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      At This Movie, Their Phones Won’t Bother You. Their Barking Might.

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      A cinema chain in Britain is welcoming dogs to select screenings. They don’t need their own tickets, and they don’t need to turn off their cellphones.Kab, a 2-year-old Doberman wearing a blue bandanna, is noticeably anxious.Sometimes called “cupcake,” he is roughly the size and weight of a teenage boy and has the energy to match. At the moment, he is being led around the courtyard of a cinema in East London by one of his owners, Luisa Fulcher, to walk off his jitters and allow for one last bathroom break before he and a handful of other dogs settle in for something unusual: their first moviegoing experience.Last weekend, Curzon Cinemas, a chain with 16 locations in Britain, began allowing dogs to attend select movie screenings with their owners, starting with “Strays,” an expletive-laden, live-action comedy that follows a group of dogs (voiced by actors including Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx) that unite to seek revenge on an owner.Luisa Fulcher, center, and her dog Kab were among the attendees at Saturday’s screening. “Nowadays pets are part of the family,” she said.Mary Turner for The New York TimesLondon is a paradise for pooches, which are regularly found at the feet of their owners at restaurants, pubs, on trains and in many other public places. Movie theaters may be next to welcome dogs, thanks in part to the pandemic.In Britain, which has a population of about 67 million people, there are an estimated 11 million pet dogs, according to a report this year by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, a veterinary charity. Pet ownership surged during the pandemic, and now that workers are being encouraged to return to the office, some pets and their owners are struggling with the transition.“A lot of people got dogs during the pandemic, and they want to come and see a film with their dog,” said Jake Garriock, the head of publicity at Curzon. He said the new screenings were part of a larger program designed to let customers watch films in ways that best suit them, such as screenings for infants that feature reduced volume and increased lighting.For now, Curzon is allowing dogs of any breed at only one screening a week, at only one of the chain’s London locations, said Mr. Garriock. (And no, separate tickets are not required for dogs.) They’re not allowed on the seats, and their owners must clean up any accidents.Curzon is not alone in welcoming dogs. Picturehouse Cinemas, another British chain, has offered pup-friendly screenings since 2015, and there are numerous independent movie theaters in Britain that do so. (Most cinemas, however, allow only service dogs.)Back outside the theater, Ms. Fulcher said she had brought a bone for Kab, who was now whimpering for attention and playfully jumping on this reporter.Rebecca Minty and her dog, Lottie, also attended the screening.Mary Turner for The New York Times“I think that it’s a great idea because nowadays pets are part of the family,” she said of the theater’s new screenings. “They are not just pets anymore. It’s like your little baby.”For other dog owners, the screenings provide a new freedom. Ziad Dajani said he and his partner had not been to the movies together in four years because of Tarçin, their 8-year-old Australian Labradoodle, who suffers from separation anxiety. “We’re his hostages, basically,” Mr. Dajani said. “So we can’t leave him alone for a minute. Someone has to be with him all the time.”Standing in line to purchase snacks for the screening were a few other dog owners, including Rebecca Minty and her daughter. With them was Lottie, who was lying on the floor and not particularly bothered by anything or anyone. Ms. Minty said Lottie, a 7-year-old working cocker spaniel who does not work, was taken on a long run before coming to the theater in an effort to keep her calm.Inside, the screening was like any other, except for the rustling of collars and the occasional bark. The movie’s sound level was also dialed back.“It’s vital that cinemas reduce the sound at dog-friendly screenings, otherwise the volume could cause them distress and even pain,” Dr. Katherine Polak, a veterinarian and a vice president at Humane Society International, said in a statement. “In principle, it’s similar to cinemas that offer baby-friendly screenings that also reduce sound and accept that some level of disruption is likely.”Paget Fulcher, Kab’s other owner, said after the screening that Kab had behaved well despite the challenges. “Most of the time, he was laying down on the ground, playing with a toy that we brought for him,” he said. “It was all good. Nothing bad happened. I think we’re very happy with how it went.”A dog’s behavior at home offers clues as to how the animal might handle a movie screening, according to Graeme Hall, a British dog trainer known as “The Dogfather” who hosts the Netflix show “Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly.”“Some dogs seem to like watching the television, and some dogs don’t notice,” said Mr. Hall, who advised monitoring a dog for signs of stress, including making sounds, yawning, licking their lips and pinning back their ears.Mr. Spandley and his dog Jeff leaving the cinema (for which Jeff did not need a ticket).Mary Turner for The New York TimesHe also said dogs take their cues from their owners. “We know for a fact that dogs are constantly looking at our facial expressions and body language, the little sounds we make, even our breathing patterns,” he said. “If you’re having a good time, there’s a very good chance that your dog will pick up on that.”Mr. Garriock acknowledged that not everyone might enjoy going to a movie with dogs in the audience.“Obviously, there’s plenty of screenings where they won’t be interrupted by dogs,” he said. “If you like cats, then you can head to one of the other screenings.” More

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      What Hollywood Gets Right and Wrong About B’nai Mitzvah

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      The Jewish ceremony can be the setting for a sharp look at growing up. But it has too often been used for glosses that ignore the rite’s deeper meaning.In the Jewish faith you become an adult at the most awkward possible moment: when you turn 13. Sure, in the eyes of God and your Hebrew school, you are mature enough to read from the Torah and embrace the responsibilities of grown-up life. But in reality you’re probably a scared kid for whom true maturity is far off, despite all those uncomfortable hormones.That was the case when I was bat mitzvahed in 2013 — mortifyingly (but also with a hint of pride) getting my first period shortly before the event — and that’s the case in the new Netflix film “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” based on the 2005 young adult novel by Fiona Rosenbloom.The movie, directed by Sammi Cohen, is the story of Stacy Friedman, played by Sunny Sandler. (Sunny is the daughter of Adam Sandler, who plays her dad in the film. Her real life-sister, Sadie, has been cast as her movie sibling, Ronnie. Their mother, Jackie Sandler, also in the cast, portrays a different girl’s mom — the role of Stacy’s mom went to Idina Menzel, who played Adam’s wife in “Uncut Gems.” Got all that?)Stacy has long dreamed of a blowout bat mitzvah alongside her best friend, Lydia Rodriguez Katz (Samantha Lorraine), but the messy realities of middle school meddle with their party plans. There are ill-advised crushes, moments of embarrassing flirtation and the kind of humiliating cruelty that only a 13-year-old with a grudge can muster. Eventually, Stacy takes the bimah at her bat mitzvah to read her Torah portion, and she learns the kinds of life lessons that come when you’ve emerged from the navel-gazing cocoon of youth.Sunny Sandler in “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.” The film is based on the novel by Fiona Rosenbloom.Netflix“You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” proves, as other movies and shows have before it, that when a bar or bat mitzvah is depicted onscreen, it can often be a savvy vessel for exploring the funny, strange or even traumatic transition from childhood to teenagedom.“Figuring out, who am I, who I want to be — such a Jewish experience,” Cohen, who uses they/them pronouns, told me in an interview, adding that it’s “also just a human experience.”“We don’t all have a bat mitzvah,” she continued, “but we all feel awkward when we have to step out in front of our friends and family and try not to make a mistake.”At the same time, Hollywood can get too caught up in the lavish spectacle of these affairs, with depictions that sap them of their cultural or emotional significance in favor of gags about the superficiality of the post-service party. The spoiled bar or bat mitzvah boy or girl is a trope that comes up repeatedly. In a 2000 “Sex and the City” episode, Samantha (Kim Cattrall) faces off against a rich brat (Kat Dennings) who is hiring a publicist for her bat mitzvah party. “I want it all, I want it now, and I want you to get it for me,” the girl says.During a 2012 episode of “30 Rock,” Tracy (Tracy Morgan) and Jenna (Jane Krakowski) humiliate themselves at a bar mitzvah playing Transformer robots for the demanding son of their accountant. The films “Starsky & Hutch” (2004) and “Safe Men” (1998) found gags in criminals attending bat and bar mitzvahs.From left, Jami Gertz, Jeremy Piven and Daryl Sabara in “Keeping Up With the Steins” (2006). Financial anxiety is a common theme of bar or bat mitzvah movies.Eric McCandless/Miramax FilmsThe b’nai mitzvah party gone wild — celebrating a bat or bar mitzvah — is another staple of the genre. “Keeping Up With the Steins” (2006), directed by Scott Marshall, starts from a place of absurdity with an outlandish “Titanic” movie-themed soirée attended by the Fiedler family. The dad, an “Entourage”-era Jeremy Piven essentially playing a flavor of Ari Gold, does all he can to match the grandiosity of that event for his son. In the process he reconnects with his own father (Garry Marshall), a reunion facilitated by his child (Daryl Sabara). It’s a thin narrative that uses the hook of the over-the-top bar mitzvah for a trite family tale.Financial anxiety is a feature of similar narratives, and it is possible to find nuance in the strange mix of faith and capitalism that b’nai mitzvah spur in Jewish American culture — mostly when the writers, directors and performers lean into what a confusing time it is for the teenagers for whom these ceremonies are ostensibly intended.Sami Rappoport as Becca, a popular girl entering her bat mitzvah reception on “Pen15.” The episode focuses on a gentile’s experience of the event. HuluThe Hulu series “Pen15” is a masterpiece of discomfort — augmented by the fact that its creators and stars, Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine, are 30-something actors playing 13-year-olds in middle school. Their characters are not Jewish, but the gawky unease they cultivate is on full display during the episode chronicling the bat mitzvah of a popular girl named Becca (Sami Rappoport), a moment that coincides with their class learning about the Holocaust. The lesson about genocide makes Anna (Konkle) contemplate the very existence of God. The occasion brings on a different kind of unease for Maya (Erskine), who is desperate to impress Becca with a fancy gift despite the fact that it’s a stretch for her parents. “Pen15,” which takes place in the early 2000s, nails the cringe-worthy elements of bat mitzvah-going, whether it’s Becca entering her party belting a song from “Damn Yankees” or the mechanical slow dancing. But at the same time it explores how fraught the tradition can be when it comes to social class.Still, the episode focuses on an outsider’s experience of a bat mitzvah, not an actual Jew’s. So does Cooper Raiff’s 2022 directorial effort, “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” in which he also stars. It’s a bar mitzvah movie with thin acknowledgment of Jewish tradition. Raiff’s aimless college grad Andrew — who is not Jewish — gets a job as a party starter for b’nai mitzvah receptions. It’s a good backdrop for Andrew’s own insecurities; he knows just as little about life as the much younger people around him. But it’s also just that: a backdrop.Cooper Raiff, director and star of “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” another view of the event from an outsider’s perspective. Apple TV+To find a movie that incorporates a bar mitzvah in the fabric of its Jewishness, look to the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man” (2009), a chronicle of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor in 1967 Minnesota. Larry’s son Danny (Aaron Wolff) gets extremely stoned before his bar mitzvah. It’s the kind of stupid thing a little twerp would do, but the disorienting way the Coens film this sequence — with fuzzy visuals and oblique angles — feels like an introduction to a faith of questioning that can itself be disorienting, especially as Danny meets with the aged Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell), who starts reciting Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” as a prayer.For an even bleaker depiction, there’s Todd Solondz’s “Life During Wartime” (2010), where the bar mitzvah of Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder) coincides with horrific realizations about his father. Timmy’s perception of becoming a man, as he describes in a speech he’s writing for the occasion, is standing up for yourself even if it means getting “just plain tortured.” Solondz’s view is clear: Growing up is pain. There’s less of an engagement with the nature of Judaism here than there is in “A Serious Man,” but Solondz scores sequences with Avinu Malkeinu, a Jewish prayer of repentance usually uttered on the High Holy Days, which serves as a reminder of the human failure on which the director fixates.Aaron Wolff, center, as a bar mitzvah boy who gets stoned before going on the bimah in “A Serious Man.”Wilson Webb/Focus FeaturesIt’s hard to get darker than what Solondz delivers, but even some of the cheeriest b’nai mitzvah stories can have a touch of the grim. In “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” Stacy lashes out at Lydia over a boy, spreading gossip about her and making an embarrassing video that ends up being played on Lydia’s big night. Her petulant acts may seem minor but they have real stakes, as anyone who has ever been betrayed by a friend knows. “Real kids are complicated and messy,” Cohen told me.And it’s true. I have warmly nostalgic memories of my own bat mitzvah that are mixed up with more complicated feelings. I think about a connection to faith that I let lapse and relatives who are no longer alive. I think about the friends with whom I have lost touch. I remember the world in front of me and it being exciting but also so scary. That’s the thematic potential in a b’nai mitzvah, and it’s nice to see that occasionally filmmakers get it right. More

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      ‘Bottoms’ and the Tricky Tone of a Horror-Indie-Drama-Action-Teen-Sex Comedy

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      The director Emma Seligman took a big leap from her buzzy feature debut, “Shiva Baby.” But this is the film she wanted to make all along.In “Bottoms,” a pair of teenagers start a fight club in their high school gym. The twist: The pugilists are lesbians, and they are whaling on each other — in the guise of self-defense — as a way to attract the hottest cheerleaders. (It’s a satire on many levels.)The writer-director Emma Seligman had the idea and sold the script — to Elizabeth Banks’s production company — even before her feature debut, “Shiva Baby,” put her on the indie filmmaker map in 2021.“I really love teen adventure movies,” Seligman said in a phone interview, “and giving queer kids the chance to be in that story.”Seligman, 28, grew up in Toronto in a family of film buffs. “Everyone here is always just talking about movies,” she said. By 10, she was a judge at a children’s film festival; later she got involved with the Toronto International Film Festival. She studied the subject at New York University, where she met the two stars of “Bottoms” — Rachel Sennott (who co-wrote the film) and Ayo Edebiri, a breakout actress from “The Bear.” (Seligman has an eye for talent: “Bottoms” also features Nicholas Galitzine, of “Red, White & Royal Blue,” as a quarterback boyfriend; and the former N.F.L. player Marshawn Lynch as a teacher with questionable methods.)“Shiva Baby,” about a young woman who encounters her sugar daddy at a shiva, was based on Seligman’s experience of Jewish life and on her college milieu. “I went on one sugar date,” she said. “Not everyone was doing it, but so many people were doing it to the point where it was so normal.” (It wasn’t ultimately her thing.) “Bottoms,” though it exists in a heightened world, is also personal. “It’s just wanting to see yourself,” said Seligman, who is gay. As she recalled Banks telling her: “You can’t underestimate how much young people want to see themselves onscreen.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.“Shiva Baby” had a small cast and essentially one set. “Bottoms” has an ensemble and multiple locations. How did you prepare to scale up?The jump was quite challenging. I knew there were going to be a million and one lessons I was going to have to learn, but I just didn’t know what they were going to be. It’s like knowing you’re about to get hazed but not knowing how.I tried to have conversations with as many directors as I could to get their advice — Adam McKay, Greg Berlanti, who directed “Love, Simon,” and Atom Egoyan. It was helpful, but most of them were like, “You’re not going to know until you’re just doing it.” I went to [Elizabeth Banks’s] house before we shot, and we talked about costume and hair and improv — it wasn’t her giving didactic advice. It was me asking: “As a director, how do you prepare to do this?” And everyone was like, stop asking questions. Stop getting in your head.Edebiri and Sennott in “Bottoms.” Seligman said she “wanted to satirize the way female friendship is often shoved down our throats onscreen with teen girls.”via Orion Pictures IncRachel Sennott has starred in both your films. What clicked with you two?Neither of us were in the industry or came from industry families. Her level of ambition and organization and her intense work ethic was really inspiring. It’s a wild thing to be like, “I’m going to devote all this time to writing two screenplays, when there’s nothing in the world telling me that this will work out.” Her energy was: “It’s not crazy, we will do it, and we will make a living.” It’s rare for someone to want to see you succeed as much as they want themselves to succeed.How did you envision Ayo Edebiri in this role?I met Ayo at a party before I met Rachel. I had a vague idea of “Bottoms” in my head. And I was like, “Oh, if I ever made that high school movie, that girl would be so funny in it.” It’s been really incredible to watch her grow into the success that she’s become. It’s not a surprise at all to me, but I feel a little bit like I have street cred because I’m like, “Yeah, I knew.” She’s just so funny. We finished “Bottoms,” and “The Bear” came out a month later and her world changed.Where did you want to focus your satire?The way queer teen characters are always so innocent in teen movies. Whether they’re being traumatized or finding love, they’re so sweet and often don’t have any sexual thoughts at all — or if they do, they’re not expressing it, or they’re not talking in a vulgar way. And we also wanted to satirize the way female friendship is often shoved down our throats onscreen with teen girls — characters that are like, “I love you, queen! You’re the best thing ever!” We wanted to make fun of that.“Bottoms” builds on a lot of the teen movie canon, starting with “Heathers.” What else did you use as a reference?We pulled from that era of the ’90s — I guess “Heathers” is the ’80s — but that kind of female, campy, driven, high school and murder [comedy].“Bring It On” was a big reference. That movie strikes such a beautiful tone of campiness while caring deeply about the characters — it’s right on the edge. “Pen15,” definitely — looking at the show about this beautiful female friendship, that was so ridiculous and stupid at the same time, and so relatable. That came out right around when we started writing. “Wet Hot American Summer” was a big one. There’s not murder in that. But they do get addicted to heroin for the day. And Liz is in it, which is also great.How did you find the right tone?It took a long time to figure that out. I don’t think Rachel and I originally intended to have the audience care about the characters that much. We actually felt like in female comedy, there’s too much stress on, “Care about these girls” and “Care about the friendship.” We wanted to give the female characters a chance to be so [terrible] that you’re not supposed to care about them at all. But I think over the years, as we would get notes from our producers or the studio, we let up a little bit.I really think tone is always the trickiest thing to master. And I would love one day to do a movie that’s just one genre, to see if it’s any easier than a horror-indie-dramedy-action-teen-sex-comedy, or whatever we did. More

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      ‘Vacation Friends 2’ Review: Last Resort

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      Sitcom-grade setups and predictable punchlines make a chore of this blithe, freewheeling comedy sequel.The 2021 comedy “Vacation Friends” had a premise so thin that it scarcely counts as high concept: One couple befriends another couple on holiday, only to realize that the other couple is a little too wild. It worked, just barely, because the couples were played by Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, Meredith Hagner and John Cena, all of them funny and charming with bubbly, upbeat chemistry. The story of clashing personalities and adventures gone wrong was dull and uninspired, but the cast members, clearly enjoying themselves, kept things brisk and mildly entertaining.That cast returns for “Vacation Friends 2,” a perfunctory sequel with an even duller story. (The first movie’s director, Clay Tarver, returns too.) Howery and Orji, as the timid newlyweds Marcus and Emily, are off on another holiday with their kooky friends Ron and Kyla (Cena and Hagner), this time at a luxury resort in the Caribbean. They’re joined by Kyla’s father, Reese (Steve Buscemi), a squirrelly man with a criminal past whose approval Ron desperately seeks, and by Yeon (Ronny Chieng), a testy owner of the resort, with whom Marcus hopes to land a business deal.Marcus’s efforts to woo Yeon, as well as Ron’s campaign to win over his skeptical father-in-law, are nothing more than glorified sitcom plots, and as the harried friends careen across the resort through a series of comical mishaps, the movie has the feel of a TV rerun. More compelling are the too-rare moments of plotless leisure, when the charismatic holidaymakers guzzle rum, snort cocaine and just riff. Cena manages to squeeze a very funny bit from the action of picking up a brunch menu — no artificial dramatic stakes necessary.Vacation Friends 2Rated R for strong language, sexual content, action violence, drug use and more holiday debauchery. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      Léa Garcia, Who Raised Black Actors’ Profile in Brazil, Dies at 90

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      Best known internationally for her breakout performance in the 1959 film “Black Orpheus,” she challenged racial stereotypes over a seven-decade career.Léa Garcia, a pioneering actress who brought new visibility and respect to Black actors in Brazil after her breakout performance in the Academy Award-winning 1959 film “Black Orpheus,” died on Aug. 15 in Gramado, a mountain resort town in southern Brazil. She was 90.Her death, of cardiac complications, was confirmed by her family on her Instagram account. At her death, in a hospital, she was in Gramado to receive a lifetime achievement award at that town’s film festival. Her son Marcelo Garcia, who was also her manager, accepted the honor in her place.Over a prolific career that began in the 1950s, Ms. Garcia amassed more than 100 credits in theater, film and television, from her early years with an experimental Black theater group to her later prominence on television productions, like the popular 1976 telenovela “Escrava Isaura” (“Isaura: Slave Girl”), based on an 1875 novel by the abolitionist writer Bernardo Guimarães; it was seen in more than 80 countries.Recounting her career in a 2022 interview with the Brazilian magazine Ela, Ms. Garcia said she felt blessed by her success. “I often say that the gods embraced me,” she said. “Things always arrived for me without me running after them.”Still, laboring to change racial perceptions in the world of film and television involved tremendous perseverance and discipline. “Much more was demanded of us,” she told Ela. “We had to arrive with the text on the tip of our tongue, always smelling good and elegant. Others could be wrong. We could not. We could play subservient characters, but we needed to show that we ourselves were not.”Léa Lucas Garcia de Aguiar was born on March 11, 1933, in Rio de Janeiro. Growing up, she was drawn to literature and aspired to be a writer. That changed one day in 1950.“I was on my way to pick up my grandmother to take her to the movies,” she recalled, “when someone came up to me and asked, ‘Would you like to work in theater?’”The voice belonged to Abdias do Nascimento, the writer, artist and Pan-Africanist activist who created Teatro Experimental do Negro (TEN), a Rio-based group that aimed to promote the appreciation of Afro-Brazilian culture. (The two would become a couple and had two children together.) Ms. Garcia made her stage debut in 1952 in Mr. Nascimento’s play “Rapsódia Negra” (“Black Rhapsody”).As the decade drew to a close, she took her career to a new level of international recognition when she was cast in the French director Marcel Camus’s “Black Orpheus,” a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice adapted to the frenzy of Rio’s carnival and featuring music by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá. It won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 1960.With its lush exuberance, the film was anything but classical in feel. “It really is not the two lovers that are the focus of interest in this film; it is the music, the movement, the storm of color,” Bosley Crowther wrote in a review in The New York Times.Even in her 80s, Ms. Garcia remained productive. Adriano DamasEven in a supporting role, Ms. Garcia showed an ability to beguile. “Léa Garcia,” Mr. Crowther wrote, “is especially provoking as the loose-limbed cousin of the soft Eurydice.”Among her other notable films was “Ganga Zumba,” the debut feature by Carlos Diegues, a pioneer in Brazil’s reformist Cinema Novo movement, which was made in 1963 but not released until 1972. She brought power and complexity to the character of Cipriana, the lover of the title character, who escapes a sugar plantation in the 17th century to lead Quilombo dos Palmares, a haven for other fugitives from slavery.“It’s not shameful to be a slave,” Ms. Garcia often said, according to family members. “It’s shameful to be a colonizer.”The pace of her career scarcely slowed over the years; she spent decades as a staple of Brazilian soap operas like “O Clone” (“The Clone”), “Anjo Mau” (“Evil Angel”), “Xica da Silva” and “Marina,” and was seen on other TV series as well.Even in her 80s, Ms. Garcia remained productive. She starred in the drama series “Baile de Máscaras” in 2019 and returned to the stage in 2022 in the play “A Vida Não é Justa” (“Life Is Not Fair”), in which she played three characters and explored themes of diversity, equality, justice and relationships.Complete information on her survivors was not immediately available.In the Ela interview, Ms. Garcia discussed her hopes for her great-great-granddaughter, who was 7 months old at the time. “I hope for a fair and egalitarian country that respects diversities,” she said. “That’s what I want, and much more.”Julia Vargas Jones contributed reporting from São Paulo, Brazil More

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      ‘You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah’ Review: She’s Growing Up

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      Sandler family members (plus Idina Menzel) lean on each other in this Netflix comedy about growing up.The comedy “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” follows the debut of Stacy Friedman (Sunny Sandler), a preteen who is obsessed with the parties that accompany her Hebrew school cohort’s coming-of-age ceremonies.This joyride to adulthood is a real-life family affair: Sunny stars, and her father, Adam Sandler, amiably rides in the back seat as Stacy’s bewildered dad, Danny. But despite the support Stacy gets from her family (including Idina Menzel as Stacy’s mother, Bree, and Sadie Sandler as her sister, Ronnie), the friendship between Stacy and her best friend, Lydia (Samantha Lorraine), is the film’s emotional core.Stacy and Lydia have planned their parties and their lives around each other, but their friendship is tested by the most challenging trials of middle school: cute boys, cool girls and menstruation. When Stacy walks in on Lydia kissing their mutual crush, she can’t bring herself to consider her friend’s happiness with the mitzvah season’s rabbi-encouraged maturity. Instead, Stacy disinvites Lydia from her bat mitzvah, and she sets out to redefine what her first steps into womanhood should look like now that she intends to take those steps solo.The young cast proves deft with the film’s clever script, by Alison Peck (based on the 2005 novel by Fiona Rosenbloom), and the director Sammi Cohen indulges the virgin-mojito passions of preteens while avoiding nostalgia, thankfully. In one of the film’s best jokes, a partygoer requests a dusty mothball on the dance floor: Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” For a split second, the movie’s easygoing, contemporary appeal hangs in the balance. And then with delightful rudeness, the film’s middle-aged, disco-ball-helmeted disc jockey, DJ Schmuley (Ido Mosseri), rejects the song, spitting out, “Let Schmuley handle the vibe around here!” A Selena Gomez song fills out the score, and this goofy charmer of a movie bounces on.You Are So Not Invited to My Bat MitzvahRated PG-13 for language and middle-school bathroom humor. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Before Gran Turismo Inspired a Movie, It Drove Jann Mardenborough to Greatness

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      The PlayStation video game’s realistic cars and racetracks helped Jann Mardenborough find his calling as a professional driver.Jann Mardenborough can vividly recount the first time he ever played Gran Turismo, the popular racing video game that would completely alter his life.While seeking refuge on Bonfire Night, a British holiday full of firework celebrations, an 8-year-old Mardenborough stumbled upon the game at his neighbors’ house. He selected a violet Mitsubishi 3000GT and began racing on the Autumn Ring track. Mardenborough went on to play the game all night, and then every day after that, showing up at his neighbors’ door immediately after school.“They got so fed up with me turning up at their house, one day the wife came across the street, knocked on our door and had in hand the PlayStation and GT 1, and gave it to my parents,” the 31-year-old racecar driver recently recalled during an video interview.It’s the origin story to the other origin story: the true, improbable one depicted in the film “Gran Turismo,” which was directed by Neill Blomkamp and opens on Friday. The movie dramatizes Mardenborough’s journey, from gaming in his bedroom to winning the 2011 GT Academy — an annual competition that, from 2008 to 2016, put the game’s best players in real vehicles — to driving formula cars professionally.The eight main games in the Gran Turismo franchise, which debuted in Europe and North America in 1998, are known for their scrupulously reproduced cars and exacting racing simulations. In the months before he attended GT Academy, Mardenborough upgraded from a plastic PlayStation controller to a homemade wooden racing frame along with a steering wheel and pedal that he bought with money his parents gave him for good grades.The competition was a godsend for Mardenborough, who was trying to sell car parts on eBay after losing a retail job; he had dropped out of college after realizing that studying motor sport engineering did not mean he could actually drive the cars.Even so, Mardenborough said he was skeptical of his chances. He had played Gran Turismo no more than an average teenage gamer after his initial fixation, had never competed in a tournament and had barely any experience driving a normal car. The first time he brought his rickety 1991 laser blue BMW E30 onto a highway was on his way to the competition.Mardenborough’s perspective took a visceral turn when he qualified for racing camp — a stretch depicted in the film that follows the finalists training in actual cars — and was given his first taste of the track.“After my first few laps, when I got out the car, I remember thinking, ‘I don’t want to go through life never experiencing that again,’” said Mardenborough, who served as a producer on “Gran Turismo” and as the stunt double for his own character.The director Neill Blomkamp, center, and Mardenborough, right, on the set of “Gran Turismo.” Mardenborough was the stunt driver for his own character.Gordon Timpen/Columbia Pictures/Sony Entertainment, via Associated PressMardenborough can eagerly describe the technicalities that distinguish game from reality — the sensation, for instance, of the vibration through the car seat — but said that much of the real-world feeling and reactions mirrored Gran Turismo.“When you race against real people,” he said, “everything is real.”Mardenborough, who is played by Archie Madekwe in “Gran Turismo,” went line by line with Sony over early drafts of the script, which he noted is mostly true to his life. The characters played by David Harbour and Orlando Bloom are both fictionalized but loosely based on real people. And a crash involving Mardenborough in Germany that left a spectator dead really happened, although detractors have complained about how the tragic event was translated to the screen.In the film, the crash occurs right before Mardenborough returns to the track for a podium finish at Le Mans, the famous endurance race in France — back-to-back events that form an emotional arc of setback and triumph. In reality, Mardenborough’s crash in Germany came two years after that podium finish, leading to criticism that the film’s timeline was edited to serve a narratively pat movie ending.“The order is the order, but those events happened in my life,” Mardenborough, who avoided serious injuries, said in response. “This isn’t a documentary.” He did race in Le Mans one year after the crash, and Mardenborough said the emotional battle the film constructed was consistent with his feelings.“When you believe the reason why you’re put on earth is to race a racing car, and then you’re asking yourself, ‘Do I still want to do this?’” he said. “It’s not a pleasant question to ask.”Mardenborough last competed in May and is talking to teams about potentially racing in the United States next year. And occasionally, the driver who fidgeted with a gaming steering wheel during our interview will still play Gran Turismo.If he were to race against his 19-year-old self in the game right now, who would win? Mardenborough thought for a moment.“Me,” he said with a competitive smirk. “If I put in the amount of hours I did back then, considering my experience in real life, I would be quicker. But all it is is hours.” More

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      ‘Our Father, the Devil’ Review: Wash Away Your Sins

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      In this absorbing psychological thriller, a Guinean refugee living in France is rattled by the appearance of a menacing figure from her past.“Our Father, the Devil” centers on Marie (Babetida Sadjo), a Guinean refugee in southern France who possesses the kind of thick armor forged by intense hurt. When a figure from Marie’s past life arrives in the guise of a priest at the upscale retirement home where she works as the head chef, something in her cracks.In the assured hands of the writer-director Ellie Foumbi, Marie’s unraveling yields not only an absorbing psychological thriller, but a profound meditation on the ethics of immigration.Marie’s story begins on a high note. Her culinary mentor, Jeanne (Martine Amisse), has written Marie into her will, giving Marie an idyllic mountainside cottage. Yet Foumbi’s stark, formalist tableaux captures even the glittering French countryside as a space trembling with contained anxiety.Inexplicably, at least at first, Marie fends off the advances of a handsome bartender to whom she is evidently attracted. Sadjo, in a commanding performance, shifts easily from pure venom to bashful uncertainty — as if Marie were constantly playing mental tug of war with herself and her past.Then, Father Patrick appears (Souléymane Sy Savané) — though Marie knows him better as “Sogo,” a warlord responsible for the death of her family in Guinea. Marie reacts instinctively and imprisons Patrick in her cottage outpost, and then unleashes an inner brutality.The first part of the film relies on the ambiguity of whether or not Marie is mistaken about Patrick’s identity, but the answer isn’t simple. Instead, Foumbi’s script provokes questions about our capacity for change and the absolution of past sins — all anchored to the charged political question of an immigrant’s worth. Painfully, and at the risk of losing her new life, Marie discovers that there is no such thing as devils — or angels, for that matter.Our Father, the DevilNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters. More