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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Below the Belt’ and a Juneteenth celebration

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      A new documentary from Hillary Clinton about living with endometriosis is on PBS, and a commemoration of Black survival and culture streams live on CNN and OWN.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, June 19-25. Details and times are subject to change.MondayBLACK POP: CELEBRATING THE POWER OF BLACK CULTURE 8 p.m. on E! The N.B.A. star Stephen Curry is an executive producer and the actress La La Anthony the narrator of this four-part docu-series exploring the influence of Black celebrities and entertainers on pop culture. With a spotlight on Black icons including Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams and Spike Lee, the series demonstrates how figures like these have shaped music, film and sports — and American culture at large.JUNETEENTH: A GLOBAL CELEBRATION FOR FREEDOM 8 p.m. on CNN and OWN. The second iteration of this commemorative celebration of Black culture and survival aims to educate and uplift viewers. The presentation includes preshow coverage of Black trailblazers and creators (beginning at 7 p.m.), and performances from artists like Miguel, Kirk Franklin, SWV, Davido, Coi Leray and Jodeci. The three-hour special will be streamed live from the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.TuesdayChristopher Lloyd, left, and Michael J. Fox in “Back to the Future.”PhotofestBACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) 6 p.m. on AMC. Set in 1985, this Oscar-nominated film turned cult classic follows the teenage Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) after he is accidentally sent back in time, to the year 1955, and encounters his parents as high schoolers who haven’t fallen in love yet. After inadvertently causing his mother to fall for him instead, Marty must find a way to secure his future existence by bringing his parents together — while also figuring out how to get back to the year 1985. “In less resourceful hands, the idea might quickly have worn thin,” Janet Maslin wrote in her review of the film for The New York Times. But the film’s director, Robert Zemeckis (“Forrest Gump,” “The Polar Express”), she writes, “is able both to keep the story moving and to keep it from going too far,” concluding that “one of the most appealing things about ‘Back to the Future’ is its way of putting nostalgia gently in perspective.”WednesdayMike Ricker, left, and Eric Tumbarello in “LA Fire and Rescue.”Chris Haston/NBCLA FIRE & RESCUE 8 p.m. on NBC. This new docu-series from the producers of the fire and rescue squad drama “Chicago Fire” tells the real-life stories of members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Through footage of rescues and interviews with firefighters, the series documents the lived experiences of those working on the front lines of California’s (and the nation’s) most populous county.CHINA’S CORPORATE SPY WAR 10 p.m. on CNBC. Featuring interviews with government officials and lawmakers, including the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, and the U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Marco Rubio, as well as a number of intelligence experts, this hourlong documentary explores the world of economic espionage, focusing on China’s campaign to steal trade secrets from some of the biggest businesses in the United States. Reported by Eamon Javers, a veteran Washington correspondent and author of a book on corporate spying, the documentary argues that the campaign is more malicious than a desire for information in order to compete with American companies — maintaining that it’s rooted in China’s wish to destroy key businesses in its pursuit of global economic domination.BELOW THE BELT: THE LAST HEALTH TABOO 10 p.m. on PBS. Four women ranging in age and background share their stories in this feature-length documentary about the struggles of patients with endometriosis, a chronic condition that the World Health Organization has said affects 10 percent of women and girls. Hillary Clinton is one of the executive producers of the film, which explores how patients often fight to have their symptoms believed, diagnosed and treated in a broken healthcare system.ThursdayAnthony Anderson, left, and his mother, Doris Hancox, in “Trippin’ With Anthony Anderson and Mama Doris.”Simone Padovani/E! EntertainmentTRIPPIN’ WITH ANTHONY ANDERSON AND MAMA DORIS 10 p.m. on E! In this eight-episode mini-series, the Emmy Award-nominated actor Anthony Anderson (“Black-ish,” “Law & Order”) takes his mother, Doris Hancox, on a six-week vacation through England, France and Italy. The mother-son duo navigate new cultures, and their clashing personalities, in a series of adventures — like walking in African Fashion Week and hunting for truffle — as their relationship deepens.FridayTauba Auerbach in “Art in the Twenty-First Century: Bodies of Knowledge.” Art21ART IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: BODIES OF KNOWLEDGE 10 p.m. on PBS. This Peabody Award-winning series about contemporary visual art follows a group of 12 artists who share their thoughts and creative processes while painting, designing and sculpting pieces of artwork inspired by the current moment. The second episode of Season 11 — which premiered in April — focuses on the artists Anicka Yi, Tauba Auerbach, Hank Willis Thomas, and the Guerrilla Girls as they explore the concepts of truth and historical record through art.SaturdayMarlon Brando in “On the Waterfront.”Turner NetworksON THE WATERFRONT (1954) 8 p.m. on TCM. Inspired by a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning articles by Malcolm Johnson on terrorism and racketeering on New York’s waterfront, written for The New York Sun in 1948, this Academy Award-winning crime drama focuses on union violence and corruption among a group of longshoremen in Hoboken, N.J. The film stars Marlon Brando (who won Best Actor for his role) as Terry Malloy, a boxer turned dock worker who becomes embroiled in the murder of his colleague Joey (Ben Wagner). With the rest of the longshoreman afraid to speak out after rumors spread that Joey was killed because he planned to testify against their corrupt boss and the union, the film follows Brando’s Malloy as he wrestles with how to move forward. A review in The Times described the drama as “an uncommonly powerful, exciting and imaginative use of the screen by gifted professionals.”Sunday2023 BET AWARDS 8 p.m. on BET. Streaming live from Los Angeles, the BET Awards — an annual ceremony that celebrates the work of Black artists and athletes — will commemorate hip-hop’s 50th anniversary with a lineup of hip-hop performances spanning decades and styles. Featured artists include Fat Joe, Soulja Boy, DJ Unk, E-40, and Lil Uzi Vert, among many others. More

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      Angela Bassett on ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back’ at 25

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      At the Tribeca Festival, the star and director Kevin Sullivan discussed filming intimate scenes and working with Taye Diggs and Whoopi Goldberg.“How Stella Got Her Groove Back” is known for steamy scenes between Stella, a stern stockbroker played by Angela Bassett, and a young Jamaican man half her age. At the Tribeca Festival on Saturday, Bassett reflected on filming those intimate moments alongside Taye Diggs as her love interest, explaining the one responsibility her co-star shouldered: “He had to fulfill a Black woman’s fantasy.”Bassett and the film’s director, Kevin Sullivan, were at the festival to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the romance based on the novel by Terry McMillan.As Bassett entered the SVA Theater in a tangerine-colored suit and a feathered top, the audience erupted in applause and cheers with one fan shouting, “I love you!” The conversation touched on her co-stars, including Diggs and Whoopi Goldberg, the importance of filming in Jamaica and the legacy Bassett aimed to leave.With Torell Shavone Taylor moderating, Bassett began by recognizing McMillan, who with Ron Bass wrote the screenplay, and praising the costume designs of Ruth Carter, with whom Bassett worked closely on the “Black Panther” franchise.Bassett was always Sullivan’s choice to play Stella. He explained how a worldwide search led the filmmakers to cast Diggs as Winston Shakespeare, the 20-year-old hunk Stella gets involved with. Sullivan had seen Diggs performing on Broadway in “Rent,” and during rehearsals, the director would ask Diggs to sing to Bassett, to help with nerves and strengthen their chemistry.“It was important for me to make the love scenes from a woman’s point of view,” Sullivan added. “It was not Winston’s story. It was Stella’s story.”The romantic comedy was Sullivan’s directorial debut, and it later swept the 1999 NAACP Image Awards with wins for lead actress, supporting actress and motion picture. Bassett, who is known for powerful performances of memorable women in “What’s Love Got to Do It” and “Waiting to Exhale,” said she tried to find a balance between boldness and emotional vulnerability.“Whenever I take on a character, you’re looking for the totality of them and who they represent and what they are about, what struggles they’re going through,” Bassett said. “It’s not one- dimensional, and often throughout history we as Black women have been seen that way.”Getting Whoopi Goldberg to play Stella’s friend, Delilah, was a top priority. Bassett was a fan of the comedian, who signed on after Sullivan went to her home and spoke with her about the film. His favorite scene: after Delilah learns she has liver cancer, the friends share a playful moment in the hospital jamming to Marvin Gaye and giggling at old memories. The two had undeniable camaraderie and sisterhood, Bassett said, adding, “The scene when she passes, I felt that, for real, at her funeral because she was such a dear friend.”Though the novel was set in Jamaica, the studio initially wanted to film in Mexico, where crews and infrastructure were already in place. But Sullivan worried the cultural connection could be lost. By establishing a Jamaica-based crew and overcoming challenges like poor infrastructure, Sullivan said, the film “came in on time and under budget.” Bassett added that tourism even rose on the island, with audiences eager to find a Winston Shakespeare for themselves.Most recently, Bassett played the valiant Queen Ramonda in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” for which she received an Oscar nomination. She also stars as a first responder in the Fox TV series “9-1-1.” When asked about the legacy she hopes to leave, she said she felt privileged to play characters who are brilliant, courageous and sensual and who represent Black women as multifaceted beings.“I would hope that I illuminated the human experience,” Bassett said. More

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      How ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ Throws a ’90s Hip-Hop Party

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      The director and production designer of the latest installment in the robot action franchise discuss recreating the sights and sounds of 1990s Brooklyn culture.In previous “Transformers” movies, fans have seen their beloved robots Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Arcee battle their way out of plenty a dilemma. But have they ever seen an Autobot kick butt to the rhymes of LL Cool J? That’s the energy of “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” (in theaters), with its director Steven Caple Jr. giving the franchise an inclusive spin.The down on his luck Brooklyn native Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) is recruited by the Autobots to retrieve an artifact held by the museum researcher Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback) that could transport the stranded Autobots back to their home planet, Cybertron.Robot fights ensue (mainly with a rival faction called the Terrorcons), but apart from the dazzling effects and globe-trotting backdrops, what gives Caple’s film its singular identity is the 1990s New York City hip-hop it takes inspiration from.“The ’90s was a specific era, in general, that is definitely what we wanted to tap into with the film,” Caple said in an audio interview. A sense of Black cultural spirit — the fashion, music, and community — was one that Caple felt was missing from many big budget movies of that decade. He said that it was only present if you were watching films by Black directors like John Singleton and Ernest Dickerson, major influences for Caple.To imbue the film with this nostalgic presence, the production first needed to transform a section of Montreal into Brooklyn. The effects of gentrification in Brooklyn were a factor that necessitated the move across the border. The team referred to the photography of Jamel Shabazz and the television series “New York Undercover” as visual touchstones to capture the city’s past aesthetics. They also scoured Montreal for a semblance of a street that could serve as Noah’s neighborhood, and populated the area with vintage Oldsmobiles, Cavaliers and an Acura Legend. A tracking shot near the film’s beginning creates a vivid reawakening of the era: Noah walks down the street past classic cars, and through scenes of people sitting on crates and drinking quarter waters, of some selling tapes out of their trunk.Dean Scott Vazquez with Anthony Ramos in “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.”Paramount PicturesCaple and the production designer Sean Haworth credited Ramos and Fishback — both New York natives — with providing notes that added to the film’s authenticity.“They start bringing things that they remembered from their childhood,” said Haworth in an interview, “things they liked or the music they listened to, the books they read.”Another texture from the ’90s arises in the film’s period-accurate fashions. Caple credited the costume designer Ciara Whaley with rewatching television shows like “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “Living Single” to inspire the fly look composed of chokers and suspenders for Fishback’s Elena. For Noah’s appearance, Caple wanted to draw from the decade’s popular clothing lines. “I was very specific in being like, I wanna work with the Karl Kanis and the Walker Wear, the gear we were pushing during that time, but also were Black owned,” he said.While the film’s visual callbacks are imperative, it’s the hip-hop soundtrack that gives “Rise of the Beasts” its sonic verve. The music occasionally springs from diegetic sources. Fishback, for instance, suggested to Caple that Elena should sing to herself whenever she’s nervous. It’s why when the Terrorcons infiltrate Elena’s museum, she can be heard crooning TLC’s “Waterfalls” to herself.At other times, a needle drop of a radio classic will propel a scene, such as Digable Planets’ “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” powering a heist sequence whereby Noah attempts to steal an Autobot disguised as a Porsche. Other soundtrack samplings include Black Sheep’s “The Choice Is Yours,” The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize,” A Tribe Called Quest’s “Check the Rhime” and Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” The music remains prominent even when the action shifts from the confines of New York City to the rolling hills of Peru. During the final battle between the Autobots and Terrorcons, LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” provides a sharp punch that put a dent in the film’s budget.“It fits so perfectly, but the studio said this is gonna be the most expensive song in the movie,” Caple said. “It was that pricey. But it just felt so right.”As did commissioning the soundtrack’s sole original song, “On My Soul,” by Tobe Nwigwe (who also stars as Noah’s friend Reek) and the hip-hop legend Nas, featuring Jacob Banks. The defiant track not only gives the final battle a firmer edge beyond the easy grooves of the throwback needle drops, it marries contemporary recording techniques with ’90s flair, particularly through Nas’s sharp verses. In an interview, Nwigwe said that Nas “came in and just cooked up greatness.”To Caple, harnessing the ’90s hip-hop scene was more than artistically fulfilling. It’s a vision of urban Blackness that needn’t be politically important, even as it showcases a specific cultural lens of music and fashion. And while it’s easy to see “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” as a bid for nostalgia, Caple doesn’t want to call it a comeback. It’s a resurgence. More

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      Wes Anderson’s Best Needle Drops

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      Hear songs that memorably accompanied scenes in “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” and more.Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot Tenenbaum in “The Royal Tenenbaums.” She’s always late, but worth waiting for.Touchstone PicturesDear listeners,One day when I was 14, I stayed home sick from school and watched a weird little movie called “Rushmore” on Comedy Central. When it was over, I thought to myself, “Oh, so that’s what a director does.”I had never before encountered a movie that so distinctly seemed to come from a single person’s perspective. The filmmaker Wes Anderson had created his own alternate reality, with its own color scheme, its own vernacular, and — perhaps most crucially — its own killer music. I wanted to live inside of that world. I bought the soundtrack as soon as I could.For aspiring aesthetes, Anderson’s movies can be gateway drugs. Eager to catch all of his cinematic references and influences, his films led me to the work of directors like François Truffaut, Yasujiro Ozu and Satyajit Ray. But the songs in his films are vehicles of discovery, too. I’d never heard the Creation’s “Making Time,” that garage-rock classic with guitars that rev like a souped-up engine, or the Who’s gloriously bombastic rock opera “A Quick One, While He’s Away” until I saw “Rushmore.” I learned about Nico from “The Royal Tenenbaums” and Seu Jorge from “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.” Anderson’s carefully curated soundtracks felt, to me, like eclectic, handmade mixtapes.As I got deeper into movies, I realized that even the most personal-seeming film is the result of collaboration with countless others: cinematographers, production designers, wardrobe stylists, and, of course, music supervisors. The needle drops in most of Anderson’s films are the result of his longtime working relationship with the music supervisor Randall Poster. In more recent movies, like the Oscar-winning “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and the underrated “The French Dispatch,” he’s also worked with repeatedly with the composer Alexandre Desplat, who has composed intricate and appropriately quirky scores that help bring Anderson’s worlds to life.In honor of Anderson’s new movie, “Asteroid City,” which I am very excited to see when it comes out this weekend, I put together a playlist of some of the most iconic and unexpected songs featured in his films. Quite a few have become inextricably tied to Anderson scenes. Never again will I hear “These Days” without picturing Margot Tenenbaum walking off a Green Line bus in slow-motion, or “A Quick One, While He’s Away” without imagining Herman Blume destroying poor Max Fischer’s bicycle. Sic transit gloria, indeed.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. The Creation: “Making Time”The tracks used in Anderson’s movies often serve as unofficial theme songs for characters, reflecting the way they see themselves — the song playing in their own heads as they walk down the street. Fischer, the scheming protagonist of “Rushmore,” is too square to truly embody the bratty, take-no-prisoners attitude of this jangly 1966 rocker from the British band the Creation; for him, it’s more of an aspirational soundtrack. (Listen on YouTube)2. The Ramones: “Judy Is a Punk”Anderson is a master of the montage, and many of his most memorable ones rely on a great, propulsive song to give its disparate shots a unified mood. One of my favorites compiles footage of a private detective’s dossier on Margot Tenenbaum’s secret life in “The Royal Tenenbaums.” The sonic jump-cut from silence to the Ramones’ explosive “Judy Is a Punk” sets the moment apart from the rest of the film, and makes all of Margot’s exploits seem that much cooler. (Listen on YouTube)3. Paul Simon: “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”Or maybe this is my favorite montage in “The Royal Tenenbaums.” When the disreputable patriarch Royal, played indelibly by Gene Hackman, wants to bond with his precocious, track-suited grandsons Ari and Uzi, he takes them out for some light mayhem: go-karting, water-balloon-throwing and petty larceny — all to the tune of Paul Simon. It’s against the law! (Listen on YouTube)4. Seu Jorge: “Life on Mars?”Anderson’s 2004 feature “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” featured the Brazilian musician Seu Jorge as a kind of one-man Greek chorus, singing acoustic covers of David Bowie songs in Portuguese. The melodies are so universally recognizable that you don’t need to understand the language to at least hum along to Jorge’s tender, sweetly crooned renditions of classics like “Rebel Rebel,” “Starman,” and of course, “Life on Mars?” (Listen on YouTube)5. Nico: “These Days”It’s the scene that launched a million Halloween costumes: Richie Tenenbaum waits for his escort from his days on the circuit, his sister, Margot. As usual, she’s late — but well worth the delay as she gets off the bus in her ever-present fur coat and raccoon-rimmed eyes, to the heart-stopping musical cue of Nico’s “These Days.” (Listen on YouTube)6. The Beach Boys: “Old Folks at Home/Old Man River”Several Beach Boys songs are used to great effect in “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” but none as stirringly as “Old Man River,” which soundtracks a heavenly moment at the end of the film when the animals find themselves in a supermarket. “Get enough to share with everybody,” Mr. Fox instructs, “and remember, the rabbits are vegetarians and badgers supposedly can’t eat walnuts.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Françoise Hardy, “Le temps de l’amour”In “Moonrise Kingdom,” from 2012 and set in 1964, young Sam and Suzy run away together and attempt to live out their own feral version of adulthood on an island. Among their possessions is a portable record player for 45 RPM singles, meaning they can soundtrack their own lives. Just before the awkward beachside dance that results in their first kiss, Suzy puts on Françoise Hardy’s 1962 single “Le temps de l’amour,” an achingly perfect choice for a 12-year-old trying on an air of sophistication like a pair of too-big high heels. (Listen on YouTube)8. The Rolling Stones: “Ruby Tuesday”As it’s used in a crucial scene in “The Royal Tenenbaums,” this early Stones classic casts such a rosy, romantic glow that you almost forget that you’re rooting for Richie Tenenbaum to end up with his adopted sister. (Listen on YouTube)9. The Kinks: “This Time Tomorrow”Like the Beach Boys in “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” sometimes an Anderson film will feature several songs from a single artist. Anderson’s fifth feature, “The Darjeeling Limited,” conjures its Indian setting by using instrumentals from the films of Satyajit Ray, though its placement of several songs from the Kinks’ 1970 album “Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One” — including the sweetly bleary “This Time Tomorrow” — serve as reminders that the film is filtered through a Westerner’s sensibility. (Listen on YouTube)10. The Who: “A Quick One, While He’s Away”Yet another top-tier Anderson montage, from “Rushmore”: a battle of petty acts of revenge between Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) and Blume (Bill Murray), given an anarchic grandeur thanks to this nearly nine-minute epic by the Who. Fun fact: While the version that appears on Rushmore’s official soundtrack is from the Who’s unrivaled 1970 concert album “Live at Leeds,” the version used in the film comes from the storied 1968 BBC special and eventual live record “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.” (Listen on YouTube)11. Van Morrison, “Everyone”Anderson has a knack for ending his movies with a bittersweet, emotionally resonant song that lingers in the air long after the credits roll. One of my favorites is “Everyone,” the clavinet-kissed Van Morrison track that rings out at the end of “The Royal Tenenbaums.” At once melancholy and hopeful, it’s the perfect way to conclude a movie that pierces your heart even as it’s making you laugh. And I think it’s a pretty good ending for this playlist, too. (Listen on YouTube)The Amplifier was written in a kind of obsolete vernacular,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Wes Anderson’s Best Needle Drops” track listTrack 1: The Creation, “Making Time”Track 2: The Ramones, “Judy Is a Punk”Track 3: Paul Simon, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”Track 4: Seu Jorge, “Life on Mars?”Track 5: Nico, “These Days”Track 6: The Beach Boys, “Old Folks at Home/Old Man River”Track 7: Françoise Hardy, “Le temps de l’amour”Track 8: The Rolling Stones, “Ruby Tuesday”Track 9: The Kinks, “This Time Tomorrow”Track 10: The Who, “A Quick One, While He’s Away”Track 11: Van Morrison, “Everyone”Bonus TracksSeriously, behold that performance by the Who in “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus,” and bow down to Keith Moon in all his glory. Some people believe that the reason the Stones shelved the TV special and did not officially release it until 1996 was that they thought the Who upstaged them. I’ll let you be the judge: Watch this performance and ask yourself if it’s an act you’d want to follow.If you’re looking for new music, too, this week’s Playlist has fresh tunes from Meshell Ndegeocello, Doja Cat, Peggy Gou and more. More

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      Watch Jeffrey Wright Give a Rousing Speech in ‘Asteroid City’

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      Wes Anderson narrates a scene from his film.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.On the page, the speech a military general delivers in the film “Asteroid City” might look a little loopy. On the screen, delivered with verve by the actor Jeffrey Wright, it reaches even greater heights of both oddity and emotion.“I wanted to write something that, in a way, only Jeffrey could do,” said Wes Anderson, the film’s director and screenwriter, during an interview in New York. He wanted to tell a story of the generations of this character’s family.“Jeffrey turns it into more like a poem,” he said. “But it’s a poem that is delivered with a sort of ferocity.”The speech is executed in one take, with the camera dollying side to side as well as forward and backward, to capture all of Wright’s beats. Anderson said it was achieved with a complicated setup using “a crazy set of dolly tracks, sideways dolly tracks with a with a section of track that glides on the top of the three tracks,” a rig conceived by Anderson’s key grip, Sanjay Sami.Read the “Asteroid City” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      Glenda Jackson, an Unnervingly Energizing Presence at Every Age

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      “I had been prepared to be awed, intimidated, even terrified,” Ben Brantley writes of meeting the actress in person five years ago.She didn’t so much enter the restaurant as erupt into it, a fast-burning blaze of psychic exasperation that seemed to set the silverware rattling. Glenda Jackson was five minutes late for our meeting, and she looked ferociously disgusted with herself, with the universe, with the “bloody” London transit system and, most likely, with the prospect of having to talk about herself.Such was my first in-the-flesh encounter with Jackson, who died Thursday at the age of 87 and who had seared herself into my teenage consciousness decades earlier as an uncompromisingly modern, sui generis movie star. Waiting for her five years ago in the restaurant of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, I had been prepared to be awed, intimidated, even terrified. What I hadn’t anticipated was how unnervingly energizing the presence of this 81-year-old woman would be.I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by the kinetic force of Jackson, who was about to return to Broadway for the first time in three decades in a revival of Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women.” She had, after all, made her international name in the 1960s and early ’70s — in films like Ken Russell’s “Women in Love” and John Schlesinger’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” — as the combustible embodiment of a very contemporary dissatisfaction with the world as she found it.Jackson and Oliver Reed in the film adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel “Women in Love,” for which she won a best-actress Oscar. A Park Circus/MGM StudiosHer most obvious antecedents were probably the nervy, forever restless Bette Davis and her Gallic descendant, Jeanne Moreau. But among her British peers, Jackson was the first to emerge as the female equivalent of a discomfiting archetype that had been haunting her country’s imagination since the 1950s, the Angry Young Man.Angular of form and feature, with a voice so sharp you half-expected it to draw blood, Jackson arrived into reluctant celebrity full-blown as the new Angry Young Woman, disgustedly making her way through the debris of a decaying establishment. She was the latter-day answer to Ibsen’s majestically discontented, hyperintelligent Hedda Gabler, a part she played both onstage and onscreen.That solar persona shone equally bright in period pieces (like the bohemian Gudrun in “Women in Love” and an extremely commanding Queen Elizabeth I in “Elizabeth R,” on television) and in 20th-century rom-coms (as the witheringly witty divorcée in “A Touch of Class,” her second Oscar-winning performance; “Women in Love” was her first).The same enlivening rage would be evident when she took on what she probably regarded as her greatest role, a Labour Party member of the British Parliament, where she served for 23 years. (In 2013 she delivered, in wonderfully high dudgeon, an anti-elegy for the newly deceased former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.)She was also a mythic creature of the stage, honing her scalpel-like style in the early 1960s in Peter Brook’s experimental company. It was for Brook that she portrayed, in London and on Broadway, the asylum inmate who becomes the murderous Charlotte Corday in Peter Weiss’s truly shocking “Marat/Sade.” It was one of those rare, raw performances whose impact was such in theater circles that even people who couldn’t possibly have seen it swear that they did.After a three-decade absence, Jackson returned to Broadway in 2018 in a revival of Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women,” which also starred Laurie Metcalf, left, and Alison Pill, center.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWhen she returned to the theater at 80, years after retiring from Parliament, it was — but of course — in the most titanically angry role in the classic canon: King Lear, at London’s Old Vic. The dazzled reviews, along with a slew of awards, testified that age had not mellowed or muted her. When she came back to Broadway, two years later, she gave an eye-scalding fireworks display as the splenetic, dying mother in “Three Tall Women,” for which she won a Tony.In 2019, she did do Lear on Broadway, in a reconceived production tricked out with an abundance of postmodern conceits that might have smothered a less assertive star. Jackson cut through the surrounding flash like a buzz saw, throwing herself against the wall of old age and mortality until it seemed to crumble into unanswerable darkness.Jackson was not given to self-analysis, or at least not in any way that she was willing to share with the world. Nor was she fond of discussing the details of her craft. And her life outside her work, she said, was simple — that of a grandmother who did her own shopping and cleaning in a basement apartment. She eschewed the trappings of 21st-century technology (no cellphone) and of celebrity, the fact of which seemed only to embarrass her.And while she mostly avoided anything like personal confessions, she did make one admission that startled me. When I asked if it felt different performing for a live audience again, she said it felt exactly the same, meaning that this most fearless of dramatic actresses was profoundly scared. “You can go onto that stage every night,” she said, “and it’s always the equivalent of going onto the topmost diving board, and you don’t know if there’s any water in the pool.“Every time I say, ‘Yes, I’ll do it,’ I think, ‘My God, I don’t know how to do it. I can’t do it.’ We are sadomasochists as well as being brave, actors, and we torment ourselves.” More

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      ‘Nobody’s Hero’ Review: Little Desires Everywhere

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      In this slippery farce, a schlubby coder falls in love with a prostitute and takes in a teenager he suspects is a terrorist.In the first few minutes of Alain Guiraudie’s meandering farce, “Nobody’s Hero,” Médéric (Jean-Charles Clichet) spots a middle-aged woman across the street and immediately declares his love. Contrary to cliché, the gesture is not romantic but droll and startlingly arbitrary — it’s early in the morning, and the two are at an empty suburban intersection. When the lucky lady, Isadora (Noémie Lvovsky), reveals she’s a prostitute, Médéric is unfazed, even after it turns out she’s also married to her pimp, Gérard (Renaud Rutten), an oddly jealous brute who resembles Dennis Hopper in “Blue Velvet.”Guiraudie, best known for his Hitchcockian gay-cruising thriller “Stranger by the Lake,” is a gifted conjurer of paranoia with an erotic edge. Things aren’t typically “solved” at the end of his woozy mysteries, which are often set in rural dream worlds where the boundaries of gay and straight don’t seem to matter.In “Nobody’s Hero,” this paranoid mood is played for snickers when a jihadist terrorist attack hits the town, Clermont-Ferrand, in central France, and Médéric is suddenly approached by a shifty, panhandling teen, Selim (Iliès Kadri), who looks just like a composite sketch of the perpetrator shown on TV. But Médéric, a schlubby coder, spends most of his time trying to have sex with Isadora, which proves a remarkably difficult feat given her occupation. Gérard keeps his menacing cop buddy on the lookout, and Médéric’s new employer, Florence (Doria Tillier), tends to call at the worst moment. Then there are his neighbors, who knock at his door incessantly and eventually coax Médéric into taking Selim in — it’s best he not loiter in the stairwell.As a straight dark comedy about French Islamophobia, “Nobody’s Hero” doesn’t make a lot of sense. Guiraudie is after something much different here: creating a palpable sense of the connection between fear and desire, which, sure, aren’t the most rational of our human impulses — but neither are love, marriage or jihadist crusading.Nobody’s HeroNot Rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More