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      ‘The Actor’ Review: No Direction Home

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      André Holland plays an actor with amnesia in this wonderfully surreal and poignant mystery.As a teenager, I had a recurring dream of visiting my grandmother, only to find her gone, and everything — her street, her rowhouse — looking just a little bit off. Confused, I would sit down on her front step and think, “This is just a dream. I’ll sit here until I wake up.”That sense of being trapped in a dimension partway between the real and the unreal, the familiar and the strange, is the disorienting force of Duke Johnson’s “The Actor.” Adapting the Donald E. Westlake novel, “Memory” — written in the 1960s and published posthumously in 2010 — Johnson and Stephen Cooney have shaped an unsettling, sorrowful journey from damage to a kind of deliverance. However, the man taking that journey, a theater actor named Paul Cole (André Holland), might disagree.A “Twilight Zone”-style voice-over sets a spooky tone and underscores the movie’s committed theatricality. After being caught in flagrante by a furious husband, Paul lands in the hospital with a head injury and without the ability to remember. Stranded in small-town Ohio in the 1950s, knowing only that he has an apartment in New York City, Paul finds a job in a local tannery, a room in a boardinghouse and begins to save for a bus ticket home. Before he can do that, he meets the lovely Edna (a wonderful Gemma Chan) and begins to fall in love — if that’s even possible when your meetings can vanish like missing frames on a roll of film.The notion of life being edited without your knowledge or consent lends “The Actor” a sadness and surreality that the cinematographer, Joe Passarelli, takes to heart. His smudged, smoky images cast a veil of nostalgia over Paul’s plight as he returns to Manhattan and learns from friends that he may not have been a very nice person. Yet, if you can’t remember, does it matter? Do you cobble together a self from others’ memories of you, or do you ditch the past and start over?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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      With ‘Él,’ Buñuel Turns His Gaze to Male Pathology

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      Luis Buñuel’s Mexican melodrama about a jealous husband who makes his young wife’s life a living hell opens at Film Forum.A blasphemous black comedy, part noir, part case history, Luis Buñuel’s 1953 Mexican melodrama “Él” amply justifies its inadvertently self-reflexive American release title, “This Strange Passion.”One of the rediscoveries of last year’s Buñuel retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, “Él” opens for a week at Film Forum in a fine new 4K restoration.The initial sequence, filmed in the nave of a 16th-century Mexico City cathedral, is a well-attended Holy Thursday Mass. As the camera lavishes attention on ritual foot-washing, so does the suavely aristocratic Francisco Galván (Arturo de Córdova). Then his gaze strays from the row of bare feet waiting to be washed and kissed by attending priests to a well-shod foot belonging to a well-bred señorita, Gloria (Delia Garcés) — and thus, a mad love is born.Francisco, a wealthy, middle-aged virgin, obsessed with regaining ownership of once-upon-a-time family property, turns the force of his pathology on Gloria. He successfully woos her away from her fiancé and, starting on their wedding night, makes her life a living hell. Oscillating between insane jealousy and abject apologies (but ever aroused by the sight of her feet), he becomes increasingly abusive, mentally and physically. At one point, anticipating the climax of Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” he finagles her to the top of a mission bell tower and, suddenly enraged, tries to throw her off.Throughout, the madman is protected by his wealth, defended by the Catholic Church and even by Gloria’s mother. “Él” has been taken as a parody of machismo, but it is more pointedly an attack on social class, male privilege and the notion of bourgeois respectability. Behind the stone facade of Francisco’s colonial mansion lies a clutter of chandeliers, tchotchkes and Jugendstil-patterned portals. Adapted from a quasi-autobiographical novel by the Spanish writer Mercedes Pinto, “Él” was further informed by the antics of Buñuel’s brother-in-law and, he’s suggested, his own dreams.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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      5 Years After Covid Closed the Theaters, Audiences Are Returning

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      Broadway is almost back, and pop music tours and sports events are booming. But Hollywood, museums and other cultural sectors have yet to bounce back.It was five years ago today — March 12, 2020 — that the widening coronavirus pandemic forced Broadway to go dark, museums to shut their doors, concert halls and opera houses to go silent and stadiums and arenas to remain empty.At the time, they hoped to reopen in a month. It took many a year and a half.Since live performances resumed, the recovery has been uneven, but there are signs that audiences are finally coming back. Here’s a snapshot of where things stand:Broadway is 95 percent back.It’s been a slow road back for Broadway, but the industry is finally nearing its prepandemic levels. Attendance so far this season is at about 95 percent of what it was at the same point in the 2018-2019 season, its last full season before the pandemic, when it was setting records.“Oh, Mary!” has been a surprise hit this season, reminding the industry that shows can work without known I.P. or famous stars. “Wicked” is defying gravity thanks to the renewed interest brought by the film adaptation. For the first time since 2018, all 41 Broadway theaters have had shows in them this season. And there are more shows than usual regularly grossing more than $1 million a week.The crowds have returned to Broadway, and to the Times Square area. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut — and this is a big but — profitability is down. That’s because the costs of producing on Broadway keep rising, so even reasonably strong ticket sales are not enough.Beyond Times Square, the picture is decidedly mixed. Touring Broadway shows have been selling quite strongly. But nonprofit theaters, both Off Broadway and in cities across the country, are struggling. Having burned through the government assistance that came at the height of the pandemic, many regional theaters are now reporting budget deficits and are programming fewer shows and attracting smaller audiences than they did previously.— More

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      Stanley R. Jaffe, 84, Oscar-Winning Producer and Hollywood Power, Dies

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      His “Kramer vs. Kramer” won for best picture in 1980, one of many high points in a career that saw him in top jobs, twice, at Paramount.Stanley R. Jaffe, a former Hollywood wunderkind who became president of Paramount at 29, then left after just a few years to become an Oscar-winning producer of films like “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Fatal Attraction” and “The Accused,” died on Monday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 84.His daughter Betsy Jaffe confirmed the death.Mr. Jaffe was known as a hands-on producer, and his work on “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), a searing divorce drama, showed why.The movie was based on a 1977 novel of the same name by Avery Corman, and he bought the rights immediately after it was published. He persuaded a reluctant Dustin Hoffman to play the father, Ted, and cast the relatively unknown Meryl Streep to play his wife, Joanna.The film was a commercial and critical success. Along with the Oscar for best picture, it won for best actor (Mr. Hoffman); best supporting actress (Ms. Streep); and best director and best adapted screenplay (both for Robert Benton).Mr. Jaffe backstage with his best picture Oscar, for “Kramer vs. Kramer,” at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1980.ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesIn addition to winning the best picture award, “Kramer vs. Kramer” also won for best actor (Dustin Hoffman) and best supporting actress (Meryl Streep).Stanley Jaffe Productions/Columbia PicturesMr. Jaffe was not quite 40 when he won the Academy Award, but he was already a veteran heavyweight in Hollywood.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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      Some Vegans Were Harmed in the Watching of This Movie

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      A film critic who provides “vegan alerts” for animal cruelty goes beyond onscreen violence. Milk and eggs are problematic, too.Inside a dark theater in Midtown Manhattan, Allison McCulloch watched “Kraven the Hunter,” an origin story for the obscure Spider-Man villain, while jotting notes on a white piece of paper smaller than a Post-it.Fur clothing.Taxidermied animals.Characters eating steak.McCulloch is the Roger Ebert of vegans, a dedicated cinephile who cares as much as anyone about acting and cinematography — and more than almost anyone about onscreen portrayals of dairy, poultry and beef.In the short reviews she writes for the app Letterboxd, she includes her overall critique as well as “vegan alerts,” flagging signs of animal products in a one-woman quest to highlight animal welfare onscreen, even in details most viewers would overlook.“People might think a glass of milk is innocuous,” she said. “It’s not. It’s full of violence.”Some of McCulloch’s vegan alerts for “Kraven the Hunter,” with Aaron Taylor-Johnson: “Sergei catches and eats raw fish” and “tiger rug.”Columbia Pictures/Marvel, via Sony PicturesMcCulloch has documented her opinion on 24,082 movies on her Letterboxd account, putting her in the top 100 out of the app’s more than 18 million members. Movies starring animals are almost a lock for vegan-friendly ratings, with films like “Flow” and “Kung Fu Panda 4” getting four stars.“Kraven the Hunter,” about a criminal-tracking vigilante played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, flopped by traditional measures (“incomprehensible plotting and dodgy one-liners,” Robert Daniels wrote in The New York Times). But it worked on some level for McCulloch, who was surprised by how it framed Kraven as a kind of conservationist who shares a supernatural connection with the creatures he encounters, and hunts criminals instead. She even gave the movie one “vegan point” for Kraven’s decision to not shoot a lion.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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      ‘Mickey 17’ and the Long Line of Movie Clones

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      Mickey is the latest addition to the world of expendable doppelgängers created to perform all sorts of dangerous and unpleasant tasks humans would rather not do.In “Mickey 17” (in theaters) Robert Pattinson plays a former pastry chef and an amiable dimwit who applies for a lousy, inevitably lethal job on a contaminated ice planet. As an Expendable, Mickey goes into the worst sorts of situations, dies in some horrible way — you know, for the mission — then gets cloned over and over again to take on the next awful task. At various points he’s irradiated, instructed to breathe in a deadly space virus, left for dead in a cave full of space bugs, used as a guinea pig in a series of failed experiments, and fed bad meat.In many Hollywood movies about clones, the doppelgängers are just as expendable as Mickey, created to perform all sorts of dangerous and unpleasant tasks humans would rather not do. They work on lunar mines (“Moon”) and in theme parks (the cloned assassins in “Futureworld”); they labor as super soldiers (the clone troopers of the Star Wars franchise) and organ donors (“Parts: The Clonus Horror”).Most don’t know they’re expendable, of course, and aren’t all that keen about their situations if they do. “Mickey 17” is an outlier here: an expendable who becomes one willingly, actually writing “expendable” on his job application. Eventually, however, Mickey tires of the drudgery of dying painfully day after miserable day. Who wouldn’t?Movies about these genetic sad sacks run the gamut of genres, from horror and sci-fi to action films and dramedies. Filmmakers use clones to ponder questions about fate and free will and what it means to be human; various films have examined such disparate topics as the nature of sentience (“Blade Runner”); U.S. race relations (“They Cloned Tyrone”); and the very ethics of cloning itself (“Never Let Me Go”). Here are five notables from an admittedly fringe genre.The Island (2005)Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson in “The Island.”Doug Hyun/DreamworksWhere to watch: Stream “The Island” on Pluto TV.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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      Like ‘Mickey 17?’ Watch These Movies About Clones Next.

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      Mickey is the latest addition to the world of expendable doppelgängers created to perform all sorts of dangerous and unpleasant tasks humans would rather not do.In “Mickey 17” (in theaters) Robert Pattinson plays a former pastry chef and an amiable dimwit who applies for a lousy, inevitably lethal job on a contaminated ice planet. As an Expendable, Mickey goes into the worst sorts of situations, dies in some horrible way — you know, for the mission — then gets cloned over and over again to take on the next awful task. At various points he’s irradiated, instructed to breathe in a deadly space virus, left for dead in a cave full of space bugs, used as a guinea pig in a series of failed experiments, and fed bad meat.In many Hollywood movies about clones, the doppelgängers are just as expendable as Mickey, created to perform all sorts of dangerous and unpleasant tasks humans would rather not do. They work on lunar mines (“Moon”) and in theme parks (the cloned assassins in “Futureworld”); they labor as super soldiers (the clone troopers of the Star Wars franchise) and organ donors (“Parts: The Clonus Horror”).Most don’t know they’re expendable, of course, and aren’t all that keen about their situations if they do. “Mickey 17” is an outlier here: an expendable who becomes one willingly, actually writing “expendable” on his job application. Eventually, however, Mickey tires of the drudgery of dying painfully day after miserable day. Who wouldn’t?Movies about these genetic sad sacks run the gamut of genres, from horror and sci-fi to action films and dramedies. Filmmakers use clones to ponder questions about fate and free will and what it means to be human; various films have examined such disparate topics as the nature of sentience (“Blade Runner”); U.S. race relations (“They Cloned Tyrone”); and the very ethics of cloning itself (“Never Let Me Go”). Here are five notables from an admittedly fringe genre.The Island (2005)Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson in “The Island.”Doug Hyun/DreamworksWhere to watch: Stream “The Island” on Pluto TV.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