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      Thanks to Carol Burnett and Dolly Parton, New Life for a 1988 Film

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      “Tokyo Pop,” starring Carrie Hamilton, a daughter of the comedian, was a critical hit that had fallen into obscurity and has now been restored.When “Tokyo Pop” opened in April 1988, critics were upbeat, at least about its lead actress, Carrie Hamilton, a newcomer to movies who had appeared on TV’s “Fame.” The Los Angeles Times critic Sheila Benson wrote that Hamilton stalked through the film “straight into our hearts.” In The New York Times, Walter Goodman praised the movie, about an aspiring American pop star in Japan, for its “rhythm and zing.” The opening titles were designed by the artist Keith Haring at the height of his fame.But by November 2019, when a print of “Tokyo Pop” played at the Japan Society in Manhattan, the film had fallen into obscurity. The theatrical distributor, Spectrafilm in Canada, was long defunct. Although VHS copies existed, the movie never made it to disc or streaming. Even its director, Fran Rubel Kuzui, hadn’t seen it — her debut feature — in three decades. And Hamilton, a daughter of Carol Burnett, had died of cancer at 38 in 2002.But the Japan Society showing proved to be the start of the film’s second life. During the post-screening Q. and A., Sandra Schulberg, president of the preservation organization IndieCollect, volunteered from the audience that she would love to restore and rerelease the film. After a complicated search for original elements, and financial help from backers including Burnett and Dolly Parton, that restoration is here. “Tokyo Pop” opens Friday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and will continue at engagements throughout the country.“You don’t think about that when you make something: How will I feel about this in 35 years? Especially your first film,” Kuzui, 78, said at an interview in New York in June, the day after the restoration had its premiere at the Museum of Modern Art.Hamilton with Diamond Yukai in “Tokyo Pop,” directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui. She herself hadn’t seen the film in three decades.Kuzui Enterprises, via Kino LorberAlthough she used to love seeing the video on Blockbuster shelves, and every year or so would get queries from festivals, she knew little about what had happened to the film, other than that she paid $40 a month to keep the internegative in storage. In the pre-internet days, without the distributor, there wasn’t much way to check in on the film’s afterlife, she explained. Thanks to digital and streaming, she added, “my generation is the first generation that I’ve seen that really is having an opportunity to look back on work in such a broad sense.”The fish-out-of-water scenario of “Tokyo Pop” was personal to Kuzui, who was raised in Great Neck, N.Y., and is married to Kaz Kuzui, a Japanese film producer whom she met when she was a script supervisor and he was an assistant director. The movie centers on Wendy (Hamilton), a backup singer in New York who on impulse travels to Japan at a time when American culture was all the rage there. With the language barrier a struggle, she is helped by Hiro (Yutaka Tadokoro, now better known as Diamond Yukai), a frustrated rock musician who speaks a little English. They begin a relationship and, with some reluctance, she joins his band covering American hits. Hamilton herself wrote — and is shown performing — the closing-credits song.Although Kuzui wrote the screenplay with her friend Lynn Grossman, “Tokyo Pop” was made with a mostly Japanese crew — unusual at the time for any American director, let alone a woman. Kuzui remembered that even her calls of “Action!” were perceived as unfeminine shouting.Part of the subtext of the movie, she said, was that she didn’t want to become an example of a gaijin, or foreigner, who was dependent on Japan. When Wendy’s star starts to rise there, it’s because she’s viewed as a novelty. “Foreigners in Japan — they were not held to, and they still aren’t held to, exactly the same rules that Japanese people follow,” Kuzui said. If she was going to be successful as a director, she felt, it couldn’t be with that sort of advantage.Although she and Kaz have divided their time between the United States and Japan for 40 years — they made much of their living handling the Japanese distribution of American independent films like the Coen brothers’ “Barton Fink” and David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” — Kuzui said that for a long period, she would go back and forth every six to eight weeks because she lacked a visa. She has always seen herself as living in the United States. “I really didn’t start living in Japan until the pandemic,” she said.Hamilton’s mother, Carol Burnett, said she remembered the actress telling her she had a difficult time with her bleached hair.Kuzui Enterprises, via Kino LorberKuzui went on to direct only one other feature, which many more people saw: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1992). Pointing to an admiring 2022 article in The Atlantic, Kuzui believes that even that film may receive the kind of re-evaluation that she anticipates for “Tokyo Pop.” It’s in the zeitgeist, she said, that audiences are giving a fresh look to work made in the 1980s and ’90s.Kazu Watanabe, who programmed “Tokyo Pop” at the Japan Society and now runs distribution at Grasshopper Film, discovered the film while curating a series on outsiders making movies in Tokyo. He thought the movie held up, even in small ways, and, unlike some films of the era, seemed in tune with modern sensibilities. “There’s a scene where the two leads are in bed together, and then she changes her mind, doesn’t want to sleep with him,” he said. “And it’s done so matter-of-factly. There’s no big dramatic scene about it.”Schulberg of IndieCollect said she wanted to restore the film in part because it was a remarkable directorial debut by a woman “who in my view never got the opportunities and attention she deserved.”Burnett, speaking by phone in early July, before the actors’ strike, recalled when Hamilton was shooting the film. “I remember she had a terrible time, she said, with her hair, because the bleach or whatever it was over in Japan made her hair fall out,” Burnett said, with a laugh. “So she wore a lot of scarves and kind of had to make do with what she had.” In an anecdote Burnett also recounted in “Carrie and Me” (2013), her book about her relationship with her daughter, she said that Marlon Brando somehow saw “Tokyo Pop” and called Hamilton to discuss a project — which Hamilton turned down.While Burnett occasionally searches for her daughter on YouTube and reads the comments, keeping tabs on her “small following,” she added, “I’m thrilled that, again, after all these years, people are going to discover her all over again.” More

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      Children’s Movies to Stream: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and More

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      This month’s picks include a stereotype-defying shape-shifter, superpowered shelter pets and the newest “Guardians of the Galaxy” adventure.‘Nimona’Watch it on Netflix.Nimona is a shape-shifter, a monster, a misunderstood hellion with a heart of gold. Voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz, the title character busts into a futuristic world where knights defend the castle and the powerful might not be as benevolent as they’d like the citizens to believe. Based on a best-selling graphic novel by ND Stevenson and directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane (who also co-directed “Spies in Disguise”), this 2023 animated feature from Netflix gives young children a mile-a-minute main character who slides between “good guy” and “bad guy” status, defying the usual stereotypes. Stevenson has called the story a transgender allegory, and the L.G.B.T.Q. representation is a welcome change from the usual kids’ movie universes, where knights fall in love with princesses, not with each other. Here, Riz Ahmed voices Ballister Boldheart, a knight who has been wrongly accused of murdering Queen Valerin (Lorraine Toussaint). Ballister reluctantly allows Nimona to help him take down a corrupt system, prove his innocence and reunite with his partner, Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang). As a character, Nimona has zero chill and might prove a little tough for adults to watch for any length of time, but my son was entertained by the character’s constant motion, chaotic energy and what-will-come-next transformations.‘Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir, The Movie’Watch it on Netflix.Many youngsters will already be familiar with the hit French series “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir,” about two Parisian teen superheroes named Marinette (voiced by Cristina Vee for the English-speaking cast) and Adrien (Bryce Papenbrook), who secretly transform into Ladybug and Cat Noir to save their city from villains. They’re members of The Miraculous, a group of protectors who vanquish evil all over the world. This time, the superheroes get nearly two hours of screen time to join forces and stop the evil Hawk Moth (Keith Silverstein) from unleashing destruction throughout the City of Light. Directed by Jeremy Zag, who co-wrote the screenplay with Bettina López Mendoza and also wrote the songs, the 2023 movie amps up the action, with plenty of scenes in which Ladybug and Cat Noir fly over Parisian landmarks and battle the bad guys. There are musical numbers, moments of valor, and enough silly humor and flirty banter between the real-life teenagers and their alter egos to keep elementary-age kids watching. The vibrant reds and purples that make the series stand out visually are on full display, and the same girl power theme that defines the series carries over to the film.‘Heroes of the Golden Mask’Rent it on Amazon Prime and Vudu.In this Arcana Studios 2023 production directed by Sean Patrick O’Reilly, an orphan named Charlie (voiced by Kiefer O’Reilly) is trying his best to survive on the mean streets of his city. Just as Charlie is about to get nabbed by the cops for another petty crime, a door opens and a strange figure offers him a quick escape in the form of a magic portal. Charlie hops through, and he’s transported to an ancient Chinese kingdom called Sanxingdui. He meets an unlikely group of golden-masked superheroes who tell Charlie they need his help defeating a ruthless enemy set on conquering the kingdom. At first Charlie schemes to help the heroes with the secret intention of taking the golden masks, but lessons are learned and Charlie discovers that money and greed aren’t the most important things in life. The animation looks a little like a low-budget video game, and the writing and performances are definitely not awards-season worthy, but Patton Oswalt voices a blue ogre named Aesop, Ron Perlman voices Kunyi, and Christopher Plummer, before his death, voiced the character Rizzo. It’s a bit of a mishmash, but if your kid is craving swordplay, winged tigers and dragons that look like they mated with a moose, give this one a try.‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’Watch it on Disney+.The final installment of the director James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, released in May, might not go down as the best of the three, but it should entertain older elementary school and middle school kids who’ve come to love Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Drax (Dave Bautista). When we meet back up with the Marvel gang, Star-Lord is grieving Gamora, who died in “Avengers: Infinity War.” Never fear, though! Gamora (sort of) returns to the crew in the form of a time-traveling variant, but this Gamora has no memory of her relationship with Peter. The story largely centers on Rocket, and the Guardians’ attempts to save his life and take down the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), an evil scientist who created Rocket and who is now intent on mutiny. Cooper brings some genuine emotion to Rocket’s journey, and Iwuji portrays a formidable villain.‘DC League of Super-Pets’Watch it on Max.One could easily imagine this movie being pitched in a conference room: An animated superhero movie, but about their pets! The delightful simplicity of it would be tough to pass up. Here, we have Dwayne Johnson voicing Superman’s dog, Krypto, a pup whose favorite chew toy is a little squeaky Batman doll. Youngsters won’t care about the voices behind the adorable super-pets, but Kevin Hart, Keanu Reeves, Kate McKinnon, Natasha Lyonne and Marc Maron make a formidable cast. Krypto was sent to Earth as a puppy to look after Superman (voiced by John Krasinski), so the two have a sweet bond that might make both children and adults feel a little weepy because dogs are the best. Krypto can fight crime, but he’s a misfit when it comes to relating to non-superhero dogs. When Superman proposes marriage to Lois Lane (Olivia Wilde), he takes Krypto to a shelter to meet some other dogs, so he won’t feel like a third wheel, and just like that, a league of super-pets is formed. With a screenplay by the “Lego Batman Movie” writers Jared Stern and John Whittington, this 2022 charmer, directed by Stern and Sam Levine, has enough action, sweetness and humor to warrant multiple viewings. More

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      ‘Shortcomings’ Review: Dazed and Confused

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      Directed by Randall Park, this charming comedy about a Japanese American man’s belated coming-of-age touches upon fascinating questions of identity but fails to dig below the surface.“Shortcomings,” the directorial debut of the actor Randall Park, opens with a movie-within-the-movie: it’s a spoof of “Crazy Rich Asians,” playing at an Asian film festival in the Bay Area. As Ben (Justin H. Min), a Japanese American cinephile, and his girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki), a festival organizer, step out of the theater, Ben blasts it as “a garish mainstream rom-com that glorifies the capitalist fantasy of vindication through materialism and wealth.”I nodded enthusiastically. Too bad Ben turns out to be a jerk.If the meme “the worst person you know just made a great point” were a movie, it would be “Shortcomings.” Ben’s opinions aren’t wrong — market-tested corporate ploys at diversity do deserve our skepticism, for instance, and the toilet-bowl art of Ben’s hipster co-worker (Tavi Gevinson) does deserve the snide laugh it elicits from him — but he is self-absorbed and fickle. His moping and griping are unearned, lobbed like wet blankets at anyone trying to actually do something with their lives, like Miko, or his best friend, Alice (Sherry Cola).“Shortcomings” traces the belated coming-of-age of Ben, as Miko abruptly leaves for New York for the summer and Ben fumbles around, dating different women and confronting the looming closure of the art house movie theater where he works. His character arc isn’t new: Hollywood has given us numerous stunted heroes who slowly, begrudgingly, come to realize their, err, shortcomings. Where Park’s movie, adapted from a 2007 graphic novel by Adrian Tomine, feels fresh is in the way it brings Ben’s Asian American identity into the mix. Is his maladjustment a consequence of his experience of otherness, or is he just a regular old man-child?Ben, for his part, invokes and denies racism opportunistically: He is dismissive when Miko accuses him of ogling white women, but quickly labels her new lover, Leon — a white man, played hilariously by Timothy Simons, who speaks Japanese and busts out Taekwondo moves — a “rice king.” Ben isn’t being fair — but neither is the scorned date who tells Ben that his lot in life is owed only to him, not to his race. What these arguments get at is the genuine struggle, familiar to people of color, to wrest some agency from a world that tells us who we can and cannot be.Park’s film isn’t intrepid enough to really plumb the thorny terrain of that struggle. The movie is funny and touching, with a star-making performance by Min and a script full of lovely, self-aware little touches: When Jacob Batalon, who plays one of Ben’s co-workers, derides the “Spider-Man” movies that the actor himself stars in, I chuckled. But it’s shot like a sitcom — flat, shiny, perfunctory — and structured like one, too, with quip-heavy vignettes that resolve in pat conclusions. Ben surely deserves his comeuppance, but “Shortcomings” traces too neat a narrative journey to that end, leaving a trail of unexplored questions and missed opportunities in its wake.ShortcomingsRated R for some references to sex and pornography, and some disturbingly unintelligible punk art. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Meg 2: The Trench’ Review: Gleefully Jumping the Shark

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      This lively sequel to 2018’s somewhat tepid killer-shark blockbuster greatly improves upon its predecessor by getting gorier, funnier and more stylish.A cute dog, an 8-year-old girl and countless sunbathing beachgoers survived “The Meg” (2018) miraculously unharmed. The British filmmaker Ben Wheatley, who steps into the director’s chair for “Meg 2: The Trench,” has racked up stomach-turning body counts (including dogs) in his darkly comic thrillers like “Down Terrace,” “Kill List” and “Free Fire,” so it seems only fair that his take on a killer-shark movie would lean a bit more vicious.But “Meg 2,” like the first, maintains a box office-friendly PG-13 rating, so Wheatley is necessarily limited in how much carnage he is permitted to depict. Nevertheless, he finds many creative ways to butcher bad guys and side characters that hit the same horror-adjacent pleasure centers. There’s a shot from the point of view of a shark’s mouth as it’s eating people. I call that good directing.The first “Meg,” with its story of a long-extinct carnivore re-emerging to wreak havoc among scientists, was reminiscent of “Jurassic Park.” “Meg 2” takes the natural next step and borrows from “The Lost World.” The shark-hunting, ocean-protecting hero Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) now has a stepdaughter (Sophia Cai) to protect, while the repertoire of prehistoric predators on the hunt has been richly expanded to include several land-roaming dinosaurs and (why not?) a giant squid. Of course, any shark movie will inevitably live in the shadow of “Jaws.” Wheatley has fun with it by nodding playfully to “Jaws 2.”The director having fun is the presiding feeling here — which may account for why the movie is so frequently amusing, and occasionally delightful. It has a light, irreverent tone that sometimes verges on parodic, as when a villain’s archly confident victory speech is disrupted by a shark appearance straight out of “Deep Blue Sea,” or when a splashy pink title card cheerfully informs us that the populated area about to be descended upon by a trio of sharks is called “Fun Island.” Just how close does the movie get to full-blown parody? At one point, Statham literally jumps a shark.It’s not that the first “Meg” was particularly serious: It contained comic relief, but the humor felt more studio-mandated. “Meg 2” has a spark of wit that feels looser and more appropriate to the material. The supporting cast — especially Page Kennedy and Cliff Curtis as scientists forced to join the action — are offered much more freedom to cut loose and get silly, while certain sight gags have a verve that really pop (including an escalating bit that has more and more of our heroes wandering into the same armed holdup). No dogs come to harm in this one either, it should be said. There’s enough madcap mayhem elsewhere that any more would have been overkill.Meg 2: The TrenchRated PG-13 for intense action, mild language and excessive shark violence. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Lady Killer’ and ‘The Strange Mister Victor’ Review

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      Two newly restored films by the director Jean Grémillon, whom cinephiles discuss like a special secret, get a second life in theaters.Compared to other heavy hitters from the golden age of French cinema — think Jean Renoir (“The Rules of the Game”) or Marcel Carné (“Children of Paradise”) — history hasn’t been kind to Jean Grémillon. This is especially the case in the United States, where the director’s work continues to be discussed among cinephiles like a special secret. It’s a shame. His films are among the most innovative and expressive from a period stretching roughly from the early 1930s through the ’50s — and in many ways they look ahead to the rule breaking of the French New Wave.Newly restored in 4K, “Lady Killer” and “The Strange Mister Victor” are essentially Grémillon’s breakthrough films, the midpoints between his early documentaries and experimental dramas and his greatest hits (“Stormy Waters,” “Lumière d’été”), which he made during the German occupation of France.“Lady Killer” stars the leonine Jean Gabin as Lucien, a womanizing legionnaire. Suave and sexy in his uniform, Lucien attracts the female gaze like moths to the flame. Enter the femme fatale Madeleine (Mireille Balin), a beautiful socialite bound to a wealthy benefactor. Lucien falls hard for Madeleine and takes up a job at a print shop in Paris so that they can be together. Then comes betrayal and murder, though Grémillon supplements the bleak fatalism and noirish intrigue with bursts of quivering melodrama that enrich and expand the story beyond its ostensible fatal-attraction framework.In his early days, Grémillon was a violinist who played with an orchestra that provided accompaniment for silent films. He applies this musical sensibility to his construction of drama. His films move between small, seemingly uneventful moments and ones that hit like a reverberating gong. What starts out as a placid relationship between Lucien and his meek doctor friend, René (Réne Lefèvre), moves on to new, devastating terrain. Their bond is capped by a startlingly intimate scene of male camaraderie that plays like a fever dream.Working in the tradition of poetic realism, Grémillon intermingled documentarylike visions of working-class milieus with stylized interludes of psychological tension. “The Strange Mister Victor” begins like a panoramic drama about the socially diverse inhabitants of Toulon, in the south of France, and eventually reveals an ethical crisis about the entanglement of two men. Victor Agardanne (Raimu) is an upstanding businessman with wife and child, though he secretly consorts with a band of crooks. When he kills one of them for threatening to blackmail him, he uses a tool that belongs to his cobbler, Bastien (Pierre Blanchar), as the murder weapon, which leads to that man’s arrest. When Bastien escapes imprisonment, the guilty Victor goes out of his way to harbor the unsuspecting fugitive.There’s perhaps more to chew on in “Mister Victor,” bolstered by an expert performance from Raimu that straddles genuine moral anxiety and self-interested desperation. Yet one particular scene from “Lady Killer” continues to live in my head rent-free.Midway through the film, a mirror captures Lucien as he spots Madeleine from a distance and then steps back into the shadows when she meets his gaze. The plots of Grémillon’s films are meaty and sociologically probing, but what sets him apart from the directors of his time — the majority of them narrative-focused artists who came from a theater background — are moments like these: brief, wordless, but throbbing with desire and despair.Lady KillerNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters.The Strange Mister VictorNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘What Comes Around’ Review: A Triangle of Power Dynamics

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      Amy Redford directs this drama about a teenager who falls for a mysterious older man she met on the internet.They say that productions of David Mamet’s “Oleanna,” a play about sexual harassment, inspired quarrels in theater lobbies. Such passion is unlikely to result from “What Comes Around,” a drama that shares with Mamet’s story an incendiary premise pinned to sexual politics, but lacks the electricity necessary to set off sparks.Directed by Amy Redford and written by Scott Organ based on his play, the movie charts the shifting power dynamics among a mother, her teenage daughter and the daughter’s older boyfriend. Anna (Grace Van Dien) has just turned 17 when Eric (Kyle Gallner), a 28-year-old she met online, appears on her doorstep. Wary, then intrigued, Anna allows their flirtation to morph into a physical courtship, until her mother, Beth (Summer Phoenix), catches wind of the affair and orders Eric out for good.A big reveal occurs near the story’s midpoint, when Beth’s aversion to Eric is shown to have a darker valence and stem from a concealed past. The development is a narrative sleight of hand, reverse engineered to upend the viewer’s existing impressions and raise new questions about responsibility, trauma and blame.The story, though neatly plotted, is engaging enough. The trouble lies in its staging. Redford often sets conversations — and there are many of them — during outdoor strolls, as if stumped for ideas of action that pairs with dialogue. This absence of cinematic intention extends to blocking and camera placement. With direction this desultory, even climactic outbursts play like shrugs.What Comes AroundNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Klondike’ Review: Domestic Violence

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      In a film set in 2014, a couple in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine try to maintain normality as war rocks their home.“Klondike” takes place nine years ago and had its premiere one month before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but its relevance hasn’t dimmed. It is set in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine in July 2014, when an antiaircraft missile downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing the 298 people on board. Russian-backed separatists were widely presumed to be responsible. Last year, a Dutch court handed down three convictions in the case.That crash occurs about 20 minutes into “Klondike,” and it’s actually the second major act of violence in the film. In the opening shot, Tolik (Serhii Shadrin) tries to convince his pregnant wife, Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna), that she needs to get away to “where there is no war.” The moment he says that, a blast rocks their home, destroying a side of the house. The dwelling will remain open to the elements while Irka and Tolik continue to live there, despite the hostilities outside.Irka is staunchly anti-separatist and refuses to acquiesce or leave. Tolik, while not expressly pro-separatist, favors the path of least resistance; he even slaughters a cow Irka likes to feed the men controlling the area. The director, Maryna Er Gorbach, portrays the nearby plane crash obliquely: The wreckage is seen piecemeal — on the news, as a distant smoke plume, as detached wings and, most horrifyingly, as a corpse still in a plane seat that lands on the couple’s property.“Klondike” underlines the cognitive dissonance of wishing that context away. The director favors absurdist tableaus (Irka watches soccer on TV while the gaping hole in the house looms in the background), placid camera moves counterpointed by brutality and shots held so long that it almost seems as if the filmmaker is the one being cruel. It’s a grimly effective strategy for a harsh but powerful movie.KlondikeNot rated. In Ukrainian, Russian, Chechen and Dutch, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Air Bud: World Pup’ Keeps Winning Fans for the 1999 World Cup Stars

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      The 2000 movie used the franchise’s furry hero along with members of the actual U.S. women’s team to reimagine the penalty shootout that led to the win.In 1999, the United States women’s national team won its second World Cup title and ushered in a new era of women’s soccer, currently on display in the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.What made the 1999 final a cultural hit came down to a confluence of factors: The tournament was played on home soil in the United States, the team was talented and the games were staged at major arenas and widely broadcast. When the United States beat China in a penalty shootout at the Rose Bowl, 40 million people tuned in to watch.Brandi Chastain celebrating the World Cup win in 1999. She helped recreate the moment for “Air Bud: World Pup.”Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe images of that triumphant World Cup run are now synonymous with women’s soccer: Brandi Chastain celebrating in a sports bra, Briana Scurry in her all-navy goalkeeper’s uniform, a baby-faced Mia Hamm and … a golden retriever?In 2000, the year after the women’s historic win, the Air Bud film franchise — in which an athletically gifted dog saves various sports teams — turned its focus to soccer. Air Bud did as Air Bud does, saving a children’s soccer team and scoring the winning goal.But the final six minutes or so of “Air Bud: World Pup,” a straight-to-video effort now available on most major platforms, feature something different: a re-creation, or reimagining, of that 1999 World Cup win, complete with its famous players. Except this time, they face Norway. And this time, they have Air Bud, who comes to Scurry’s rescue and takes over in goal after Scurry injures her shoulder saving a penalty. Naturally, heroism ensues.“When the women won the World Cup, they were such a force,” said Robert Vince, an executive producer of the Air Bud franchise. “They didn’t just win it, they dominated it. They became an obvious choice for us. We also felt that there was a real opportunity to elevate the game for girls as well. It was just such a moment.”That moment thrust the stars of the 1999 team onto the national and even international stage. Chastain earned the nickname “Hollywood” because of her comfort in front of the camera and her willingness to promote the sport. She said in a recent interview that she and her teammates were flooded with requests for commercials and other collaborations. But then she, Scurry and fellow “99er” Tisha Venturini were invited to Vancouver to film a movie about a dog saving soccer.“I’m a sucker for dogs anyway,” Chastain said, noting that she was a fan of Air Bud before the offer came in. “But I thought that women’s soccer being a part of something like that is reaching out to more of the population that maybe wouldn’t have access or wouldn’t particularly come to women’s soccer.”Chastain said that recreating a World Cup-like environment was no small feat. She and her teammates weren’t actors, but had to tap into their feelings at the Rose Bowl in 1999 and “re-enact something that was so genuine and so in the moment.”They filmed their six-minute sequence over three eight-hour days, Scurry said, and most of the crowd was C.G.I. Buddy, the star, of course wasn’t, but, Scurry revealed, “there are like six dogs.”Scurry explained that each Buddy had different skills: some were calmer; some were better at jumping in the air and heading the ball; and some just wouldn’t be in the mood. But Scurry emphasized that she had long treated Air Bud like Santa Claus: “I never tell kids about the six Buddies,” she said solemnly.As a male, how did Buddy compete for the women’s national team? “Good question,” Chastain said. “Gosh, I don’t know.”For years, befuddled fans have raised this question on social media. After being told about it, Scurry burst out laughing. “I was not aware of this conspiracy. That never crossed my mind.”Vince, however, has a diplomatic answer: “I don’t think it was a gender-specific thing, I think it was just that he was a dog,” Vince said. “Little kids don’t really think of their pet or their dog as a gender.”There have been five Air Bud movies followed by nine Air Buddies films. (Air Bud is a proud father.) But Vince said that his company’s research showed that women remember “Air Bud: World Pup” more than any other installment.“Millennials, who are themselves having children, are the generation of Air Bud,” Vince said. “What movies do is they reflect the time that they were made, but also what is old becomes new again, because it gets rediscovered by new generations.”For Scurry, “Air Bud: World Pup” is a way for her to introduce herself to an entire generation of fans who didn’t see the 1999 World Cup. She said children still ask for her autograph — as the goalkeeper from “Air Bud.”“These kids would know the players that have now taken the reins from us, that were in the crowd watching us play in 1999, but they wouldn’t have known the history of the 99ers or where that came from,” Scurry said. “That movie did a lot for the legacy of the 99ers for the younger generation.” More