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      Jim Brown, Football Great and Civil Rights Champion, Dies at 87

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      After a Hall of Fame career in the N.F.L., he pursued social activism and Hollywood stardom, but his image was stained by accusations of abuse toward women.Jim Brown, the Cleveland Browns fullback who was acclaimed as one of the greatest players in pro football history, and who remained in the public eye as a Hollywood action hero and a civil rights activist, though his name was later tarnished by accusations of violent conduct against women, died on Thursday night at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87.His family announced his death on Friday on Instagram.Playing for the Browns from 1957 to 1965 after earning all-American honors at Syracuse University in football and lacrosse, Brown helped take Cleveland to the 1964 National Football League championship.In any game, he dragged defenders when he wasn’t running over them or flattening them with a stiff arm. He eluded them with his footwork when he wasn’t sweeping around ends and outrunning them. He never missed a game, piercing defensive lines in 118 consecutive regular-season games, though he played one year with a broken toe and another with a sprained wrist.“All you can do is grab, hold, hang on and wait for help,” Sam Huff, the Hall of Fame middle linebacker for the Giants and the Washington team now known as the Commanders, once told Time magazine.Brown was voted football’s greatest player of the 20th century by a six-member panel of experts assembled by The Associated Press in 1999. A panel of 85 experts selected by NFL Films in 2010 placed him No. 2 all time behind the wide receiver Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers.He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, the Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1984 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995.Brown in action against the Giants in Cleveland in 1968.Associated PressBrown was still in top form and only 30 years old when he stunned the football world in the summer of 1966 by retiring to pursue an acting career.He had appeared in the 1964 western “Rio Conchos” and was involved in the shooting of the World War II film “The Dirty Dozen” in England, with plans to attend the Browns’ training camp afterward. But wet weather delayed completion of the filming. When he notified Art Modell, the Browns’ owner, that he would be reporting late, Modell said he would fine him for every day he missed camp. Affronted by the threat, Brown called a news conference to announce that he was done with pro football.When the modern civil rights movement gained momentum in the 1950s, few elite athletes spoke out on racial issues. But Brown had no hesitation.Working to promote economic development in Cleveland’s Black neighborhoods while playing for the Browns, he founded the Negro Industrial and Economic Union (later known as the Black Economic Union) as a vehicle to create jobs. It facilitated loans to Black businessmen in poor areas — what he called Green Power — reflecting his long-held belief that economic self-sufficiency held more promise than mass protests.Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Brown and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor), seated from left, were among the leading Black athletes who met in 1967 to publicly voice their support for Ali.Tony Tomsic/Associated PressIn June 1967, Brown invited other leading Black athletes, most notably Bill Russell and Lew Alcindor (the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), to the office of his Economic Union to hear Muhammad Ali after Ali had been stripped of his heavyweight boxing title and faced imprisonment for refusing to be drafted in protest over the Vietnam War.In what came to be called the Ali Summit, viewed as a watershed for the development of racial awareness among athletes, Brown and the others at the session publicly voiced their support for Ali.By the early 1970s, Brown’s Economic Union had largely faded. But in the late 1980s he founded the Amer-I-Can Foundation to teach basic life skills to gang members and prisoners, mainly in California, and steer them away from violence. The foundation expanded nationally and remains active.Handsome with a magnificent physique — he was a chiseled 6 feet 2 inches and 230 pounds — Brown appeared in many movies and was sometimes cited as a Black Superman for his cinematic adventures.“Although the range of emotion Brown displayed onscreen was no wider than a mail slot, he never embarrassed himself, never played to a demeaning stereotype of the comic patsy,” James Wolcott wrote in The New York Review of Books in his review of Dave Zirin’s 2018 biography, “Jim Brown: Last Man Standing.” He called Brown “a rugged chassis for a more self-assertive figure, the Black uberman.”One of Brown’s best-remembered roles was in “The Dirty Dozen” (1967), in which he played one of 12 convicts assembled by the Army for a near-suicide mission to kill high-ranking German officers at a French chateau in advance of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. He next played a Marine captain in the Cold War thriller “Ice Station Zebra” (1968).Brown, left, in a scene from the 1967 movie “The Dirty Dozen.” Donald Sutherland is at right.MGMIn 1969, his character was shown having sex with Raquel Welch’s character in the western “100 Rifles,” the first major Hollywood film depicting a Black man making love to a white woman.Brown was “becoming a Black John Wayne; or maybe John Wayne with just a hint of Malcolm X thrown in,” Gloria Steinem wrote in New York magazine in 1968. She quoted him as saying: “I don’t want to play Negro parts. Just cool, tough modern men who are also Negroes. And not good guys all the time.”But Brown had a problematic personal life.He was arrested more than a half-dozen times, in most cases when women accused him of violent behavior, at a time when prominent men like athletes, actors and political figures were generally not held accountable for purported transgressions against women.Brown was never convicted of a major crime. In some instances the accusers refused to testify, and in others he was exonerated by juries.The first accusation against Brown was lodged in 1965, when an 18-year-old woman testified that he had assaulted her at a Cleveland motel. Brown denied the allegation and was found not guilty in a jury trial. A year later, the woman filed a civil paternity suit claiming that Brown had fathered her baby daughter. The jury found in his favor.In June 1968, the police, arriving at Brown’s Hollywood home after a neighbor phoned to report a disturbance, found his 22-year-old girlfriend, Eva Bohn-Chin, a model, lying bloodied and badly injured on his patio. They suspected that Brown had thrown her off his second-story balcony. He said she had fallen. Ms. Bohn-Chin refused to testify, which resulted in the dismissal of an assault charge. Brown paid a $300 fine for interfering with a police officer who had been seeking entrance to his home.Brown’s wife, Sue Brown, with whom he had three children, obtained a divorce in 1972.Brown with Spike Lee, the director of the documentary “Jim Brown: All American,” in 2002.David Lee/HBOWhen Spike Lee released his documentary “Jim Brown: All American” in 2002, Brown was in jail in the Los Angeles area, having lost an appeal over a misdemeanor vandalism conviction in 1999. Brown’s wife at that time, Monique Brown, had called the police to report that he smashed the windows of her car with a shovel after an argument.Brown had been offered community service and anger management counseling, but he refused to accept that and was jailed for nearly four months. But the marriage endured.“I can definitely get angry, and I have taken that anger out inappropriately in the past,” Brown told Sports Illustrated in an interview at the jail. “But I have done so with both men and women.”In 1978, Brown was sentenced to a day in jail and fined $500 for beating and choking a male friend during their golf match in Inglewood, Calif., evidently after an argument over the spot where his friend had placed his ball on the ninth green.“So do I have a problem with women?” Brown added in the interview. “No. I have had anger, and I’ll probably continue to have anger. I just have to not strike out at anyone ever again.”Brown maintained over the years that he been victimized because of his race or his celebrity status. In an interview with Judy Klemesrud of The New York Times in April 1969, in which he spoke about the balcony incident, he said, “The cops were after me because I’m free and Black and I’m supposed to be arrogant and supposed to be militant and I swing free and loose and have been outspoken on racial matters and I don’t preach against Black militant groups and I’m not humble.”Rural BeginningsJames Nathaniel Brown was born on Feb. 17, 1936, on St. Simons Island, off the Georgia coast, a rural area where the Black populace lived off the land. When he was a few weeks old, his father, Swinton Brown, who had a reputation as a gambler and womanizer, abandoned him and Jim’s teenage mother, Theresa Brown. When he was 2, she took a job as a domestic in Great Neck, N.Y., on Long Island, an overwhelmingly white but politically liberal community, leaving him in Georgia in the care of a great-grandmother, a grandmother and an aunt.She sent for him when he was 8, and they lived together for a while, she continued to work as a housekeeper. By his account he felt that she was more interested in her boyfriends than in attending to his needs; he eventually moved in with the family of his girlfriend in nearby Manhasset.At Manhasset High School, he became a brilliant running back and lacrosse player, and also competed in basketball and baseball and ran track.The second Black player in the history of Syracuse football, Brown became an all-American in football and lacrosse. In his final regular-season football game, a 61-7 victory over Colgate, he scored six touchdowns, kicked seven extra points and ran for 197 yards. Syracuse went to the 1957 Cotton Bowl, where Brown scored three touchdowns and kicked three extra points in a 28-27 loss to Texas Christian.Brown in 1957, when he was a halfback at Syracuse University. He earned all-American honors there in football and lacrosse.Associated PressCleveland selected Brown as the No. 6 pick of the 1957 N.F.L. draft. He won the first of his three Most Valuable Player Awards, as selected by The Associated Press, when he ran for a league-leading 942 yards as a rookie.After the 1962 season, Brown led a group of players who complained to Modell, the team owner, that Paul Brown, the franchise’s founder and head coach, was too rigid in continuing with conservative offensive schemes that were being bypassed by other N.F.L. teams using wide-open offenses.Blanton Collier was named coach in 1963, and Brown had his greatest season, running for an N.F.L. record 1,863 yards. The Browns defeated the Baltimore Colts for the N.F.L. championship in 1964. Brown won his third M.V.P. award in 1965, when the Browns again played for the league championship, this time losing to the Green Bay Packers.Brown led the N.F.L. in rushing in eight of his nine seasons. He also set N.F.L. records for career yardage (12,312), total touchdowns (126), touchdowns by running (106), and average yards rushing per game (104) and per carry (5.22). He ran for more than 1,000 yards seven times when teams played only 12 and then 14 games a season (they now play 17), and at a time when the rule book favored the passing game over running plays. He caught 20 touchdown passes, and he returned kickoffs.Brown credited his offensive linemen with springing him into the secondary, and then, as he told Alex Haley in a 1968 interview with Playboy, “I was on my own.”“Then I had a man-to-man situation going me against them; that’s when I’d go into my bag of stuff,” he said. “They’re in trouble now; I’m in their territory; 55 things are happening at once; I’m moving, evaluating their possible moves, trying to outthink and outmaneuver them, using my speed, quickness and balance.”Brown in the Browns’ dressing room at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 12, 1964, after Cleveland beat the Giants to win the Eastern Conference title for the first time since 1957.Associated Press“But sometimes it got down to out-and-out strength and brute force,” Brown said. “Some guys, if they were small enough, I’d just run over them.”Brown seemed perpetually battered, getting up slowly after running plays, but he said that was a psychological tactic. As he put it in his 1989 memoir “Out of Bounds,” written with Steve Delsohn, “By getting up with leisure every play, every game, every season, they never knew if I was hurt or if I wasn’t.”Most of Brown’s especially significant records have been eclipsed. But he was accorded tributes long after his football career ended.In 1994, he was named to the N.F.L.’s 75th anniversary all-time team. In 2015, Syracuse University unveiled statues of Brown and the star running backs who succeeded him, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little, all of whom wore No. 44, on a patio called Plaza 44. The second Browns franchise dedicated a statue of Brown outside its FirstEnergy Stadium in 2016.Seeking support for his Amer-I-Can Foundation’s efforts to curb gang violence, Brown and the former star N.F.L. linebacker Ray Lewis met with president-elect Donald J. Trump at his Trump Tower office in Manhattan in December 2016. Brown and the musician Kanye West had lunch with Mr. Trump at the White House in October 2018.“This is the president of the United States,” Brown said after the White House meeting. “He allowed me to be invited to his territory, he treated us beautifully, and he shared some thoughts, and he will be open to talking when I get back to him.”In 2013, Brown returned to Manhasset High School, on Long Island, where a plaque in his honor was unveiled.Barton Silverman/The New York TimesHe married Monique Gunthrop in 1997, and she survives him. Brown is also survived by their son, Aris, and their daughter, Morgan; a daughter, Kim, and a son, Kevin, who were twins, and another son, James Jr., from his marriage to Sue (Jones) Brown.At least one defensive player looked at the bright side in describing an encounter with Brown. Remembering the first time he faced him, the Dallas Cowboys’ Pro Bowl linebacker Chuck Howley told Life magazine: “I had one of my best days. I made almost as much yardage as he did — riding on his back.” More

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      At Cannes, Harrison Ford Bids a Teary Goodbye to Indiana Jones

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      The star was happy with the new film’s de-aging effect but “I don’t look back and say I wish I was that guy again, because I don’t. I’m real happy with age.”Harrison Ford was beginning to tear up and the movie hadn’t even started yet.It all went down Thursday night at the Cannes Film Festival premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” part of the five-film adventure franchise that Ford kicked off when he was 37 years old and now, at 80, is bringing to a conclusion. After Ford took his seat in the Grand Théâtre Lumière, the festival director, Thierry Frémaux, addressed him from the stage. “We have something special for you,” he said.Ford raised his eyebrows. A surprise? Well, a clip reel — or as Frémaux put it, an “hommage.” And as Frémaux continued to speak, Ford’s lower lip began to quiver.As an actor, Ford can be beguilingly vulnerable — watch the way his eyes widen when he takes an onscreen sucker punch — but as a public figure, he has a reputation as a curmudgeon. This is a man who says no more than he has to in interviews, and attempts to probe his emotional state are typically swatted away.But something is different this time around. As Frémaux cued the clip reel, Ford pressed his hands together, brought them to his lips and blew Frémaux an appreciative kiss. A montage followed that tracked Ford’s career from its humble beginnings through the explosive superstardom of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones,” and when he was brought up to the stage afterward to receive an honorary Palme d’Or, Ford’s voice trembled. “I just saw my life flash before my eyes,” he joked.He was even more emotional two and a half hours later when “Dial of Destiny” ended, the lights came up and a cameraman scurried back over to capture Ford’s reaction. The actor’s eyes were wet with tears that he made no effort to brush away, and asked about it the next day at a news conference for the film, Ford had to collect himself.“It was indescribable. I felt …” He paused, then chuckled softly. “I can’t even tell you,” he said. “It’s just extraordinary to see a kind of relic of your life as it passes by. But the warmth of this place, the sense of community, the welcome is unimaginable. It makes me feel good.”In its initial bow on the Croisette, “Dial of Destiny” has so far received mixed reviews. It’s the first in the series to be directed by someone other than Steven Spielberg — this time, it’s James Mangold (“Walk the Line,” “Logan”) — and the changeover is noticeable: “Dial of Destiny” is missing Spielberg’s sense of humor and the giddy pleasure that’s conjured just from the inventive way he blocks a scene.But Ford holds the whole thing together as its star. Though he’s introduced in a prologue that digitally de-ages him, by the time the movie arrives in 1969, Ford’s Indiana seems every bit as weathered as the artifacts he searches for. Gray-haired, estranged from his wife, Marion (Karen Allen), and out of step with the times, this is a more beaten-down Indiana Jones then we’re used to seeing, and Ford leans all the way in. An adventure ensues that brings back his sense of derring-do, but it’s clear throughout the film that Indiana is preparing to hang up his hat.So is Ford: Though he is busier than ever, with roles on the shows “Shrinking” and “1923,” he has said that this will be the last time he plays his most iconic character. When asked why at the news conference, Ford gestured to himself in disbelief.“Is it not evident?” he said. “I need to sit down and rest a little bit.”An Australian reporter begged to differ. “I still think you’re very hot,” she said. “I was stunned to see you take your shirt off in the second scene. And you’ve still got it!”Replied Ford with mock-grandeur, “Look, I’ve been blessed with this body. Thanks for noticing.”With Ford successfully de-aged in the film’s prologue, and Lucasfilm willing to use body doubles and CGI to create a young Luke Skywalker on “The Mandalorian,” is there any chance we could see that technology used to put a young Indiana Jones in future movies that don’t physically star Ford?“No,” replied the producer Kathleen Kennedy.“You got the answer from the right person,” Ford said.Still, he confessed that it was unusual to watch himself as a young man in the film’s prologue. At a time when Ford is contemplating his life’s full span, it provided a reminder that he’s content exactly where he is.“I’m very happy with it, but I don’t look back and say I wish I was that guy again, because I don’t,” he said. “I’m real happy with age, I love being older. It was great to be young.”Ford grinned. “I could be dead! But I’m still working. Go figure.” More

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      Why the Original ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ Is Timeless

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      Unlike most sports films, the original tale of streetball adversaries, played by Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes, wasn’t about winning or losing.“White Men Can’t Jump” was released on March 27, 1992. On the morning of March 28 — according to a wonderful if apocryphal sports legend — Michael Jordan rolled up to the Sunset Ridge Country Club in the suburbs of Chicago, drank around 10 bottles of Coors Light and played two rounds of golf. He had a game that night. Brimming with beer, Jordan posted 44 points, six assists and three steals to help the Bulls beat the visiting Cavaliers 126 to 102.The writer-director Ron Shelton’s brisk, lighthearted basketball comedy isn’t about the N.B.A., and the only time Jordan is mentioned, it’s somewhat disparagingly: Sidney Deane, the stylish, loudmouthed streetball virtuoso played by Wesley Snipes, brags that Jordan was impressed with his skills and advised him to join the summer league, an offer he declined. (Professional training, Sidney balks, “might mess up my game.”) But there is something of Jordan’s brazen, bravura post-beer performance in “White Men Can’t Jump,” which fairly thrums with cocksure athletic swagger. It’s not, like many sports movies, about what it takes to win. It’s about what it takes to win with panache.A hit with audiences and critics back then — in The Times, Janet Maslin praised its “raucous wit” — the movie’s reputation has swelled enormously in the intervening three decades. “White Men Can’t Jump” has since emerged as a bona fide classic, adored by basketball fans and cherished for its loving depiction of streetball. On Friday, Hulu will release a remake starring Sinqua Walls and the rapper Jack Harlow, though it hardly seems likely to recapture the singular magic of the original (which is also streaming on Hulu).Sinqua Walls, left, and Jack Harlow in the Hulu remake of the film.Peter Lovino/20th Century Studios, via Associated PressPart of the appeal is in how grounded the movie seems in its time and place. Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson) is a gifted hooper who makes a precarious living for himself and his girlfriend, Gloria (Rosie Perez), by hustling Black streetball players who underestimate him because he’s white. When he shows up to the courts of Venice Beach, Shelton shoots our entree into this world with a local’s eye for color. We see sand being combed, people performing tai chi, bodybuilders curling dumbbells: the rich sense of detail establishes us firmly in this community. And what we appreciate immediately is that we are far, far away from the world of professional basketball: this is real Venice Beach streetball, and it’s basketball as a fixture of everyday life.Billy is there to take Sidney’s money. But other than a few cracks about race — Sidney and his friends mock the uncool-looking Billy as a geek — it’s clear that he fits right in. What Billy understands, and what the movie so beautifully expresses, is that streetball is about more than merely who is the most accomplished player. Streetball is about attitude and verve, about bombast and braggadocio. When Billy drains a three-pointer in a shootout, Sidney nonetheless derides his style: “No aesthetic beauty whatsoever,” he jeers. Or as one of Sidney’s friend puts it, after Sidney’s more elegant three in reply: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever. My man John Keats said that!”Other sports movies have captured the power of victory. Only “White Men Can’t Jump” has captured the power of talking smack. The movie is a master class in mockery and ridicule. On the court, Sidney and Billy eloquently extol the virtues of the incisive barb or well-timed insult, demonstrating the degree to which winning and losing in streetball comes down to disturbing an adversary’s concentration and preserving one’s own clarity of mind. “It’s different than your country club,” Sidney teases Billy, insinuating that he won’t be able to cut it on a real streetball court, where mental toughness more than simple proficiency is the name of the game. But Billy can malign with the best of them. “Let’s stop and gather all these bricks. Let’s build a homeless shelter,” he snickers, “so maybe your mother has a place to live!”Billy thinks he has Sidney’s number. “You’d rather look good and lose,” he tells him, “than look bad and win.” It’s an apt diagnosis, but it cuts both ways. Billy’s game is wrapped up in his ego and pride, too — a fact made clear when he later takes an ill-advised bet to prove that he can dunk, simply because he can’t stand to be insulted. Billy and Sidney both strive for what the Italian courtier and writer Baldassare Castiglione called “sprezzatura”: studied carelessness, “which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless.” They want to dominate, but more to the point, they want to make dominating look easy.It’s not that the movie endorses this point of view. In fact, it wisely complicates the idea, later making Billy pay for his hubris when Gloria leaves him over his obsession with the game. “Sometimes when you win, you really lose,” Gloria cautions Billy, in the film’s most memorable monologue, and perhaps the closest thing it has to a thesis statement. But the film understands the driving force that keeps Billy and Sidney in the game even when they should quit, and it’s one of the few movies of its kind to depict that pure streetball attitude with real wisdom. For these guys, ball is life. They can turn down a challenge about as easily as they can stop breathing.“White Men Can’t Jump” opens and closes on the same court on the same beach, with the same a cappella trio, the Venice Beach Boys. The circular structure is fitting for a movie about what is in essence an endless pastime — and we can well imagine Billy and Sidney remaining there, draining shots back and forth until the end of time. That may account for why the movie has endured for more than 30 years, and why its appeal seems timeless. It’s not just about a few games of basketball in the summer of 1992. It’s about the magic of streetball — and that magic is forever. More

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      ‘Movie Theaters Are the Marketplace of Free Ideas’

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      John Fithian saw a lot during his nearly three decades as the president and chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners, the top lobbyist for movie theaters, a tenure that ended on May 1.He grappled with the transition from film projection to digital cinema and engaged in multiple battles over the studios’ desire to shorten the amount of time newly released movies can exclusively be shown in theaters amid the rise of streaming services. Yet it wasn’t until spring 2020, at the start of the pandemic, when Mr. Fithian actually wondered whether his business was going to survive.Mr. Fithian said he was receiving calls “multiple times a day, from people saying, my third-, fourth-generation family business will be gone in a couple of months if you don’t get something for us,” he said with a nervous laugh. “That was that was when the crisis was very, very real to us.”He helped secure more than $2 billion in tax relief for the industry, allowing most of the country’s theater chains to stay afloat. In the end, only 2,000 screens were closed down.Mr. Fithian, 61, was raised in Washington, D.C., the son of former Representative Floyd Fithian of Indiana. He began his career as an outside counsel for clients that included the Major League Baseball players’ union and the theater owners’ association.“Hearing theater owners talk about why they went into business or why their grandparents went into the business was completely inspiring,” he said. “It sounds silly, but movie theaters are the marketplace of free ideas.”This interview, which was condensed and edited for clarity, was conducted during CinemaCon, an annual industry trade event, in Las Vegas.When was the moment when you felt like the movie theater business was going to be OK?About a month ago. (Laughs.) In 2022, we knew that people were coming back on a per-film basis at prepandemic rates so that kind of gave us the inkling that everything would be fine if the movies kept coming back. But, to be completely confident that this business will now grow to higher levels, that was only within the last few months, with pronouncements from the leaders of the major studios about their release slates going forward, by Amazon and Apple jumping into the theatrical business.Do you now see some silver linings to the pandemic?The so-called streaming wars that had started before the pandemic had the companies who owned streaming services, and Wall Street and its financial backers, believe that the only thing that mattered as a competitive business model was the number of subscribers to streaming services. We had heard from several studio leaders prepandemic that they really wanted to experiment with the elimination of a theatrical window.Eliminate it completely?“Some executives thought that. Others thought it should be dramatically shorter. There was a lot of pressure coming into the pandemic and during the pandemic. And release models totally changed. A lot of movies went only to streaming services. A lot of movies went simultaneously to theaters and streaming services. At the time, these were thought of as crisis moments for the creative community and for theater owners.But what happened is that a whole bunch of data came out of the pandemic about these theories of the theatrical window. One, it was quite clear when you compare the movies during the pandemic, the ones that had an exclusive theatrical window did much better theatrically, but then also did better when it got to the home. Two, we learned that piracy is exacerbated by shrinking the theatrical window. If movies are only in cinemas, the only way you can pirate a movie is with a recording device. And the quality level is not great. When a movie gets released to the home, a pristine digital, easily replicable, easy-to-distribute-around-the-world copy becomes available. So you’re literally cannibalizing movie theater sales from the very first day.Netflix is the last holdout when it comes to the theatrical space. Now that you have Amazon and Apple demonstrating a much greater interest in theatrical, does Netflix’s position matter as much?I’m just stoked that one of my goals before retirement was to get two out of three of the streamers to go theatrical. We got two out of three. I just didn’t think those would be the two.Do you believe you’ve permanently lost moviegoers because of changing habits developed during the pandemic?We don’t think so. We were very nervous about that right when we started coming out of the pandemic, and there was data early in the reopening that suggested that two demographics, seniors and families with small children, weren’t prepared to come back to cinemas. Then it became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because studios wouldn’t theatrically distribute movies that appealed primarily to seniors, or to families with young children. Now the data is clear that movies released targeting those demographics are performing similar or better than they did in 2019, just like the movies targeted to other demographics. It was not a big surprise to us that the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” was going to do an extraordinary amount of business.People love to criticize the moviegoing experience: It’s too loud, and people talk, use their phones, and you have to sit through 30 minutes of ads before the movie starts. Is there an awareness that there are issues with going to the movie theater?We surveyed lots of theater owners about their plans coming out of the pandemic about adding premium large format screens, about replacing their sound systems, about adding alcohol service, about continuing to replace their seats. And the numbers are really strong. Now that the business is coming back, the theater owners have already started to continue to innovate and improve the experience so that it’s always better than the home.In both Los Angeles and New York, quite a few prime theaters that catered to independent film have shut down. Do you think independent film is struggling for a home nowadays?There’s a fascinating thing to me that I’ve noticed throughout my 30 years of representing theater owners, and that is what happens in Los Angeles or New York suggest to the creative community, the moviemakers, the reporters who cover our business, and the financial community, that is the movie experience. There’s a lot more out there. One company, Pacific Theaters, which ran the ArcLight, is the only company in the country who filed Chapter Seven bankruptcy. They went out of business entirely. There were a couple Chapter 11 reorganizations, but the only one that said, “Eh, I’m done” was Pacific. It does not mean that the art houses across the country closed down.What is a misconception people have about the movie theater business that you’ve tried to correct but didn’t succeed?Ticket prices. Even through all the innovations and improvements in the technology, and the sound systems and the premium screens — all the ways that we’ve improved the cinema experience over the last decade or two, it’s still the case that the average price of a ticket today on a cost-of-living basis is less than it was in the 1970s. And yet people always say movie tickets are too expensive.What are the biggest challenges facing the theatrical exhibition business going forward?I think the existential challenges — the pandemic, the streaming wars — are gone. I’m really the most optimistic I’ve been in 30 years about the future of the business. The biggest immediate challenge is it’s going to take a while to fix the balance sheets.Long term, it’s still about two things: the creation and distribution of really good movies that appeal to all demographics in all different genres, with diverse casts and diverse themes, and really good operational experiences at theaters that also offer diversity and different value-based judgments. If the studio partners keep making really good movies that appeal to diverse audiences, and we keep innovating and upgrading cinema experiences, I’m very bullish on the long-term health of the industry.Were you a movie lover before you took this job?I like movies. But I was principally a First Amendment lover, and a First Amendment lawyer in Washington. Our members will play everything: the most radical, left-wing anarchist film, the most conservative religious film, and we get protests on both sides. To me it was always like, “Bring it on.” Movie theaters are the town halls of modern society. It’s where people go to experience something collectively, and then debate the issues of the day.What is the thing you are going to miss the least?I don’t know who I’m going to miss the least, the really aggressive know-it-alls in Hollywood or the really aggressive know-it-alls in Washington, D.C. A lot of these people are my really good friends, and I’ll have some lasting relationships with both creatives and studio executives, but, you know, sometimes just because you run a big studio or you’re a United States senator doesn’t mean you know everything. I will not miss that. More

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      A Look at the ‘Fast and Furious’ Franchise Feuds

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      As “Fast X” races into theaters, here’s a look at the conflicts — star vs. star, star vs. director and more — that have kept this franchise in high gear.Over the course of more than 20 years of the “Fast and Furious” — the 10th in the franchise, “Fast X,” arrives this weekend — battles have been fought, villains have been overcome, friends have become foes and lovers have been reunited. (There was even a case of alignment-altering amnesia.)Behind the scenes, though, the conflicts have been no less fractious, with stars variously attacking the producers, their castmates and the franchise itself. With so much drama onscreen and off, it can be difficult to keep track of who has feuded and who is still feuding. So in honor of “Fast X,” here’s a guide to the beefs of the “Fast and the Furious.”Brian vs. DomThe series of explosive, high-octane blockbusters involving international espionage and elaborate multimillion-dollar heists began with “The Fast and the Furious,” a relatively straightforward 2001 crime thriller about an undercover cop trying to bust a Los Angeles street racing ring. The cop was Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), and his quarry was the brawny, mysterious Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). The pair faced off on the road, as uneasy friends turned enemies on opposite sides of the law, until their reconciling in an extravagant show of mutual respect. In the aftermath, Brian and Dom teamed up, stealing supercars and helping the feds as demanded by various plot turns.Paul Walker and Vin Diesel vs. the ProducersAfter the success of “The Fast and the Furious,” Diesel turned down at least $20 million to appear in the 2003 sequel, leaving Walker to reprise his role in “2 Fast 2 Furious” without his co-star. A third film, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” starred neither, which Walker attributed to “politics, studio stuff, a regime decision” (though Diesel did make a cameo appearance). By the time a fourth film was proposed, Walker felt he was finished with the franchise: He told The Los Angeles Times that he found the material “stale” and questioned “if there was even an audience anymore” for another movie. It took Diesel to persuade him to put his reservations aside and sign on. “I thought, ‘Why not?’” Walker said.Dom and Brian vs. HobbsWith “Fast Five” (2011), the street-racing franchise transformed into a heist flick: Brian, Dom and the rest of their fast-driving crew head to Rio de Janeiro to steal a safe full of cash from a nefarious drug kingpin. In hot pursuit is the big-biceped Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), an agent with the Diplomatic Security Service whose motor skills rival Brian and Dom’s. They have no choice but to put up a fight — a conflict resolved in later films when Hobbs joins their team.Dwayne Johnson vs. Vin DieselIn summer 2016, toward the end of production on the eighth installment, “The Fate of the Furious,” Johnson surprised fans when he appeared to criticize the cast: “My female co-stars are amazing and I love ’em. My male co-stars however are a different story,” he wrote in a now-deleted caption on Instagram. “Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t,” adding some colorful expletives denigrating the men. Many assumed he was calling out Diesel — a hunch later confirmed by both actors, who said they did not share any scenes together. Johnson has since slammed Diesel as “manipulative,” and he did not appear in “F9” or “Fast X.”Letty vs. the CrewDom’s wife, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), died in the fourth entry, “Fast & Furious” (2009), at the hands of a drug lord and his right-hand man during an undercover bust gone wrong. But she made a dramatic — if somewhat far-fetched — return two films later, revealed to have survived the explosion that seemed to kill her but suffering from amnesia. She spends the bulk of “Fast & Furious 6” (2013) on the villains’ side, fighting Dom and the crew without remembering who they are, until she’s won over by the sight of a precious heirloom. Dom works to restore Letty’s memory throughout “Furious 7.”Shaw (and Shaw) vs. the CrewThe antagonist of “Furious 6” is the nefarious British agent Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), a hardened, elite soldier ultimately defeated by Dom and his crew. “Furious 7” (2015) introduces a brother out for revenge: one Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the more ruthless sibling, who wants blood after our heroes landed Owen in a coma. Deckard has had wavering allegiances throughout the films, occasionally teaming up with Dom and company and, in the spinoff “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,” partnering with Johnson’s Shaw in a classic buddy action scenario.Tyrese Gibson vs Dwayne JohnsonAfter the public remarks by Johnson about his male co-stars, Tyrese Gibson — who has appeared in seven “Fast and Furious” movies as the fan favorite Roman Pearce — seemed to turn on his fellow actor. On Instagram, he appeared to object to Johnson making the 2019 spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw,” claiming that Johnson “purposely ignored the heart-to-heart” they had by moving forward with it, and that by refusing to appear in subsequent “Fast” films with Diesel and others, he “really broke up the #FastFamily.” Johnson never responded, and in late 2020, Gibson said that the two had “peaced up” and resolved the dispute.Michelle Rodriguez vs. the Franchise2001: After signing on to play the female lead in the original “Fast and the Furious,” Rodriguez vociferously objected to her character’s intended role as the trophy girlfriend, demanding that the filmmakers rewrite Letty to be more independent-minded. She particularly took issue with a story line that put her in a love triangle with Dom and Brian: “I basically cried and said I’m going to quit,” she told The Daily Beast in 2015. Her objections were taken seriously, and ultimately the love triangle was scrapped and the character changed.2017: In an Instagram post to mark the digital release of “Fate of the Furious,” Rodriguez made the surprising announcement that she “just might have to say goodbye to a loved franchise,” unless “they decide to show some love to the women of the franchise on the next one.” Happily, Rodriguez committed to reprising her role in “F9” (2021) and beyond after reaching an agreement with Universal that brought on a female screenwriter.Justin Lin vs. Vin DieselThe director Justin Lin, who had previously helmed five of the “Fast” movies, was set to direct the latest entry, “Fast X,” but dramatically quit after shooting began. According to The Hollywood Reporter, heavy-handed studio notes, changing locations and near-constant updates to the screenplay contributed to the creative conflicts that sent Lin packing, but the final straw was a meeting with Diesel, who had some notes of his own. The meeting is alleged to have ended with a slammed door and Lin’s stepping down. Diesel obliquely acknowledged the conflict in an interview with Total Film, saying, “It wasn’t an easy time,” and adding, “Nothing but love for Justin, and nothing but gratitude for the work that he did to get us to that first week of filming.” The replacement director, Louis Leterrier, said in that interview that when he took over, he asked, “‘OK, what did Justin do? Can I see storyboards? Can I see shot lists?’ I took it all in. And then you find your bearings, and it becomes yours.” More

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      ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ Premieres at Cannes

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      After paying tribute to an emotional Harrison Ford, the festival unspooled the newest sequel to decidedly mixed results. On Thursday, Harrison Ford stood before a rapturous crowd at the Cannes Film Festival and reminded us that Tom Cruise isn’t the last movie star.Ford, here with the latest “Indiana Jones” sequel, didn’t arrive at his premiere with a retinue of fighter jets, as Cruise did last year for “Top Gun: Maverick.” Instead Ford, now 80, gave the festival and the volubly appreciative audience exactly what it wanted and needed: glamour, yes, but also soul, emotion, that familiar crinkly smile and a lot of great history.That history was on display in a snappy, coherently edited homage that got the evening started. The salute took off with a clip from Agnès Varda’s “The World of Jacques Demy” (1995), itself a feature-length tribute to her husband that’s a reminder of Ford’s French connections. In the late 1960s, Demy had wanted to cast the then-unknown Ford in “Model Shop” but couldn’t convince the studio to hire him. Demy settled for another actor, but he and Varda remained friends with Ford. It’s a blast when the actor, looking at the camera, says with a smile, “I’m told that the studio said to forget me, that I had no future in this business.”After racing through other career touchstones like “Blade Runner” and “Star Wars,” the homage culminated with a title card that proclaimed Ford “one of the greatest stars in the history of cinema.” It’s no wonder that when Ford took to the stage of the Lumière theater, which with some 2,000 seats is imposingly large, he looked so visibly moved. By his side was the festival’s director, Thierry Frémaux, who, speaking in English, gushed about Ford as giddily as a kid who’s still high after seeing Indy onscreen for the first time. Rather anticlimactically, Frémaux also presented Ford an honorary Palme d’Or.“I’m very touched, I’m very moved by this,” Ford said. “They say that when you’re about to die, you see your life flash before your eyes. And I just saw my life flash before my eyes — a great part of my life, but not all of my life. My life has been enabled by my lovely wife,” he continued, looking out into the audience at Calista Flockhart. He then told the attendees that he loved them — people shouted, “We love you!” in return — and after a few more sweetly gruff words, Ford reminded the room that “I have a movie you ought to see.”That movie, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” — oops, I mean “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” — was, alas, a disappointment and not just because a funny, misty-eyed and charming Harrison Ford proclaiming his love in the flesh to fans is a tough act to follow. One problem is that the movie itself plays like a greatest-hits reel. It’s stuffed with Nazis, chase sequences, explosions, crashes and what seems like almost every adventure-film cliché that the series has deployed and recycled since it began, though unlike the Cannes reel, there’s nothing snappy about this 154-minute slog.It’s too bad. Ford certainly deserves better, and the director James Mangold can do better. (He shares script credit with Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and David Koepp.) Mangold has toggled between Hollywood and indiewood throughout his career, with credits that include “Cop Land,” an indie crime drama with Sylvester Stallone, and “Logan,” one of the finest Marvel-superhero movies. “Logan” was especially striking simply because Mangold managed to put his own stamp on material that all too often is so deliberately generic and industrial that the results could have come off an assembly line.“The Dial of Destiny” — the title alone didn’t bode well — isn’t terrible. It’s at once overstuffed and anemic, both too much and not nearly enough. It’s also wildly unmodulated for roughly the first half. It opens in 1944 Europe with Indy being manhandled by Nazis amid a lot of choreographed chaos, his head covered in a cloth bag. When the bag comes off, it reveals a distractingly digitally de-aged Ford, looking kind-of-but-not-really like he looked in the first couple of films. A lot happens and happens again, mostly character introductions, explanations and stuff whirring rapidly.The movie improves in the second half, slowing and quieting down enough for the actors to do more than run, grimace and shout. By then, the casting of Fleabag, a.k.a. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, as Indy’s latest partner-in-adventure makes sense, whether she’s quipping or flexing her action-chick muscles. She’s fun to watch, as are Mads Mikkelsen, Toby Jones and Antonio Banderas, who exit and enter with winks and sneers. Of course the real attraction here is Ford, who holds your attention when the movie doesn’t and whose every wisecrack, flirty gaze and slow burn make it clear that he didn’t have to be de-aged because — as everyone in that vibrating room at Cannes knew — he’s immortal. More

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      ‘The Taking’ Review: This Land Is Not Your Land

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      Monument Valley embodies the Old West. But the fantasies presented in Westerns obscure its darker history and the lives of the Navajo people who inhabit it.Whether it’s John Wayne films or Chevrolet ads, Monument Valley has been immortalized in the American imagination as a symbol of this nation’s vast potential. “The Taking,” a new documentary directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, examines the site’s complicated position as a representation of the Old West despite being located on Navajo land.In the film, images and clips of movies, TV shows and advertising campaigns that have traditionally featured Monument Valley are accompanied by voice-overs that explain how white cowboys have been viewed as heroes and Native Americans as aggressors, obscuring a history of genocide and oppression.The film argues that perhaps no one has been more central to this effort than the director John Ford, who used the region as the backdrop for his western movies, with the dramatic landscape evoking and perpetuating ideals of freedom and liberation central to his stories of rugged cowboys and villainous “Indians.”Obscured in this myth making is the reality of the Navajo people, many of whom still live in the region without running water or access to stable incomes. “The Taking” is successful in demonstrating the way in which Monument Valley has become a canvas onto which the public can superimpose their own ideas and myths. But had it included more current images of the region and the realities of the Navajo people, it may have been more effective in replacing these myths, going beyond film analysis to altering imagination.The TakingNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 16 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Stay Awake’ Review: Becoming Their Mother’s Caretakers

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      This story of a small-town family impacted by addiction succeeds in humanizing its characters but falters when it tries to include a coming-of-age tale.Jamie Sisley’s narrative feature directorial debut, “Stay Awake,” is not a novel story for those with a family member or loved one struggling with addiction. A small-town drama, the film stars Wyatt Oleff and Fin Argus as two teenage brothers, Ethan and Derek, who are forced to become caregivers for their mother, Michelle (Chrissy Metz), after she becomes dependent on prescription painkillers. It’s an all-too-familiar scenario across the United States, and the highs, lows and disappointments that Michelle and her sons face throughout her rocky treatment are both incredibly human and unfortunately predictable.“Stay Awake” does its best to center both its addiction story and Ethan and Derek’s own separate coming-of-age arcs, all without demonizing any of its characters.It’s an admirable goal that sometimes comes off as clunky and meandering, such as when Ethan awkwardly breaks up with his girlfriend by revealing he plans to go to a different college. The ensuing drama doesn’t quite match up to the life-or-death stakes present elsewhere in the film, or even to other situations Ethan faces, like having a secret crush on a male classmate. Despite such shortcomings, Oleff, Argus and Metz succeed in depicting both the frustrations and the compassion associated with caring for relatives who continuously harm themselves.Stay AwakeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More