 1920s by white neighbors who coveted their oil money, has been part of the film conversation since it was first unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival in May. This month, New York Times critics named it their top movie of 2023. Now that it’s available on demand (and is expected to reach streaming later this month), here’s a guide to what to read about the drama:The HistoryThe film is based on David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction best seller of the same title, which examined both the horrifying murder plot and the birth of the F.B.I. The Times said of the book, “It will sear your soul.” Here’s the review.The movie largely jettisons Grann’s F.B.I. angle and focuses on the wealthy Osage woman Mollie Kyle (played by Lily Gladstone); her white husband, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio); and his uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), the ringleader of the conspiracy. Here’s a rundown of the facts behind the drama.The ProductionInitially the film was going to follow the book more closely and track an F.B.I. agent as he investigated the mystery. But “I think Marty and I just looked at each other and we felt there was no soul to it,” DiCaprio told our columnist Kyle Buchanan. So they started over again. Here’s what the stars and director had to say.In the wedding scene, Mollie wears what looks to be a soldier’s uniform with a tall hat as her bridal outfit. In fact, the look was based on military dress and hewed closely to Osage tradition, according to designers and members of the tribe. Here’s a closer look at the costumes.The film is stocked with cameos from musicians like Jason Isbell, comedians like Tatanka Means and even a filmmaker (we won’t give it away here). Find out who’s who in the cast.The ReactionThe Times’s chief film critic, Manohla Dargis, called the film a “heartbreaking masterpiece” and “a true-crime epic that Scorsese — with grace, sorrow and sublime filmmaking clarity — has turned into a requiem for the country.” Here’s the review.The Times’s two film critics both named “Killers of the Flower Moon” the best film of 2023. “Manifest Destiny makes a hell of a gangster movie,” Dargis wrote. And Alissa Wilkinson wrote that Scorsese proceeds “from the firm belief that guilt is generational, just like grief.” Here are their Top 10 lists.DiCaprio’s Burkhart is unlike any Scorsese protagonist because, well, he’s dumb as rocks. And that changes the film in a fundamental way. Here’s a critic’s notebook explaining why.Scorsese has long been identified with ornately edited, violent set pieces. In “The Irishman” and now “Killers,” those flourishes have given way to blunt truth, argues one writer. Learn how Scorsese has rethought violence. More

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      15 Classic Christmas Movies to Stream over the Holidays

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      Our list of classics is broad, from warm Old Hollywood favorites to the sort of boozy, vulgar entertainments that parents can watch after putting the kids to bed.Does a Christmas movie have to be about Christmas? If it merely takes place around Christmas, how prominently does the holiday have to feature for it to qualify? And really, must it be a merry Christmas? The Grinches and Scrooges of the world have streaming subscriptions, too.With a more elastic conception of the holiday in mind, we picked 15 Christmas movies of a broad variety, from warm Old Hollywood favorites to family-friendly modern comedies to the sort of boozy, vulgar entertainments that parents can watch after putting the kids to bed. (And yes, the oft-debated “Die Hard” did make the list. When is it ever a bad time to watch “Die Hard”?) These films are either on streaming services or available to rent on major platforms. Also, “Die Hard” returns to theaters Dec. 8.‘Christmas in Connecticut’ (1945)Stream it on Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Having established herself as a master of melodrama in “Stella Dallas,” a closet romantic in “The Lady Eve” and a duplicitous femme fatale in “Double Indemnity,” Barbara Stanwyck combines all three qualities into a winning performance in “Christmas in Connecticut,” a screwball holiday comedy with heart. Stanwyck plays a single New Yorker who’s been posing as a wife and mother from rural Connecticut to make her food column more appealing to American housewives. When asked to host Christmas dinner for a dashing war hero (Dennis Morgan), she scrambles desperately to sell her made-up persona, but amid the confusion over her fake husband and baby, she winds up falling for her guest.‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (1946)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video. Rent it on Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Released to mixed reviews and disappointing box office — particularly by the standards of the director Frank Capra, who was seen as a hitmaker after films like “It Happened One Night” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” — “It’s a Wonderful Life” has become the undisputed star atop the holiday-movie tree. But what makes it so enduring ties into why it took a while to catch on: The joyful, tear-jerking ending is exceptionally hard-won, following a Christmas Eve that’s a dark night of the soul for George Bailey (James Stewart), a man whose despair nearly drives him to the brink. It’s only after meeting his guardian angel that George sees his value to his family and community.‘A Christmas Story’ (1983)Stream it on Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Jeff Gillen, left, and Peter Billingsley in “A Christmas Story.”Warner Bros.As if to compensate for making the holiday-themed slasher classic “Black Christmas” nine years earlier, the director Bob Clark turned to this nostalgia-soaked comedy, which has become a seasonal favorite, though it’s not without its horrors. The Parkers are the most disaster-prone family in their 1940s Midwestern town, and embarrassment is always around the corner for poor Ralphie (Peter Billingsley), who wants nothing more than a Red Ryder air rifle for Christmas, but is constantly told, “You’ll shoot your eye out.” In the lead-up to his big gift, Ralphie has an awful encounter with a mall Santa, decodes a disappointing secret message from Ovaltine and is forced to wear the pink bunny onesie his Aunt Clara got him. But Ralphie won’t be a put-upon kid forever.‘Gremlins’ (1984)Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV+, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.An ideal double feature with “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Joe Dante’s mischievous comedy throws a Capraesque small town into chaos when an exotic Christmas present spawns the green marauders of the title. While in Chinatown on business, an eccentric inventor discovers a cute little animal called a mogwai and sneaks it back home to his family. But the new caretakers don’t follow important instructions, like keeping the mogwai away from water and not feeding it after midnight. It mutates into the innumerable creatures of the title, who take a juvenile delight in creating mayhem. Part monster movie, part live-action Looney Tunes, “Gremlins” leaves a trail of destruction through its snow-capped holiday idyll.‘Die Hard’ (1988)Stream it on Hulu. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Bruce Willis and Bonnie Bedelia in a scene from “Die Hard.”20th Century Fox, via Getty ImagesThere should be no argument over whether “Die Hard” is a true Christmas movie, given that John McClane (Bruce Willis) flies out to Los Angeles to spend the holiday with his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia), battles an armed band of European thieves who have taken over an office party and even dresses one unfortunate henchman in a Santa suit. Plus it’s a useful excuse to rewatch this impeccably crafted and influential action movie, which emphasizes McClane’s vulnerability as much as his resourcefulness and guile in outwitting a criminal mastermind (Alan Rickman) and perhaps saving his marriage in the process.‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ (1992)Stream it on Disney+ and Hulu. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.He may be surrounded by singing, dancing, mischief-making Muppets, but Michael Caine gives the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, the heartless miser of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” every bit the gravity of screen antecedents like Alastair Sim, Basil Rathbone and Albert Finney. This allows “The Muppet Christmas Carol” to position him as the ideal straight man, a grouchy counterpoint to the silliness of Kermit the Frog’s earnest Bob Cratchit, Miss Piggy as a typically brassy Emily Cratchit and the three offbeat ghosts who show Scrooge the path to redemption. The film proves it’s possible to honor Dickens while paying a visit to Fozzie Bear’s rubber chicken factory.‘Tim Burton’s the Nightmare Before Christmas’ (1993)Stream it on Disney+. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon) in “Tim Burton’s the Nightmare Before Christmas.”Touchstone PicturesOn paper, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” sounds like a cynical proposition, an animated studio musical with a plot that covers both Halloween and Christmas, giving it a solid three-month window where it’s seasonally appropriate viewing. Yet Henry Selick’s stop-motion fantasy, made in collaboration with one of its producers, Tim Burton, has a dark, personal, idiosyncratic style that dispels any thought of commercial calculation. It has earned a legitimate cult following over the years. As the Pumpkin King of Skeleton Town, Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon) inadvertently discovers the joys of Christmas Town and tries to bring the magic back home, with predictably demented and chaotic results.‘The Ref’ (1994)Rent it on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.The premise of this dark comedy sounds a little like the Humphrey Bogart noir “The Desperate Hours,” in which escaped felons hole up in a suburban home and take a family hostage. Only the twist of “The Ref” is that the crook, a cat burglar (Denis Leary) abandoned by his partner in the middle of a job, winds up captive himself to his hostages, a Connecticut couple (Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis) who cannot stop arguing. It becomes a Christmas Eve to survive when other members of the family turn up and the would-be felon takes on the role of reluctant counselor.‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (1999)Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in “Eyes Wide Shut.”Warner BrothersThe marital odyssey in Stanley Kubrick’s dreamlike final film is book ended by Christmas backdrops that underline the state of a bourgeois marriage that threatens to collapse. After a fashionable party where his wife (Nicole Kidman) flirts shamelessly with a well-heeled Hungarian, a doctor (Tom Cruise) starts a fight with her about jealousy and temptation. From there, he embarks on a nocturnal adventure that leads to several frustrating encounters with other women, culminating in an exclusive sex party that he tries to attend without an invitation. Given the threat to this superficially stable and happy family, the holiday setting, rendered in warm lights and festive colors, stands out in sharp relief.‘Elf’ (2003)Stream it on Hulu and Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.There was no more ideal choice to play an orphan raised by North Pole elves than Will Ferrell, whose ungainly, up-for-anything rambunctiousness had made him a breakout star on “Saturday Night Live.” “Elf” has the quality of an extended sketch, as Ferrell’s overgrown Buddy leaves Santa’s Workshop for New York City to find his real father (James Caan), an ornery children’s book publisher who works in the Empire State Building. His comic naïveté and relentless good cheer turn “Elf” into a fish-out-of-water comedy of disarming warmth, thanks largely to an ace supporting cast that includes Emily Deschanel, Ed Asner, Mary Steenburgen and Bob Newhart.‘Bad Santa’ (2003)Stream it on Paramount+. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.For those who greet the holidays with dread — or simply like their eggnog extra-spiked — Terry Zwigoff’s dark comedy is the ultimate in Christmas counterprogramming, a relentlessly vulgar provocation that does have a heart if you squint hard enough to see it. Billy Bob Thornton stars as an alcoholic mall Santa who uses his access to rob department stores at the peak of the shopping season, provided he can stay sober long enough to crack the safe. His latest job is complicated by a sweet, outcast boy whose belief in Santa is unshakable, even when his hero is a grump with conspicuously foul breath.‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ (2005)Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Robert Downey Jr., left, and Val Kilmer in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”Warner Bros.Since breaking into Hollywood with his script for “Lethal Weapon,” the writer Shane Black has set six of his films during Christmas in Los Angeles, where it’s too temperate to find obvious evidence of the season. His directing debut, the spiky neo-noir buddy-action comedy “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” loads up the soundtrack with a mix of traditional and irreverent Christmas songs. Its murder mystery starts at a fancy party where the most intriguing guest, an aspiring actress (Michelle Monaghan), appears in a deconstructed Santa outfit. Robert Downey Jr. plays a hilariously snarky thief who stumbles into an audition for a detective role, gets the part and then shadows a real-life private eye (Val Kilmer) on a case.‘A Christmas Tale’ (2008)Stream it on Mubi. Rent it on Amazon and Apple TV.The premise for this French ensemble piece sounds like a heartwarming holiday treacle: Playing the matriarch of a large family, the screen legend Catherine Deneuve gathers her three adult-age children and their significant others to announce that she has leukemia and needs a bone-marrow transplant. But the director, Arnaud Desplechin, who broke through with a three-hour film titled “My Sex Life (Or How I Got Into an Argument),” isn’t the sentimental type. “A Christmas Tale” exposes the many fault lines in this wildly dysfunctional family but it’s a disarmingly affectionate film, too, with a first-rate cast that includes Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Melvil Poupaud and Emmanuelle Devos.‘Carol’ (2015)Stream it on Netflix. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett in “Carol.”Wilson Webb/The Weinstein CompanyDuring the Christmas rush at Frankenberg’s department store in 1952 Manhattan, a moment is shared by two women — one an aspiring young photographer (Rooney Mara) logging time as a clerk in a Santa hat, the other a wealthy married woman (Cate Blanchett) in a glamorous mink. What follows is a forbidden affair that bridges a chasm in age and class. The morality clause in the older woman’s marital contract threatens her financial security and her status as a mother. Yet “Carol” has a powerful romantic spirit all the same, buoyed by a wintry holiday backdrop that’s suggestive of a new home these women seek to find in each other.‘Le Pupille’ (2022)Stream it on Disney+.A deserving nominee for best live action short at the 2023 Oscars, Alice Rohrwacher’s charming and evocative 37-minute film takes place at an all-girls Catholic boarding school over Christmas during World War II. As the head nun keeps strict watch over these adorable, mischievous kids — they get their mouths soaped for grooving to a pop song on the radio — a young woman arrives with a scrumptious red custard cake, asking them to pray for her unfaithful boyfriend. The nun presents the kids with a cruel challenge: Can they prove their devotion to Jesus by resisting the temptation of this Christmas Day treat? More

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      ‘Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer’ Review: A Guide to the Filmmaker’s Work

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      This documentary examines Herzog’s oeuvre and celebrity influence.In the preface to his 1991 “Memoirs,” Kingsley Amis stated, “I have already written an account of myself in twenty or more volumes, most of them called novels.” Amis published the memoirs anyway. It could be said of the protean filmmaker Werner Herzog that he’s presented a monumental and wide-ranging account of himself in the form of over 60 motion pictures. He’s also been the subject of two fantastic documentaries by Les Blank, “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe” and “Burden of Dreams.” And on top of that, Herzog himself published a memoir this year.One may wonder, then, about the possible utility value of Thomas von Steinaecker’s film “Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer,” a brisk documentary made with Herzog’s participation. It definitely exists, though, and might be more obvious had the picture been titled “The Young Person’s Guide to Werner Herzog.” It begins with Herzog’s unusual contemporary media celebrity and examines how he got it — honoring some of his most astonishing work, including the obsessive epics “Aguirre: The Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo.”The array of talking heads praising Herzog may seem random to the novice: Carl Weathers, Nicole Kidman and Chloé Zhao are among them, They’ve all worked with Herzog, or been his beneficiary somehow. Such is his cultural reach. The movie also provides a smart primer on the “New German Cinema” Herzog helped bring into being during the 1960s. An anecdote about how Herzog walked across Europe to heal the ailing German film critic Lotte Eisner — the connective tissue between Herzog and the 1920s German maestro F.W. Murnau — is emblematic of the man’s shoe-leather mysticism.After praising Herzog’s mastery of cinema, his friend and peer Wim Wenders drolly reflects that the man, now based in Los Angeles, presents Americans with an oddly appealing persona: “A likable but somewhat fanatical German.”Werner Herzog: Radical DreamerNot rated. In English and German, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and ‘Murder in Boston’

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      The Mirrorball Trophy will be handed out on the dance competition show, and HBO airs a documentary on a 1989 crime.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, Dec. 4-10. Details and times are subject to change.MondayFrom “Murder in Boston.”Courtesy of HBOMURDER IN BOSTON 9 p.m. on HBO. On Oct. 23, 1989, the Boston Police Department received a panicked call from Charles Stuart saying that he and his pregnant wife, a white couple, had been shot in their car by a Black man. Later his wife died, and a manhunt around Boston led to the arrest of multiple Black men, even though Stuart’s brother would go on to name Charles as the murderer. Footage from the CBS docuseries “Rescue 911,” which happened to be shadowing the response to Stuart’s call that night, is used in this documentary, which casts the case as a microcosm of bigger problems in race relations in the city.BARMAGEDDON: BLAKE SHELTON’S HOLIDAY BARTACULAR 10 p.m. on NBC. Blake Shelton is up to his usual bar game shenanigans, this time with a holiday flair. In this special, he will be going up against the rapper and actor Ice-T in games including “Merry Axe-Mas,” “Christmas Carol-okie” and “Little Drummer Boy (and Girl)” — your guess on what they entail is as good as mine.TuesdayDANCING WITH THE STARS 8 p.m. on ABC. The 32nd season of this Latin and ballroom dance competition show has been the first without former lead judge Len Goodman, who died early this year. Because of this, the winning couple will receive the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy. Last week, in a gotcha-type twist, no couples were eliminated from the semifinals, meaning that for the first time, five couples will be competing for the trophy. There are some great competitors this year, so the winner will be a toss up, but my money is on the 17-year-old actress Xochitl Gomez and her partner Val Chmerkovskiy.Wednesday2024 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY DEBATE 8 p.m. on The CW. This marks the fourth Republican primary debate of this election cycle — this time at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida; Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador; and Vivek Ramaswamy, a wealthy entrepreneur are expected to qualify. As has been his pattern this year, Donald J. Trump will skip the debate and instead attend a fund-raiser.ThursdayJess Girod and Blake Moynes on “Bachelor in Paradise.”ABC/Craig SjodinBACHELOR IN PARADISE 8 p.m. on ABC. It’s been a sweaty and tearful couple weeks on the beaches of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, and finally we will see who gets engaged and who leaves solo. So far only one couple on the beach is of official boyfriend-girlfriend status, and after a bunch of people left last week, including Rachel and Blake, every couple seems a little mismatch. So maybe no bling will be thrown around in this episode.CHRISTMAS AT THE OPRY 8 p.m. on NBC. This two-hour special hosted by Wynonna Judd is all things festive and all things country. Kelly Clarkson, Chrissy Metz and Lauren Alaina are just a few of the many singers set to perform.FridayFROZEN (2013) 8:20 p.m. on Freeform. It’s hard to believe that it was 10 years ago when my stepsister dragged me to what I thought was a children’s movie, and then I left the theater sobbing — and I haven’t gotten “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” out of my head since. Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell voice the sisters Elsa and Anna, who find themselves on an adventure with a snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad) and the ice harvester Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) after things go awry at the palace.Reunited for “Frozen 2.”DisneyFROZEN 2 (2019) 10:50 p.m. on Freeform. The sequel is set three years after Anna’s problematic fiancé tried to freeze her to death, and things are going pretty well — until Elsa feels unsettled, and the crew heads out to find an autumn-bound forest in an enchanted land. “The emphasis remains on the sisters,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The New York Times. “It’s never surprising, yet its bursts of pictorial imagination — snowflakes that streak like shooting stars — keep you engaged, as do Elsa and Anna, who still aren’t waiting for life to happen.”SaturdayMEAN GIRLS (2004) 3:30 p.m. on VH1. If you want to prep for the new musical movie (whose trailer pretends it is not a musical) coming out in January, this is your moment. The original follows Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), who moves from Africa to the suburbs of Illinois and falls in with the popular girls known as the Plastics: Regina George (Rachel McAdams), Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried) and Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert). So many zeitgeist-y quotes have come from this movie, it’s never a bad idea to brush up. (My favorite: “I saw Cady Heron wearing army pants and flip flops, so I wore army pants and flip-flops.”)SundayA GRAMMY SALUTE TO 50 YEARS OF HIP HOP 8:30 p.m. on CBS. Taking place live on Wednesday in Inglewood, Calif., some of the biggest names in hip-hop are gathering to continue their ode to 50 years of the genre, including Queen Latifah, Rick Ross, LL Cool J, Common and so many more. More