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      ‘Gasoline Rainbow’ Review: We’re on a Ride to Nowhere

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      This semi-fictional tale of a road trip for weirdos is full of joy.The thesis of “Gasoline Rainbow,” the latest cinematic fantasia from the brothers Bill and Turner Ross, is articulated in its first moments, in voice-over set atop a sunset. “Sometimes when I look at night, I see that light over the hills, and I just wonder what it’s like … to be there,” a youthful voice says wistfully. The speaker wants to know if they’re alone in being who they are — a “weirdo,” as they put it. “I want to be out,” they continue. “I want to be myself, I want to be accepted. I want to be loved for who I am.”Technically we’ve not yet met this person, but that doesn’t matter: We know them. The misfit outsider is a familiar character in movies and literature, and often possesses some wisdom that people trapped in the more conventional daily grind can’t see. There’s a tiny bit of the prophet in every outsider — and, of course, all prophets are outsiders.“Gasoline Rainbow” is a technically fictional tale of five such misfits who get in a car and go on a journey toward the Pacific Coast. I say “technically,” because like much of the Rosses’ work, there’s not much separation between reality and make-believe. Their previous film, for instance, the 2020 sorta-documentary “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” sets up a scenario — the final night at a Vegas dive bar, on the eve of the 2016 presidential election — and populates it with real drinkers, who have a real rager on camera. But the bar itself wasn’t technically closing, it wasn’t in Vegas and these people weren’t regulars there. What, you might ask yourself, are you watching?You are watching people figure out how to live at the end of the world, how to relate to one another and find joy in the middle of loss and uncertainty. Whether or not the scenario is staged, the human heart of it is absolutely real. “Gasoline Rainbow” is a little like “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets,” in that the five teenagers at its center, playing versions of themselves, are looking for a “party at the end of the world” that they’ve heard about. But mostly they are there to be with one another, and it’s obvious their real personalities are part of the story.The five travelers — Tony Aburto, Micah Bunch, Nichole Dukes, Nathaly Garcia, Makai Garza — are all friends in Wiley, Ore. (a town which, incidentally, doesn’t exist). They’re seeking “one last fun adventure we can all do together” before they have to return home and get real jobs. These are kids who didn’t like school and didn’t like home life. In another movie, they’d be delinquents running from the law.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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      Disney, Hulu and Max Streaming Bundle Will Soon Become Available

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      The offering from Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery shows how rival companies are willing to work together to navigate an uncertain entertainment landscape.In a rare moment of solidarity, two entertainment giants are teaming up to try to get consumers to stop canceling their streaming services so frequently.Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery announced on Wednesday that they would start offering a bundle of their Disney+, Hulu and Max streaming services this summer, a sign of how rivals have become more willing to join forces in order to confront an ever-changing media landscape.The companies said that the bundle would be available to buy on any of the three streaming platform’s websites (Disney owns Disney+ and Hulu; Warner Bros. Discovery owns Max), and that there would be a commercial-free version as well as one featuring ads. The companies did not announce prices or a date when the offering would become available.The monthly retail price for subscribing to commercial-free versions of all three services is currently $48; the plans with ads cost a combined $25. A bundled offering is likely to cost less.Media executives have been vexed in recent years as the extremely profitable cable bundle has come undone by cord cutting, and as viewers have rapidly turned to on-demand streaming entertainment. The transition to streaming has been difficult for the companies, which have been bleeding cash.Disney, for instance, announced this week that Disney+ was profitable last quarter for the first time, though its overall streaming division lost money.Adding to the uncertainty, consumers have shown a much greater willingness to cull and cut streaming services over the last year or so, further confounding executives who have slashed costs and reduced the number of television shows to get closer to making meaningful profits.Disney has introduced a bundle for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. The company has said it has seen good results from that offering.Executives have been flirting with the idea of cobbling together a streaming offering across media companies to give consumers less incentive to cancel. The Disney+, Hulu and Max offering is a significant step in that direction.Joe Earley, the president of Disney Entertainment’s direct-to-consumer division, said in a statement that the “new partnership puts subscribers first.” JB Perrette, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery’s global streaming unit, called it “a powerful new road map for the future of the industry.”In February, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox said they were forming a joint venture to create a streaming service dedicated to their sports offerings. It is expected to debut in the fall. More

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      Why Britain Keeps Giving Classic Movies New Ratings

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      As the attitudes of moviegoers evolve, so do the guidelines of the ratings board, which has reclassified dozens of films including “Mary Poppins” and “Rocky.”The British Board of Film Classification has been busy.Last year, the group rerated more than 30 older films to meet contemporary standards. In February, it gave a stricter rating to “Mary Poppins” because of racial slurs. And last week, it began using an updated set of guidelines after surveying thousands of British moviegoers to gauge shifting public attitudes.Based on that survey, the new guidelines acknowledge that audiences have grown more lenient about depictions of cannabis use but are more concerned about intense violence and, for younger viewers, bad language.“We follow what people tell us, and we update our standards as societal attitudes change,” said David Austin, the board’s chief executive.When distributors rerelease movies in theaters, on streaming services or on DVD, they may be required to resubmit the films to the ratings board. Many voluntarily choose to do so, Austin said, in hopes of receiving a lower rating or to ensure that the rating matches the content. What was once considered acceptable onscreen may no longer be.Under the newest guidelines, the board said, both the 2018 Transformers movie, “Bumblebee,” and the 1963 James Bond classic, “From Russia With Love,” would be rated 12A instead of PG if they were resubmitted for updated ratings.(The ratings for theatrical releases are U, for universal; PG, for parental guidance; 12A, 15 and 18, for certain age restrictions; and R18, for pornographic content.)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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      ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ Review: Hail, Caesar

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      The latest installment in an excellent series finds mythology turning into power.For a series with a goofy premise — what if talking apes overthrew humanity — the “Planet of the Apes” universe is uncommonly thoughtful, even insightful. If science fiction situates us in a universe that’s just different enough to slip daring questions past our mental barriers, then the “Apes” movies are among the best examples. That very premise, launched with talking actors in ape costumes in the 1968 film, has given storytellers a lot to chew on, contemplating racism, authoritarianism, police brutality and, in later installments, the upending of human society by a brutal, fast-moving virus. (Oops.)Those later virus-ridden installments, a trilogy released between 2011 and 2017, are among the series’ best, and well worth revisiting. The newest film, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” picks up exactly where that trilogy left off: with the death of Caesar, the ultrasmart chimpanzee who has led the apes away from what’s left of humanity and into a paradise. (The scene was a direct quotation of the story of Moses leading the Israelites to the Promised Land, but dying before he could set foot there.) The apes honor his memory and vow to keep his teachings, especially the first dictum — “ape not kill ape.” Caesar preached a gospel of peacefulness, loyalty, generosity, nonaggression and care for the earth; unlike the humans, they intend to live in harmony.The teachings of peaceful prophets, however, tend to be twisted by power-seekers, and apparently this isn’t just a human problem. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” directed by Wes Ball from a screenplay by Josh Friedman, leaps forward almost immediately by “many generations” (years matter less in this post-human world), and the inevitable has happened. The apes have fractured into tribes, while Caesar has passed from historical figure to mythic one, a figure venerated by some and forgotten by most.That there even was a Caesar is unknown to Noa (Owen Teague), a young chimpanzee whose father, Koro (Neil Sandilands) is leader of his clan and an avid breeder of birds. That clan has its own laws, mostly having to do with how to treat birds’ nests, and that’s all that Noa and his friends Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and Soona (Lydia Peckham) have known.But then one day tragedy strikes, in the form of an attack on the clan by the soldiers of Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), the leader of a clan of coastal apes. Noa finds himself alone, searching for his clan, who have been carted away. On his journey Noa meets a human (Freya Allen) who, like the other humans, doesn’t speak.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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      Dan Stevens and the Allure of Kooky Characters

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      Despite his “Downton Abbey” roots, the co-star of “Godzilla x Kong” and “Abigail” likes the kind of role “that makes the filmmaker smile.”The kookiest characters onscreen this season may be the ones played by Dan Stevens.This batch of charismatic weirdos joins the collection of peculiar roles he has amassed since the 2014 thriller “The Guest,” his post-“Downton Abbey” breakthrough. Stevens, 41, lands somewhere between leading man and character actor, and he revels in the mischievous tone required for these offbeat parts, some of which he describes as “funcomfortable.”Right now in theaters he can be seen as a winning monster veterinarian in “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” and as a corrupt cop turned bloodsucker in the horror comedy “Abigail.” This summer, he will appear in “Cuckoo,” a sci-fi horror mash-up set in the Alps, in which he plays a German scientist whose welcoming facade hides a fascination with a bizarre endangered species.Stevens with Rebecca Hall and Kaylee Hottle in “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.”Legendary EntertainmentStevens, who is British, recently spoke with The New York Times over coffee in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. He wore a long-sleeved T-shirt bearing the defining image of “The Holy Mountain,” Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 cult classic: a man seated and wearing a pointed hat, framed by two women. During the interview, Stevens talked about his interest in genre movies and why his goal is always to make a director laugh. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.I have to ask about your “Holy Mountain” shirt. That’s a great, trippy midnight movie.I’m a huge fan of Jodorowsky. He’s a true visionary dreamer. I absolutely love filmmakers who present you with unforgettable imagery. He’s a common touchstone with a lot of great filmmakers I admire. 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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      ‘Time of the Heathen’: Postwar Life and Death, an American Tale

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      Newly excavated and restored, Peter Kass’s 1961 movie, full of trippy distortions and grim associations, gets its first New York run at Film at Lincoln Center.Peter Kass’s “Time of the Heathen” is as much artifact as artwork. Symptomatizing both Cold War angst and the birth pangs of the New American Cinema, the movie premiered in late 1961 at the influential film society Cinema 16, where it received mixed reviews and dropped from sight.Newly excavated and restored, Kass’s “psychological drama of guilt and violence” (as it was blurbed at the time) gets its first New York run at Film at Lincoln Center, through May 16.An opening title sets the action four years after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. A gangly, odd-looking white man identified in the credits as Gaunt (John Heffernan) strides through a generic rural America, Bible in pocket — looking for what?After being questioned by the police, he stumbles across a farmhouse, where we have just witnessed a white man named Ted (Stewart Heller) sexually assault and kill a Black woman, Marie (Ethel Ayler, later to play Clair Huxtable’s mother on “The Cosby Show”), who was a housekeeper for Ted’s father. A xenophobic ornery cuss, Pa (Orville Steward) returns and attempts to frame Gaunt, the haunted loner, who, his life in danger, flees with Marie’s similarly threatened young son, Jesse (Barry Collins), who is deaf and mute.The mood is apocalyptic. (Kass’s title comes from a doomsday passage in the Book of Ezekiel.) Lejaren Hiller’s fanfare-rich score is alternately intrusive and supportive, but Ed Emshwiller’s sharp, inventive cinematography suggests the elemental, visual dramas of a 1920s silent film.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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      ‘Challengers’ and That Ending: Our Critics Have Thoughts

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      The tennis movie comes to an abrupt stop midmatch, so we don’t know who won. Does that matter?The relationships in “Challengers” are complicated. Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist) were close pals on the juniors tennis circuit when they met Tashi (Zendaya), a phenom. As the years pass and they become entangled in on-court rivalry and off-court sexual tensions, the film builds to a vicious challenger-circuit match between Art, now a top-ranked pro with a confidence problem, and Patrick, sleeping in his car between tournaments. In the stands is Art’s wife and Patrick’s ex, Tashi, who turned to coaching after an injury cut short her career. The film ends abruptly, the outcome of the match unclear — and that has been the subject of much discussion online. So we asked our critic at large Wesley Morris and our movie critic Alissa Wilkinson to weigh in. Caution: Spoilers ahead.WESLEY MORRIS Alissa, we’re here to discuss the final moments of “Challengers,” and in order to do that, I’m committing a big personal no-no and talking about a movie that people have had only two weeks to see. Sometimes it takes me — a culture professional — a while to catch up, so I’d imagine other folks might appreciate some distance between opening weekend and the instant media chatterboxes start breaking down the dismount. I also understand that’s a very 1988 flavor of film discourse and that a judge would overrule me.So: People are confused about this ending? Or intrigued? Either way, I ask: Which part? The storm of final shots (final camera shots) that boot us out of the theater midmatch? Or the final encounter between Tashi and Patrick, which I refuse to ruin? Or her final glimpse, on match eve, of a sleeping Art?If we’re talking about that shot storm, which goes down in a third-set tiebreaker between Patrick and Art, is it so intriguing that it warrants a conversation? There’s one image of Patrick crouching and another of Art aloft, mid-slam, that I’ll always remember. What follows? Eh. I don’t know who these characters are, who they’re supposed to be, or what they might want, even secretly. So I didn’t care what happens after this match.If anything concerned me, it was the fact that this finale takes place in the middle (or the end, I suppose) of the third point of the tiebreaker, which has at least four or five more points to go. Is caring who wins the match gauche? Is it safe to assume that, based on the number of warnings and penalties the exasperated chair umpire (Darnell Appling) Frisbees out, whatever’s happening in that final scene is the end of the match anyway, because one of these guys is getting ejected? Did I just wind up re-enacting what people are doing with this movie anyway and express genuine intrigue?Josh O’Connor as a down-on-his-luck pro in the film.MGMWe 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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      in Television

      Netflix Takes Comedy Live With Tom Brady Roast and Katt Williams Special

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      Sometimes that’s a good thing, as with John Mulaney’s variety show “Everybody’s in L.A.” But the Katt Williams special and Tom Brady roast were more uneven.On Friday night, in the premiere of his appealingly chaotic livestreaming variety show “Everybody’s in L.A.,” which runs every night this week, John Mulaney delivered a monologue about his adopted city next to a map that broke it down into a crooked jigsaw puzzle of neighborhoods.In his distinctive staccato cadence that could sell steak knives or a card trick as convincingly as the premise of a joke, he said, “One thing that unites every part of Los Angeles is that no matter where you go, there is zero sense of community.”For comedy fans, this past week felt different, because everywhere you went in Los Angeles, Netflix was there, blanketing the city in ads and shows for its Netflix Is a Joke Fest, running through May 12. It’s the biggest comedy showcase of the year (with more than 500 offerings, a 40 percent increase from the festival’s already mammoth debut event in 2022) but also something of a corporate flex. Who else could get Hannah Gadsby and Shane Gillis in the same festival or draw the talk-show titans Jon Stewart and David Letterman to host events? Or recruit Chris Rock to play the Billy Crystal role in a reading of the screenplay for “When Harry Met Sally,” with, as Rock introduced it, “an all-Black cast, like it was originally intended.” (Tracee Ellis Ross doing Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm, but louder, received standing ovations from the audience and onstage participants, too.)The most newsworthy shift this year was the aggressive move into livestreaming events, following the blockbuster success of Chris Rock’s 2023 special, “Selective Outrage,” about being slapped at the Oscars. (One of that ceremony’s hosts, Wanda Sykes, returned to the place it happened, the Dolby Theater, for a festival show and began by saying this time no one would get assaulted).For the live events, Netflix picked stars with current buzz. Along with the Mulaney variety show, Katt Williams followed up his viral “Club Shay Shay” interview with a new hour, “Woke Foke,” on Saturday, and Kevin Hart, whom Williams singled out in his interview for criticism, tried to bring back the dormant genre of celebrity roast on Sunday with “The Greatest Roast of All Time,” starring Tom Brady, widely considered the GOAT of quarterbacks. (After livestreaming, the shows can be watched on Netflix, sometimes in edited form.)As the last half-century of “Saturday Night Live” has proved, there is an undeniable excitement to live comedy, an irreplaceable energy that can create a sense of event. But there are significant dangers, not the least of which is that you can’t cut the boring or unfunny parts. Netflix built its comedy empire on elevating the standup special as an art form to rival film or TV. Highlighting live comedy represents a commercial move for Netflix, spotlighting events that promise unpredictability more than refinement, mess instead of polish.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