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      ‘Winter Kills’ Returns in New Print at Film Forum

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      Part black comedy, part paranoid thriller, the 1979 movie returns after four decades in a new 35 mm print at Film Forum.A madcap riff on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, “Winter Kills,” adapted by the director William Richert from Richard Condon’s 1974 best seller, is part black comedy, part paranoid thriller and — an evocation of cosmic conspiracy that boasts its own conspiratorial back story — part carnival hall of mirrors.The movie, first released in 1979, and then again in 1983 (with its ending supposedly altered), returns after four decades in a new 35 mm print.The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known as the Warren Commission and established in 1963, was still hotly contested when Condon wrote his novel, a precursor to literary treatments of Kennedy’s death like Don DeLillo’s “Libra” and James Ellroy’s “American Tabloid.” The movie is redolent of Watergate-era films like “The Parallax View” from 1974, but in the age of QAnon it scarcely seems dated. One of the novel’s favorable reviews quotes Condon to the effect that, in contemporary America truths are less important than “the illusion of truths.”Jeff Bridges plays Nick, the younger half brother of a charismatic president murdered by a lone assassin in downtown Philadelphia. Given evidence, years later, of a second gunman, Nick is dragged down a rabbit hole, at once aided and thwarted by his all-powerful father (John Huston, essentially reprising his role in “Chinatown”).A greater mystery than the plot may be the cast assembled by Richert, directing his first nondocumentary, and his shady producers, whose major credit was the soft-core movie “Black Emanuelle.” The always sympathetic Bridges and the ineffably sleazy Huston are supported by the veteran heavies Richard Boone, Sterling Hayden and Ralph Meeker; the international stars Tomas Milian and Toshiro Mifune; and the reliable wackos Anthony Perkins and Eli Wallach, plus the ’50s melodrama queen Dorothy Malone, with the supermodel Belinda Bauer as the requisite woman of mystery. Elizabeth Taylor (uncredited and silent save for a single angry word) was canny enough to take payment upfront. The rest of the cast seems to have been strung along for the duration of the start-stop shoot.As chronicled by Condon in a 1983 Harper’s article no less sensational than the movie, as well as a documentary found on the Blu-ray release, “Winter Kills” was six years in production, during which it was repeatedly shut down for lack of cash. (Drug money was involved. One producer was later murdered, his partner wound up in jail.) While these travails may not be evident onscreen, knowledge of the saga adds to the movie’s sense of imperial hubris — the “Game of Thrones”-style credits announcing the stellar cast, the spectacularly superfluous locations shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (between “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The Deer Hunter”!?).“Winter Kills” is not always easy to follow — Condon’s convoluted plot has been simplified and the film is consequently riddled with narrative lacunae — but from beginning to end, the gist is always clear. The movie “doesn’t make a bit of sense, but it’s fast and handsome and entertaining,” Janet Maslin wrote in her 1979 review in The Times. Preposterous as it is, its vision of total surveillance, constant subterfuge and plutocracy run amok has a measure of social realism.If paranoid thinking is the antidote to chaos, “Winter Kills” demonstrates its appeal. The movie is an article of faith. That it exists at all is something of a miracle.Winter KillsAug. 11-24 at Film Forum, Manhattan; filmforum.org. More

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      Confusion in Hollywood as Some Productions Are Allowed to Continue

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      The striking actors’ union is granting waivers to some projects not affiliated with the major studios, but questions persist about who qualifies and why.When you’re making an independent film every second counts. Ash Avildsen had six days of filming left on his low-budget biopic “Queen of the Ring” — including a climactic scene involving a majority of his cast — when the actors’ union went on strike on July 14.The production, in Louisville, Ky., shut down immediately. If Mr. Avildsen could not receive an interim waiver from SAG-AFTRA, as the union is known, to continue filming, the project was likely to fall apart. The logistical and financial challenges of sending the cast and crew home and then trying to assemble them again after a strike would be too much for the shoestring production.“It was maniacally stressful,” said Mr. Avildsen, who wrote and directed the film, about Mildred Burke, who became a dominating figure in women’s wrestling in the 1930s. “We could maybe have lasted another day waiting, but after two or three days it would have been a house of cards falling down.”“Queen of the Ring” was granted the waiver, one of more than 160 the union has handed out in the past three weeks. To get one, projects must have no affiliation with the studios the actors are striking against and the companies involved must comply with the most recent contract demands the union presented to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios.Recipients of the waivers have ranged from under-the-radar projects like Mr. Avildsen’s to higher-profile films like A24’s “Mother Mary,” starring Anne Hathaway, and Hammerstone’s “Flight Risk,” directed by Mel Gibson and featuring Mark Wahlberg.For the union, granting the waivers serves three purposes: It allows companies not affiliated with the studio alliance to keep working; actors and other crew members to remain employed when so much of Hollywood has ground to a halt; and major studios to see examples of productions operating while acceding to the union’s latest demands, including higher pay for the actors and increased contributions to the union’s health and pension fund.“Here are independent producers, who generally have less resources than the studios and streamers, who are saying, ‘Yeah, we can make productions under these terms, and we want to and we’re going to if you let us,’” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s lead negotiator, said in an interview.But the agreements are also causing confusion and consternation around Hollywood. Some wonder about the propriety of working on a production when so many in the industry — the writers have been on strike since May — are walking the picket lines. For instance, Viola Davis was granted an interim waiver for an upcoming film she was set to star in and produce. But she declined, saying in a statement, “I do not feel that it would be appropriate for this production to move forward during the strike.”Viola Davis turned down a waiver, saying she didn’t feel it was appropriate to work on a production during the strike.Christophe Simon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe actress and comedian Sarah Silverman criticized the interim agreements in an Instagram post. She said that she had declined to work on an independent movie because of the strike, and suggested that she found the waivers counterproductive to the union’s goals.Ms. Silverman said she wasn’t sure if she should be “mad at these movie stars making these indie movies that are obviously going to go to streaming” or upset with “SAG for making this interim deal for these indie movies” during the strike.After meeting with the union’s leadership, the actress said in a follow-up post that she was happy the waivers allowed some crews to continue working, but that she still questioned the validity of granting waivers to projects with big movie stars and loose affiliations with companies that are part of the studio alliance. The alliance declined to comment for this article.One project that drew grumbles in some quarters when it received a waiver was the AppleTV+ show “Tehran.” The show, filming its third season, employs union actors, but an Israeli company oversees the production, which is shooting in Greece. That situation has created a gray zone, Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said, even though Apple, a member of the alliance, is financing the operation.Mr. Crabtree-Ireland called the approval of “Tehran” “outside the norm.”“We have to be mindful that not every country’s law lines up with labor law from the United States,” he said.An Israeli company oversees production of the AppleTV+ show “Tehran,” which is shooting on location in Greece. That situation has created a gray zone, opening the door for a waiver. Apple TV+That has not helped clear up the matter for many in Hollywood. Even when the waivers are granted, there are some — like Ms. Davis — who wonder if accepting them is akin to crossing the picket line.“What’s confusing to us is what should we be doing?” asked Paul Scanlan, chief executive of Legion M, an independent production company that crowdsources funding for many of its projects, some of which await word on interim agreements. “The messaging isn’t clear. There are some people saying, ‘Oh, these interim agreements are bad,’ but then SAG is saying: ‘No, they’re good. They’re part of our strategy.’He added: “We’re sensitive to how we’re perceived in the marketplace, and we don’t want to be one of those companies that is perceived as doing an end run around the strike because that’s absolutely not our intention.”Honoring the interim agreement does raise an independent production’s costs. According to one independent financier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the strikes have the industry on edge, production budgets can increase by 8 to 10 percent, significant for independent films that already count every penny.There is also the question of timing. Interim agreements can, as in the case of Mr. Avildsen, help a film finish production. But they can also be granted to completed projects to allow actors to promote their films, including at festivals, where they might end up securing a distribution deal with a company that the union is striking against and that has not yet agreed to a new contract. And that could get complicated.“Let’s say we sign an interim agreement,” Mr. Scanlan said. “I do think it makes it harder for Netflix to buy something that has already agreed to terms that maybe they haven’t agreed to yet.”For Mr. Avildsen, he’s still basking in the relief that his movie was able to complete production. The idea that overcoming that hurdle may ultimately imperil “Queen of the Ring” from finding distribution is a scenario he’s not yet ready to grapple with.“It’s a scary thing to think about,” he said. “If by this time next year, when we are ready to release it, if they’re still in their joust, that would be a big drag.” More

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      Nine Provocative William Friedkin Movies to Stream

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      The director specialized in grimy thrillers and social dramas that occasionally courted controversy.An iconoclast even among his New Hollywood peers coming up in the 1970s, the director William Friedkin built a reputation for grimy, high-impact thrillers and social dramas that sought to get a rise out of audiences and frequently drew the controversy they courted.Friedkin, who died Monday at 87, found early success in Hollywood with the one-two punch of “The French Connection” in 1971 and “The Exorcist” in 1973, but his fortunes shifted in the years that followed, which led to a career of unpredictable and often attention-grabbing swerves. One of his best ’80s films, the sleek thriller “To Live and Die in L.A.,” is currently unavailable to stream, but adventurous home viewers will find plenty of scorching work to command their attention.Here are nine films that illustrate Friedkin’s combination of stylistic bravado and willingness to engage on the battlegrounds of race, religion, sexuality and systemic corruption.1970‘The Boys in the Band’Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu.Though Friedkin’s relationship with the queer community would turn fraught a decade later with “Cruising,” this adaptation of Mart Crowley’s 1968 Off Broadway play was, at the time, the rare American film to focus entirely (and sympathetically) on the lives of gay men. Friedkin was so impressed by the stage production that all the original cast members were brought into the movie, which takes place mostly in the Upper East Side apartment where a fitfully employed writer (Kenneth Nelson) is holding a birthday party and has invited a motley group of friends. The boozy affair that follows zings with filthy one-liners, but tensions rise as the night carries on and the inner lives of these alienated, often closeted men start to surface.1971‘The French Connection’Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu.Friedkin won his only Oscar, for best director, for this ferociously entertaining policier, which remains one of the great New York movies, a seedy snapshot of the city as it once existed — at least through the jaundiced perspective of a detective who has his share of blind spots. With a style that’s simultaneously propulsive and documentarylike in its evocation of place, Friedkin details a heroin smuggling operation that’s making its way to New York from Marseilles via ocean liner. Standing in the way is Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman), a bigot and an alcoholic who’s willing to go to astonishing lengths to solve the case, including a car chase under an elevated train that Friedkin turned into a classic of its kind.1973‘The Exorcist’Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play and Vudu.Any conversation about the scariest movies ever made usually starts with a mention of Friedkin’s demon possession thriller, but the film’s effectiveness involves more than Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” and the terrifying contortions of a young girl’s body and spirit. “The Exorcist” gains an equal amount of power from the unyielding love a mother (Ellen Burstyn) has for her 12-year-old daughter (Linda Blair) as a demon wrests the girl away from her. Once the Roman Catholic Church gets involved, “The Exorcist” builds to harrowing and often frantic sessions between a priest (a superb Max von Sydow) and the ancient evil he’s desperate to whisk away.1977‘Sorcerer’Rent it on Amazon and Apple TV.After huge back-to-back hits with “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” Friedkin adapted the same French novel that Henri-Georges Clouzot had turned into “The Wages of Fear,” a suspense classic about desperate workers driving truckloads of nitroglycerin through a mountain pass. After a troubled and expensive production, “Sorcerer” was a box office failure — coming out the same summer as “Star Wars” didn’t help — but it’s now regarded as one of Friedkin’s best, playing to his strengths in location shooting and intense physical action. Roy Scheider leads an international cast as one of four outlaws who accept $10,000 and legal citizenship for the job of driving nitroglycerin on hazardous South American roads to an oil well 200 miles away.1980‘Cruising’Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Friedkin had a habit of courting controversy, but nothing on the level of “Cruising,” a crime thriller that gay rights activists protested vociferously during and after production for a portrait of West Village nightlife they felt stigmatized their community. With that caveat in mind, it’s still one for the time capsule, a sleazy yet compelling story about a serial killer who targets gay men in New York’s leather scene and a detective (Al Pacino) who goes deep undercover to solve the case. It’s an understatement to say that Friedkin does not approach the material with the sensitivity his doubters might have wished for, but the locations have an almost tactile griminess to them, and Pacino’s performance roils with inner torment.1994‘Blue Chips’Stream it on Amazon Prime and Paramount+. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Working from a script by Ron Shelton, who’d made the superb sports comedies “Bull Durham” and “White Men Can’t Jump,” Friedkin tackled the seedy underbelly of college athletics with typical verve, including dramatized basketball action that’s on par with the real thing. Channeling the chair-whipping tempestuousness of Bobby Knight — who appears as an opposing coach in a cameo — Nick Nolte stars as a legendary college coach who’s starting to miss out on “blue chip” recruits. After his first losing season, he risks his reputation and his conscience by deploying school boosters to offer benefits to top prospects, including a rim-rattling center played by future Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal.2003‘The Hunted’Stream it on Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.In what would turn out to be his last major studio production, Friedkin executed this drum-tight, underrated action thriller in the “Rambo” mode about a disillusioned warrior on a killing spree and the former mentor tasked with bringing him to justice. Benicio Del Toro stars as a highly trained Delta Force soldier so traumatized by the genocide of civilians in Kosovo that he takes to the American wilderness and starts gunning down hunters. Echoing his performance in “The Fugitive,” Tommy Lee Jones is the F.B.I. “deep-woods tracker” who tries to retrieve him, with the advantage (and disadvantage) of having taught him everything he knows.2007‘Bug’Stream it on Pluto TV. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.In the first of two straight collaborations with the playwright Tracy Letts, Friedkin doesn’t hide the stage roots of a drama that takes place mostly within a rundown Oklahoma motel room, but the feverishness of the camera and sound work, along with the two lead performances, have a strong cinematic intensity. “Bug” is also a vital early showcase for Michael Shannon, who projects enough charisma as a drifter to win over a waitress (Ashley Judd) with relationship problems, but soon reveals a frightening volatility. The supposed discovery of an aphid in the motel bed sends these two lonely people into a paranoid frenzy that Friedkin transforms into an alternate reality.2011‘Killer Joe’Stream it on Pluto TV. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.Deploying his relaxed, mellifluous Southern drawl to sinister purposes, Matthew McConaughey channels Robert Mitchum in Letts’s bracing redneck noir about a trailer-park murder scheme in West Texas that goes sideways. In a plot that owes a little something to “Double Indemnity,” Emile Hirsch plays a wayward 22-year-old who enlists his father (Thomas Haden Church) in a plan to kill his mother and split her $50,000 life insurance policy, but when they hire a cop/contract killer (McConaughey) to do the job, he requires Hirsch’s virginal sister (Juno Temple) to serve as human collateral on future payment. A sequence involving a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken may be the least appetizing product placement in history. More

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      William Friedkin’s Final Film to Premiere at the Venice Film Festival

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      “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” with Jake Lacy and Kiefer Sutherland, was the director’s first new drama in more than a decade.The director William Friedkin died on Monday at age 87, leaving behind a filmography that included hits like “The Exorcist” and “The French Connection.”But Friedkin had also completed one last project, “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.” Made for Paramount and Showtime, it is set to premiere in a few weeks at the Venice Film Festival, where in 2013 he won a lifetime achievement prize.Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Herman Wouk, “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” follows the trial of a naval officer (played by Jake Lacy) who is accused of leading a mutiny against his unstable commander (Kiefer Sutherland). The story was first adapted for the 1954 film “The Caine Mutiny,” which was nominated for seven Oscars including best picture. Though that film and Wouk’s novel take place during World War II, Friedkin contemporized the story and relocated the action to the Persian Gulf.“The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” is Friedkin’s 20th narrative film and his first since 2011’s “Killer Joe,” which starred Matthew McConaughey. In the interim, Friedkin directed a documentary, “The Devil and Father Amorth,” about a purported real-life exorcism.“I’ve looked at a lot of scripts in the last 10 years, and I haven’t seen anything I really wanted to do,” Friedkin said in an interview last year while announcing the project. “But I think about it a lot, and it occurred to me that could be a very timely and important piece, as well as being great drama. ‘The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial’ is one of the best court-martial dramas ever written.”The Venice Film Festival runs Aug. 30 to Sept. 9, though organizers have not yet announced a premiere date for Friedkin’s film. Unlike high-profile Venice films like Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” and Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” this posthumous effort will play out of competition, as per Friedkin’s wishes: In an expletive-laden scene from the documentary “Friedkin Uncut,” the director ranted against the idea of festival competitions manned by “a bunch of schmucks who call themselves judges.” More

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      Who Is Neil Breen?

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      The producer, writer, director and star has made five imaginative, bewildering low-budget paranormal thrillers, spurring both ridicule and awe.A mysterious orb blares across the sky and punches into the sun-baked bed of a desert landscape. From it a messianic being emerges. For the viewer it’s at this point, early in the 2009 film “I Am Here …. Now,” that the proceedings veer in one of two directions: a solemn polemic about drug use, corporate corruption and environmental exploitation; or an endearingly inept science-fiction parable, the charms of which center wholly on the middle-aged man who plays the alien being. His name is Neil Breen.Breen has produced, written, directed and starred in five films. His sixth, “Cade: The Tortured Crossing,” just opened in select theaters (it screens in New York in August), and if the trailer is any indication, then his singular, if peculiar, vision has remained intact.For the past 18 years Breen has been making imaginative but bewildering low-budget paranormal thrillers in and near his suburban Las Vegas home. Some concern interstellar visitors like the one in “I Am Here …. Now”; others focus on hackers with superhuman abilities. There are talismanic crystals, mystical animals (predominantly eagles or tigers), and what I assume is Breen’s own Ferrari Testarossa. His dialogue tends to be peppered with technological keywords: artificial intelligence, cyberterrorism, metaverse, virtual reality — concepts that Breen never convincingly grasps and that seem abstract considering his films look as if they were made for tens of thousands of dollars. (Breen claims to have funded his early films with his income as an architect.)He serves in multiple roles in each production: location manager, music director, sound effects supervisor, editor, lighting designer, set designer, special effects designer, prop master, stunt coordinator, even legal and accounting services. And it’s his face emblazoned on each poster, making it indisputably clear that the distinguishing feature of a Neil Breen film is Neil Breen.“I am honestly sincerely doing the best I can, with the resources that I have, both physically and financially,” Breen said in a 2014 interview with New York Cine Radio. (He didn’t respond to interview requests for this article.)If resourcefulness is considered one of the core tenets of independent film, then Breen could be one of the central filmmakers of the past two decades. When he talks about his work, he tends to proudly reiterate the same anecdotes about how he assembles his casts via Craigslist ads or how he corresponds directly with the theaters that exhibit his work. Instead of ruminating on the meaning of his ambitious if barely coherent forays into science fiction, he’ll explain at length how he feeds his cast and crew.Breen’s entire cinematic approach can be encapsulated in a backyard cookout scene in “Fateful Findings” (2013), in which the characters are actually eating. You get the sense that Breen’s intent here was to simultaneously direct, act and do the catering.A scene from “Fateful Findings” (2013). The drama covers alcoholism, painkiller addiction and unrequited love, but also teleportation.Neil Breen Films, LLC“There’s an uncanny quality,” Cristina Cacioppo, a director of programming at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn, said when asked to describe Breen’s films. “Sort of a resemblance to reality, but just sort of like otherworldly.”All of Breen’s films seem clearly to mean something, and watching them, one’s suspension of disbelief is constantly threatened by strange directorial choices. Even when they’re 90 minutes, some feel interminable. In a simple scene of dialogue he’ll freely break the 180-degree rule, a basic staging technique meant to keep the viewer oriented. His later films make generous use of composite photography, and characters will be both uncannily too large and too small in the same ethereal vista. My favorite among his many idiosyncrasies is the thunderously expository dialogue. This is from the 2016 “Pass-Thru”:Media President: I know senior national elected government officials who I can force my political bias and influence on fellow politicians, to vote my way. For a payoff, of course.Thgil (Breen): Isn’t that corrupt?None of this logically anticipates Breen’s dire, cartoonishly violent narratives. “Pass-Thru” culminates in his darkest sequence, with Thgil — another of the messianic aliens in which Breen specializes — walking toward the horizon’s vanishing point. The landscape is strewn with hundreds of thousands of bodies, a genocide he’s issued as punishment for those who’ve abused Earth’s precious resources.“Fateful Findings,” which I and many others consider Breen’s most deranged film, exemplifies the tonal stiltedness and libertarian rage that pervades his work. The first two-thirds qualify as a drama, marked by alcoholism, painkiller addiction and unrequited love. By the time it ends there has been an abduction, murders, teleportation and a revelatory news conference that culminates in six consecutive suicides.With each production, Breen’s audience, drawn from word of mouth and social media, has grown. He began to raise interest when “I Am Here …. Now” played at West Coast theaters like the now defunct Cinefamily in West Hollywood, Calif., where it was marketed as a hilarious oddity.For many audiences the natural response to Breen’s films is laughter. He’s often likened to Tommy Wiseau, whose “The Room” (2003) is considered one of the worst movies ever made, or Ed Wood, whose charmingly ramshackle genre exercises from the 1950s might be considered forerunners of Breen’s work. But these comparisons are shallow. By the end of his career Wood had fallen into obscurity, directing pornography under a pseudonym. And Wiseau seems to have succumbed by self-parody. His six-episode sitcom, “The Neighbors,” and his appearances in other films (like “Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance”) demonstrate none of “The Room’s” manic power.Breen is still making films under the same unpretentious conditions, which is to say they’re just as incoherent as ever, even if they’ve evolved in technical ambition. Whereas his early films favored suburban Las Vegas and the nearby desert, his 2018 cyberthriller “Twisted Pair” is replete with green-screen photography and stock footage. Breen plays a double role, twins Cale and Cade, bestowed at birth with superhuman powers and pitted against each other with potentially world-changing consequences. The action scenes — when Cade freezes time, for instance, or leaps grasshopper-like to the upper floor of a building — contain flashes of “The Matrix.” During these sequences at a 2018 screening at the Music Box in Chicago, the crowd went berserk.In “Twisted Pair” Breen plays a double role, twins Cade (no beard) and Cale (beard).Neil Breen Films, LLC“When I used to go to see the first screenings of films like ‘Double Down’ and ‘I Am Here …. Now,’ I’d be in the back of the theater listening to the audience,” Breen said in the 2014 interview. “The audience may chuckle at parts that I never intended, but in the second half of the film they sort of begin to get it.”Trevor Dillon, who’s programmed Breen’s work at the Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, Calif., said he thought “Neil Breen is very much like ‘I’m about the movies, I am a filmmaker, my movies play at 8 p.m.’” Dillon added that the question “is whether or not there’s a ton of self-awareness there.”“I think he’s a scrappy independent filmmaker and I think he’s an even better businessman,” Dillon added.Jake Isgar has programmed “Twisted Pair” and its forthcoming sequel, “Cade: The Tortured Crossing,” at Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco. “I don’t ever want to call his movies midnight movies or create this other sort of distinction,” he said. “Why should an independent artist who’s putting his own work out there have to be ghettoized in any particular way?”(Like me, Isgar has yet to see Breen’s newest. He said Breen “was very straightforward” and declined to send a screener to preview the film. “He says, ‘Well, you’ve seen my other movies.’”)In his correspondence with theaters Breen stipulates that his movies should screen at around 7 p.m., and that showings should be limited to maintain demand. But embedded in such restrictions one may infer either a resistance to having his work pushed to the fringes, or a pretension in contextualizing it as a mainstream experience. Regardless, Breen’s films continue to engage audiences worldwide.Consider a 2019 showing of “Twisted Pair” in Paris, at Le Grand Rex, the largest movie theater in Europe. At the sold-out screening, put on by the publication Nanarland (“Nanar” is a French colloquialism that roughly translates as “so bad it’s good”), the crowd “went nuts,” the Nanarland co-founder Régis Brochier said. “It was really an incredible screening.”A clip posted to YouTube captures the mania: the roaring crowd spills out from both balconies. People start to stand and clap. The film they’re all there to see hasn’t even begun. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Outlander’ and ‘Hard Knocks’

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      The Starz series comes back for a sixth season and the HBO documentary series on NFL training camp follows the New York Jets.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, Aug. 7-13. Details and times are subject to change.MondayCameron Diaz, Dermot Mulroney and Julia Roberts in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”Tri-Star PicturesMY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING (1997) 8:10 p.m. on Starz Encore. In this movie, the sexual tension between Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts) and Michael O’Neal (Dermot Mulroney) (the ring-stuck-on-the-finger scene, if you know you know) makes the plot feel almost irrelevant. But, if we were to focus on plot, the story follows Julianne as she tries to end the marriage between her best friend, Michael, and his fiancée Kimberly Wallace (Cameron Diaz) before it has even started. The story is filled with mostly just shenanigans on the part of Julianne and culminates in an ending that is simultaneously happy and heartbreaking.THE GREAT AMERICAN RECIPE 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). If you took “The Great British Bake-off” but made it American and focused on cooking instead of baking, that would be this show. The eight-part competition series features cooks from all different parts of the U.S. who showcase their signature dishes.TuesdayHARD KNOCKS 10 p.m. on HBO. In mid-July, NFL players fly out to university campuses near home base for their respective teams and start the hard work that goes into training for the season. And since 2001, HBO cameras have been there filming one team as they prepare — this year the series focuses on the New York Jets. Most notably, sports fans will get a glimpse of the four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers as he begins his first season with the Jets.WednesdayErik Gunn, David Eigenberg and Tony Huynh in “LA Fire & Rescue.”Casey Dunkirk/NBCLA FIRE & RESCUE 8 p.m. on NBC. No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you: that is Steve Brady (David Eigenberg) from “Sex and the City.” Perhaps even more important, it’s Lieutenant Christopher Herrmann from “Chicago Fire,” which has the same producers as this new docu-series that follows the days of firefighters at the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Wildfires, medical emergencies, crimes and accidents are featured in these episodes, and of course a station visit from Eigenberg.ThursdayFIGHT TO SURVIVE 8 p.m. on The CW. If you are a fan of “Survivor,” “Alone,” “Naked and Afraid” or “American Ninja Warrior,” you might be seeing some familiar faces on this show. Seventeen contestants, all alumni from those shows, are sent to a remote tropical island to try to survive for a chance to win $250,000 in this quasi social experiment.THE CHALLENGE 10 p.m. on CBS. If you prefer a competition show that is perhaps not as harrowing but still has familiar faces, this might be the show for you, because honestly they aren’t that much different. Alumni from “Big Brother,” “Love Island,” “Amazing Race” and “Survivor” compete in physical challenges and have the chance to win $250,000. T.J. Lavin returns as host.FridayOUTLANDER 8 p.m. on Starz. We’re halfway through the seventh season of the show that originated in the World War II era and there are lots of loose ends to tie up. Spoilers ahead! As Claire (Caitriona Balfe) discovers the body of Jamie (Sam Heughan) on the battlefield, she learns that a second Battle of Saratoga is imminent, and Roger (Richard Rankin) makes a plan to time travel back to his son.MEN IN KILTS 9:35 p.m. on Starz. Not so dissimilar to some aspects of “Outlander” I suppose (you’ve definitely seen a kilt or two on that fictional show), this documentary series follows the actors Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish on a road trip to learn more about their heritage. In the first season they traveled around Scotland but now their travels are taking them around New Zealand.SaturdayJudd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall in “The Breakfast Club.”Universal Pictures/Everett CollectionTHE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) 7:30 p.m. on CMT. If you grew up in the 80s or 90s there is a good chance you daydreamed about your crush coming to your window with a boombox propped on their shoulders (no? just me?) — and you can thank an iconic scene in this movie for that. Watching this will answer the question: What happens when you gather up the athlete, the brain, the bully, the princess and the loner and put them in detention together? In this movie “which he wrote and directed, John Hughes lets the kids challenge, taunt and confront each other as if this were ‘Twelve Angry Men,’” Janet Maslin wrote in her review for The New York Times.HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON (1957) 8 p.m. on TCM. Keeping up with our theme of survivalist competition show (and World War II, for that matter), this fictionalized version puts Mr. Allison, a Marine corporal played by Robert Mitchum, and Sister Angela, a Roman Catholic nun played by Deborah Kerr, stranded on an island in the South Pacific. As they are in constant danger of enemy attacks, they are forced to hide and survive together.SundayBILLIONS 8 p.m. on Showtime. This show, which dives into the world of New York City banking and insider trading, is Showtime’s longest running drama. And this week, it is coming back for its seventh and final season. The most anticipated part of this season is the return of the main protagonist, the hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). When the character left in season 5, he was moving to Switzerland to avoid prosecution from the Attorney General of New York Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti), so his return is likely going to be anything but smooth.TELEMARKETERS 10 p.m. on HBO. Though a documentary about telemarketers may not catch one’s attention, this is less about the practice of telemarketing and more about the true crime scheme two employees of a New Jersey call center were unknowingly covering up. The documentary follows them as they work to uncover the conspiracy that’s been a part of their day to day for the past 20 years. More

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      ‘Barbie’ Is a Sleeper Hit in China

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      The movie has exceeded box office expectations, as China’s female moviegoers celebrate a film that addresses women’s rights head-on.There were plenty of reasons to think the “Barbie” movie might have a hard time finding an audience in China. It’s an American film, when Chinese moviegoers’ interest in, and government approval of, Hollywood movies is falling. It’s been widely described as feminist, when women’s rights and political representation in China are backsliding.But not only did the film screen in China — it has been something of a sleeper hit, precisely because of its unusual nature in the Chinese movie landscape.“There aren’t many movies about women’s independence, or that have some flavors of feminism, in China,” said Mina Li, 36, who went alone to a recent screening in Beijing after several female friends recommended it. “So they thought it was worth seeing.”Despite limited availability — the film, directed by Greta Gerwig, made up only 2.4 percent of screenings in China on its opening day — “Barbie” has quickly become widely discussed on Chinese social media, at one point even topping searches on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. It has an 8.3 rating on the movie rating site Douban, higher than any other currently showing live-action feature. Theaters have raced to add showings, with the number nearly quadrupling in the first week.Though not nearly as hotly anticipated as in the United States, where it left some movie theaters running low on refreshments, “Barbie” has set off its own mini-mania in some Chinese circles, with moviegoers posting photos of themselves decked out in pink or showing off glossy souvenir tickets. As of Wednesday, the movie has earned $28 million in China — less than the new “Mission Impossible,” but more than the latest “Indiana Jones.” American movies’ hauls have been declining in general in China, in part because of strict controls on the number of foreign films allowed each year.Mia Tan, a Beijing college student, saw “Barbie” with two friends, in an array of festive attire that included a peach-colored skirt and pink-accented tops. During a scene in which the Ken dolls realized that being male was its own qualification, she joked that the characters sounded like fellow students in their major.Theaters in China have raced to add showings of “Barbie,” with the number nearly quadrupling in the first week.Cfoto/Future Publishing, via Getty Images“The movie was great,” Ms. Tan said. “It used straightforward dialogue and an exaggerated plot to tell the audience about objective reality. Honestly, I think this is the only way to make women realize what kind of environment they’re in, and to make men realize how much privilege they’ve had.”The discussion about women’s empowerment that “Barbie” has set off is in some ways a rare bright spot for Chinese feminists. In recent years, the authorities have arrested feminist activists, urged women to embrace traditional gender roles and rejected high-profile sexual harassment lawsuits. State media has suggested that feminism is part of a Western plot to weaken China, and social media companies block insults of men but allow offensive comments about women.Some social media comments have disparaged “Barbie” as inciting conflict between the sexes, and moviegoers have shared stories of men walking out of theaters. (In the United States, conservatives have similarly railed against the movie.)At the same time, public awareness of women’s rights has been growing. Online discussions about topics such as violence against women have blossomed, despite censorship. While many of China’s top movies in recent years have been chest-thumping war or action movies, a few female-directed movies, about themes like complicated family relationships, have also drawn huge audiences.And the Chinese government has proved most intent on preventing feminists from organizing and gathering, rather than stopping discussions of gender equality writ large, said Jia Tan, a professor of cultural studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.Even some Chinese state media outlets have offered cautious praise of the movie’s themes. One said that “Barbie” “encourages contemplation of the status and portrayal of women.” Another quoted a film critic as saying it was normal that the topic of gender would stir disagreement, but that “Barbie” was actually about the perils of either men or women being treated with favor.In a sign of how Chinese women’s expectations have shifted, some of the most popular — and critical — online reviews of “Barbie” came from women who said it hadn’t gone far enough. Some said they had hoped a Western movie would be more insightful about women’s rights than a Chinese one could be, but found it still exalted conventional beauty standards or focused too much on Ken. Others said they felt compelled to give the movie a higher rating than it deserved because they expected men to pan it.Vicky Chan, a 27-year-old tech worker in Shenzhen, said she thought mainstream conversations about feminism in China were still in their early stages, focusing on surface-level differences between men and women rather than structural problems. The movie’s critique of patriarchy was ultimately gentle, she said — and that was probably why it had gotten such wide approval in China, she said in an interview. (Ms. Chan gave the movie two stars on Douban.)A display of Barbie toys in Beijing in 2013.Andy Wong/Associated PressSome lingering wariness of feminism and its implications was evident at the recent Beijing showing of “Barbie,” where several audience members — male and female — told a reporter that they saw the movie as promoting equal rights, not women’s rights. Opponents of feminism in China have tarred the movement as pitching women above men.The Chinese subtitles for “Barbie” translated “feminism” as “nu xing zhu yi,” or literally “women-ism,” rather than “nu quan zhu yi,” or “women’s rights-ism.” While both are generally translated as “feminism,” the latter is seen as more politically charged.Wang Pengfei, a college student from Jiangsu Province, also drew that distinction. He had liked “Barbie” so much that he wanted to take his mother to see it, feeling she would appreciate the movie’s climactic speech about the double standards imposed on women.But Mr. Wang also said he was alarmed by what he called extreme feminist rhetoric, with women declaring that they didn’t need men. He liked the movie, he said, because it hadn’t gone as far as some other films did.“If Chinese women are really going to become independent,” he said, “it won’t be because of movie gimmicks.”Vivian Wang More