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      ‘Finally Dawn’ Review: A Night to Remember in Rome

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      This Italian drama, set in the 1950s and starring Lily James, Willem Dafoe and Joe Keery, sends a star-struck naïf through the looking glass darkly.In “Finally Dawn,” a black-and-white World War II playing onscreen gives way to a richly hued scene of sisters Mimosa (Rebecca Antonaci), Iris (Sofia Panizzi) and their mother, Elvira (Carmen Pommella), sitting in a Roman cinema arguing the merits of Italian neorealism versus Hollywood’s star-dusted fare.As the three women leave the theater, a man approaches and proposes that the Iris audition as an extra for an American-produced sand-and-sandal epic filming at Cinecittà studios. The writer and director Saverio Costanzo sets this movie about the movies and their allure in the 1950s, a period when Cinecittà was called Hollywood on the Tiber.If Iris’s future brightens, Mimosa’s appears to dim. But after a bit of dumb luck and a series of backlot mishaps, Mimosa becomes a “featured extra.” And soon she is swept up into the world of the movie star Josephine Esperanto (Lily James), her self-serious co-star Sean Lockwood (Joe Keery), the up-and-coming starlet Nan Roth (Rachel Sennott) and Josephine’s confidant, Rufus Priori (Willem Dafoe).Casting an inky shadow over Mimosa’s long night — which resembles an abduction as much as it does an adventure — is the recent discovery of a dead actress. This is the director’s nod to the 1953 murder of Wilma Montesi, a 21-year-old woman, which captivated the Italian press. The death is also a wink toward Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita.” “Finally Dawn” is at its most intriguing as Costanzo entrusts his curly haired, wide-eyed naïf to maneuver the looking glass of Italian versus Hollywood cinema. Hint: Italy comes off more soulful.Finally DawnNot rated. In English and Italian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Cloud’ Review: Buyer’s Remorse

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      In this genre-bending thriller, an online reseller’s tale of vengeance becomes a parable of human greed and disconnection.Just as Yoshii (Masaki Suda), sitting on the bus with his girlfriend, is beginning to dream about a better future early on in “Cloud,” the camera gradually inches over, and the outline of a dark figure suddenly hovers over him. Things go deathly quiet and Yoshii turns, but the figure has dashed off the bus.It’s the kind of breathtaking moment you’d expect from the writer and director Kiyoshi Kurosawa whose breakout masterpiece, “Cure” (1997), showcased his virtuosic control of tension and atmosphere. That consummate formal ability has one ready to follow the eclectic Japanese auteur wherever this taut suspense might take us, even if, in this latest work, it might end up in some disjointed directions.Here, Kurosawa’s story of what might initially appear to be sinister morphs boldly and almost irreverently into a tale of slapstick vengeance that carries with it whiffs of Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs.” Underneath all that is perhaps something sinister still, though not from an expected place.As an online reseller who poaches just about any product he can find to sell at a higher price, Yoshii has recently had a windfall, selling a batch of medical devices. He quits his factory day job and moves to a house in the woods with his girlfriend, hoping to expand his business. Yet, eerie instances have him looking over his shoulder, and his dubious reselling practices begin to attract enemies.The gears switch hard in the film’s second half, as Yoshii’s karmic retribution comes knocking. But the gunslinging that ensues is not slick nor even particularly gruesome. This is the story of desperate men, pummeled by failure and itching for violent catharsis; although mostly what they get is clumsy death.That incongruence, in the movie’s eyes, embodies the distinction and friction between the digital world and the real one. Online, everyone represents either cash to be made (at seemingly every turn of real and present danger, Yoshii is still just thinking of his rinky-dink hustle) or a scapegoat for one’s anger. But in the physical world, those visions of revenge play out differently. Often, at decisive moments, these characters take on the persona of a villain, shouting out their machinations like they would on an online forum, only for reality to bluntly knock them over the head.It’s a surprisingly funny film in that way, but also disturbing. For all of his genre-bending on display, Kurosawa is interested in something more real and more dark about humanity’s capacity for greed and bitterness, and the quiet ways that the internet can further mutate those diseases in us.But that subtext gets muddled in the director’s primary desire to construct playful surprises, even if some of which, particularly by the end, can be wonderfully, terrifyingly strange. Ultimately, “Cloud” is constructing a highway to hell for Yoshii in which the demons are not phantom, but us.CloudNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Eddington’ Review: Once Upon a Time in the Pandemic

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      Ari Aster returns with a dystopian Western farce about a world gone mad that you definitely remember.The first and maybe only true jump scare in Ari Aster’s “Eddington” comes right at the start. A barefoot old man trudges down the center of a road running through an empty Western town. He’s ranting and incoherently raving as he climbs a craggy hill silhouetted against a twilight sky. He gazes, or maybe glares, out at the town below.And then, the jolt, via text onscreen: LATE MAY, 2020.Buckle up and hang on. Now we know why the streets are empty, and the man’s ravings take on some new dimension: Maybe he’s just regular unhinged, or maybe he’s been driven into lunacy by the last eight or so weeks of madness. Or maybe he’s the only sane one left. Who can tell? By late May 2020, even the most unflappable among us felt one raisin short of a fruitcake.We were living with an invisible and potentially extinction-level threat, people were dying and the sirens were unrelenting. But we were also surrounded by screens from which blared real facts, half-facts, fact-shaped nonsense and full-on gobbledygook. It all felt more real than reality itself, which in turn felt like something we had once seen in a movie.That feeling of unreal reality is what “Eddington” sets out to capture, and that is Aster’s specialty. He was introduced to us as a horror director with 2018’s “Hereditary” (family and demonic horror) and 2019’s “Midsommar” (relationship and folk horror), but in 2023 he swerved into obviously personal territory with “Beau Is Afraid” — basically therapy journals dumped out on a table and come to hilarious, psychotically anxious life.I love all of these movies, clearly designed to be feel-bad flicks and also provide twisted catharsis. It is hard to have a medium-size reaction to an Aster joint, and perhaps never more than with “Eddington.” This one is a Western, centering on Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), the beleaguered asthmatic sheriff of the titular New Mexico town. He lives with his depressed wife, Louise (Emma Stone), who makes weird little dolls and sells them on the internet, and her mother, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), who moved in with them when the pandemic started and has gotten really into YouTube conspiracy theorists. (“Coronavirus, they used that word in 2019!” she tells her daughter and son-in-law over breakfast, by way of convincing them that this is all some kind of … well, who knows.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      When ‘Clueless’ Made Movie Fashion History

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      With grunge reigning in the mid-1990s, the looks of Cher Horowitz and her friends came as a fun shock. The costume designer takes us through her thought process.Power plaids. Matching sets. Athleisure. All fashion mainstays now, but in the summer of 1995, they weren’t exactly on trend when the murky flannels and shredded denim of grunge ruled. Until a fizzy comedy starring an 18-year-old Alicia Silverstone set at a Beverly Hills high school rolled into theaters like a white Jeep Wrangler with a monster sound system. No, you’re not totally buggin’, friends, it’s the 30th anniversary of “Clueless.”Directed by Amy Heckerling, who loosely based her screenplay on Jane Austen’s “Emma,” the teen classic centers on Cher Horowitz (Silverstone) and her well-intentioned matchmaking in the halls and malls of Beverly Hills. Cher’s circle of friends includes her bestie Dionne (Stacey Dash); her frenemy Amber (Elisa Donovan); Christian (Justin Walker), her crush; and Tai (Brittany Murphy), her protégée. But from the opening scene, the film’s fashion vibrates with main character energy — and that’s exactly what Heckerling and the costume designer Mona May intended.“We had to create these girls that are authentic but have a certain kind of fashion sense that wasn’t out there” at the time, said May, who drew on her childhood in India, a European sensibility and an encyclopedic knowledge of runway shows to create the movie’s bold styles.“Cher’s looks were completely over-the-top in the best way,” Silverstone wrote in an email. “But that’s what made her iconic!” Of Cher’s impact, Silverstone added, “She gave people permission to look like they cared about their fashion.” The costume designer had a clear vision, Silverstone recalled, adding, “Looking back it’s funny because they were the adults but were much more tapped into youth culture and fashion than I was.”Silverstone’s close friend, the designer Christian Siriano, featured several “Clueless”-inspired looks in his fall 2023 collection. “Growing up, there wasn’t a lot of film fashion that a young designer could fall in love with, and ‘Clueless’ was that,” he said. “Everybody wanted to dress like Cher.On a video call from her home in Los Angeles, May, dressed in a bright pink top, hat and necklace, broke down the movie’s most influential looks. Here are excerpts from her comments.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Christopher Reeve to David Corenswet: The Actors Who Played Superman

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      Kal-El, Man of Steel, Last Son of Krypton: Superman has many names, and also many faces when it comes to live-action takes on the hero. With the release of “Superman,” David Corenswet joins the society of actors who have played arguably the most famous of all superheroes. But Superman, more so than a lot of his superpowered peers, often serves more as a symbol than a fully drawn character. Below is a rundown of some of the most prominent depictions of Superman in the last few decades and what these actors brought to their embodiments of the Man of Tomorrow.Superman I-IV (1978-87)The ArchetypeChristopher Reeve set the standard for Superman onscreen with his portrayal in the movie series from 1978-87.Alamy/Warner Bros., via HBOChristopher Reeve set the standard for a live-action Superman, creating a pop culture phenomenon on the big screen. Now the trend for those taking on the role is to find new angles on the hero, to modernize or subvert the character. Much of that can be attributed to Reeve’s portrayal, which was that of a quintessential comic book savior.His Superman is confident, upstanding and authoritative, and between his powers and his unimpeachable sense of justice, he’s downright unstoppable — as when he reverses the Earth’s rotation to go back in time to save a life. Whether he’s posed with his arms crossed in judgment of a foe or standing fists on waist and arms akimbo at the end of a battle, there’s a machismo power in his bearing. And his disarming smile and self-assured voice, which occasionally offers calm but firm scoldings to wrongdoers, paint him as a hero of the people. These early Superman movies were less about developing the character and more about reinforcing fans’ love for the original figure.Lois & Clark:The New Adventures of Superman (1993-97)Rom-Com SupermanDean Cain brought an aw-shucks quality to the character.Lorimer Productions, via Everett CollectionWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Test Your Knowledge of French Novels Made Into Musicals and Movies

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      Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about books that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge is focused on globally popular French novels that went on to become big-screen adventures — and more. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and some of their filmed versions. More

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      in Television

      How to Watch Hitchcock: 5 Steps to Unlock the Master of Suspense

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      Look up “suspense” in the dictionary, and there should be a little sketch of Alfred Hitchcock’s silhouette next to it. He never won an Oscar — the academy finally gave him an honorary one in 1968 — but the British director is inarguably one of cinema’s most influential auteurs, the kind of filmmaker even a casual movie watcher has heard of.Even if you don’t know his movies, chances are you can recognize the shower scene from “Psycho,” or have seen a spoof of his work on “The Simpsons.” My own introduction to Hitchcock came at the tender age of 3 or 4: In “Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird,” a plane flies over Big Bird in a cornfield to get his attention — a homage to a famous scene from “North By Northwest.”Hitchcock’s work is marked by carefully framed images and a fondness for playing with our emotions, but his greatest talent was making us freak out, and showing other filmmakers how to do that, too. With a selection of his movies now on Netflix, here is a beginner’s guide to understanding how the Master of Suspense creates suspense.‘Rear Window’ (1954)Step Inside a Character’s Point of ViewHitchcock loved to stick us right in the minds of his characters — many of whom are in the throes of obsession and desire — and thus play on our own passions and nerves. “Rear Window” centers on an all-too-familiar pastime for city dwellers: peering curiously, and a tad illicitly, into the neighbor’s window.Jeff (Jimmy Stewart) is a photojournalist who’s stuck in his Greenwich Village apartment because his whole leg, from hip to foot, is encased in a cast. Thus stranded and frustrated, he becomes intrigued by the lives of the people living across the way, an assortment of typical New Yorkers — a composer, a dancer, a lonely single woman, a bickering couple — and he starts to wonder if one of them is a murderer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ Plus 6 Things to Watch on TV This Week

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      The Prime Video show returns with its third and final season — and maybe an answer for Lola’s love triangle.Teenage DreamsTeam Jeremiah? Team Conrad? I’m team “date someone outside the family who aren’t brothers,” but maybe that’s just me. “The Summer I Turned Pretty” follows Lola Tung as Belly, who navigates high school, then college. But the central plot is the will-they-won’t-they relationships between her and two brothers, Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and Conrad (Christopher Briney). Based on the young adult novels of the same name by Jenny Han, the series returns with its third and final season, dropping one episode each week — which means we won’t find out whom Belly ultimately chooses until mid-September. Han, who also serves as the creator, co-showrunner, and an executive producer on the show, has teased that the ending of the show might differ from the book’s, so only time will tell. Streaming Wednesday on Prime Video.Musical SpecialsMiley Cyrus at the premiere of “Something Beautiful.”Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca FestivaMiley Cyrus’s visual album movie “Something Beautiful,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last month, is now coming to streaming. The film, which has the same name as her new album, features 13 songs with their corresponding visuals, all based on a world of fantasy. Streaming Wednesday on Disney+.Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang seem to be quite busy this summer — they’re on Coach bags, Uniqlo T-shirts, an entire Kith collection, and now they have to save their favorite summer camp. In “Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical,” the first musical in the franchise in over 30 years, the group is headed on an outdoorsy adventure: Sally is nervous as a first-time camper, Snoopy and Woodstock go on a treasure hunt, and Charlie Brown works to keep their beloved camp’s doors open. Streaming Friday on Apple TV+.Missing PersonsIn 1995, Jodi Huisentruit was 27 years old and working as an anchor for the local news station, KIMT, in Mason City, Iowa. On the morning of June 27, she didn’t show up for work, and when the police later went to her apartment to investigate, they found some of her personal items — including car keys and red high heels — strewn near her car in the complex’s parking lot. She was never found and, in 2001, was declared legally dead. The new three-part documentary series “Her Last Broadcast: The Abduction of Jodi Huisentruit” features interviews with family members, detectives, witnesses and friends in an attempt to figure out what happened. Streaming Tuesday on Hulu.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More