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      After Pixar Ouster, John Lasseter Returns With Apple and ‘Luck’

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      John Lasseter was toppled five years ago by allegations about his workplace behavior. He’s back with an animated film and a studio that could be Pixar 2.0.LOS ANGELES — The most Pixar movie of the summer is not from Pixar. It’s from Apple TV+ and the lightning-rod filmmaker-executive who turned Pixar into a superpower: John Lasseter.Five years ago, Mr. Lasseter was toppled by allegations about his behavior in the workplace. Almost overnight, his many accomplishments — building Pixar from scratch, forging the megawatt “Toy Story” and “Cars” franchises, reviving a moribund Walt Disney Animation, delivering “Frozen,” winning Oscars — became a footnote.After employees complained about unwanted hugging by Mr. Lasseter, Disney investigated and found that some subordinates occasionally felt him to be a tyrant. He was forced to resign as Disney-Pixar’s animation chief, apologizing for “missteps” that made staff members feel “disrespected or uncomfortable.”Mr. Lasseter, 65, is now on the verge of professional redemption. His first animated feature since he left Disney-Pixar will arrive on Apple’s subscription streaming service on Friday. Called “Luck,” the $140 million movie follows an unlucky young woman who discovers a secret world where magical creatures make good luck (the Department of Right Place, Right Time) and bad luck (a pet waste research and design lab dedicated to “tracked it in the house”). Things go terribly wrong, resulting in a comedic adventure involving an unusual dragon, bunnies in hazmat suits, leprechaun millennials and an overweight German unicorn in a too-tight tracksuit.Apple, perhaps the only company that safeguards its brand more zealously than Disney, has been using Mr. Lasseter as a prominent part of its marketing campaign for “Luck.” Ads for the film, which Peggy Holmes directed and Mr. Lasseter produced, describe it as coming “from the creative visionary behind TOY STORY and CARS.”“Luck” arrives on Apple TV+ on Friday.Apple TV+Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, shared a look at the film in March at the company’s latest product showcase event. “Luck” is just the beginning of Apple’s bet on Mr. Lasseter and Skydance Media, an independent studio that — contentiously — hired him in 2019 as animation chief. (Skydance hired lawyers to scrutinize the allegations against Mr. Lasseter and privately concluded there was nothing egregious.) Skydance has a deal to supply Apple TV+ with multiple animated films and at least one animated series by 2024.Pariah? Not at Apple.“It feels like part of me has come home,” Mr. Lasseter said in a phone interview, noting that Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, helped build Pixar before selling it to Disney in 2006. “I really like what Apple TV+ is doing. It’s about quality, not quantity. And their marketing is just spectacular. It’s the best I’ve ever seen in all the movies I’ve made.”Mr. Lasseter’s return to full-length filmmaking comes at an awkward time for Disney-Pixar, which appears to be a little lost without him, having misfired badly in June with a “Toy Story” prequel. “Lightyear,” about Buzz Lightyear before he became a toy, seemed to forget what made the character so beloved. The movie, which cost an estimated $300 million to make and market worldwide, has taken in about $220 million, which is even worse than it sounds for Disney’s bottom line because theaters keep at least 40 percent of ticket sales. “Lightyear” is the second-worst-performing title in Pixar’s history, ranking only above “Onward,” which came out in March 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.Mr. Lasseter declined to comment on “Lightyear,” which arrives on Disney+ on Wednesday. He also declined to discuss his departure from Disney.The Race to Rule Streaming TVTurmoil at Netflix: Despite a loss of subscribers, job cuts and a steep stock drop, the streaming giant has said it is staying the course.An Expensive Gamble: Netflix hopes “The Gray Man” — its new $200 million action movie — can be the start of a blockbuster franchise that attracts much-needed subscribers.Live Sports: Apple and Amazon are eager to expand their streaming audiences. They increasingly see live sports as a way to do it.End of an Era?: The golden age of streaming might be over, and we probably won’t like what happens next, our tech columnist writes.More than 50 people have followed Mr. Lasseter to Skydance from Disney and Pixar, including Ms. Holmes (“Secret of the Wings”), whom he hired to direct “Luck.” The screenplay for “Luck” is credited to Kiel Murray, whose Pixar and Disney writing credits include “Cars” and “Raya and the Last Dragon.” Mr. Lasseter and Ms. Holmes hired at least five more Disney-Pixar veterans for senior “Luck” crew jobs, including the animation director Yuriko Senoo (“Tangled”) and the production designer Fred Warter (“A Bug’s Life”).John Ratzenberger, known as Pixar’s “good luck charm” because he has voiced so many characters over the decades, pops up in “Luck” as Rootie, the Land of Bad Luck’s unofficial mayor.The upshot: With its glistening animation, attention to detail, story twists and emotional ending, “Luck” has all the hallmarks of a Pixar release. (Reviews will arrive on Wednesday.) Some people who have seen the film have commented on similarities between “Luck” and the 2001 Pixar classic, “Monsters, Inc.” Both films involve elaborate secret worlds that are accidentally disrupted by humans.“I want to take the audience to a world that is so interesting and beautiful and clever that people love being in it,” Mr. Lasseter said. “You want the audience to want to book a week’s vacation to the place where the movie just took place.”It remains true, however, that Mr. Lasseter continues to be a polarizing figure in Hollywood. Ashlyn Anstee, a director at Cartoon Network, told The Hollywood Reporter last week that she was unhappy that Skydance was “letting a so-called creative genius continue to take up positions and space in an industry that could begin to be filled with different people.”Emma Thompson has not changed her public position on Mr. Lasseter since backing out of a role in “Luck” in 2019. She had been cast by the film’s first director and quit when Mr. Lasseter joined Skydance.“It feels very odd to me that you and your company would consider hiring someone with Mr. Lasseter’s pattern of misconduct,” Ms. Thompson wrote in a letter to David Ellison, Skydance’s chief executive. (Her character, a human, no longer exists in the radically reworked film.)Ms. Holmes, the “Luck” director, said she had no qualms about joining Mr. Lasseter at Skydance.“It has been a very, very positive experience, and John has been a great mentor,” she said.Holly Edwards, the president of Skydance Animation, a division of Skydance Media, echoed Ms. Holmes. “John has been incredible,” she said. “I’m proud that we’re creating an environment where people know they have a voice and know they are being heard.” Ms. Edwards previously spent nearly two decades at DreamWorks Animation.Some of Mr. Lasseter’s creative tactics have not changed. One is a willingness to radically overhaul projects while they are on the assembly line — including removing a director, something that can cause hurt feelings and fan blowback. He believes that such decisions, while difficult, are sometimes crucial to a quality outcome.Peggy Holmes, the director of “Luck,” said she had no reservations about working with Mr. Lasseter.Michael Tran/FilmMagic“Luck,” for instance, was already in the works when Mr. Lasseter arrived at Skydance. Alessandro Carloni (“Kung Fu Panda 3”) had been hired to direct the film, which then involved a battle between human agents of good luck and bad luck.“As soon as I heard the concept, I actually was kind of jealous,” Mr. Lasseter said. “It’s a subject that every single person in the world has a relationship with, and that is very rare in a basic concept of a movie.”But he ultimately threw out almost everything and started over. The primary cast now includes Jane Fonda, who voices a pink dragon who can sniff out bad luck, and Whoopi Goldberg, who plays a droll leprechaun taskmaster. Flula Borg (“Pitch Perfect 2”) voices the overweight, bipedal unicorn, who is a major scene stealer.“Sometimes you have to take a building down to its foundation and, frankly, in this case, down to its lot,” Mr. Lasseter said.Mr. Lasseter did not invent the concept of doing real-world research to inform animated stories and artwork, but he is known for pushing far beyond what is typically done. For “Luck,” he had researchers dig into what constitutes good luck and bad luck in myriad cultures; the filmmaking team also researched the foster care system, which informed part of the story. (The lead character grows up in foster care and is repeatedly passed over for adoption.)As at Pixar and at Disney, Mr. Lasseter set up a “story trust” council at Skydance in which a group of elite directors and writers candidly and repeatedly critique one another’s work. The Skydance Animation version will soon include Brad Bird, a longtime Pixar force (“The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille”) who recently joined Mr. Lasseter’s operation to develop an original animated film called “Ray Gunn.”Ms. Holmes said Mr. Lasseter was a nurturing creative force, not a tyrannical one.“John will give you notes on sequences,” she said. “He will suggest dialogue. He will comment on color or timing or effects. He’ll pitch story ideas. He’ll draw something — ‘Oh, maybe it could look like this.’“And then it’s up to you and your team to execute against those notes. Or not. Sometimes we came back to John and said the note didn’t work — and this is why — or we decided we didn’t need to address it.”Ms. Holmes added: “When the answer is no, he’s really OK with it. He’s really OK with it.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: CMA Fest and ‘Becoming Elizabeth’

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      ABC airs footage from the 2022 CMA Fest. And a period drama on Starz wraps up its first season.With 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, Aug. 1-7. Details and times are subject to change.MondayCAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016) 7 p.m. on TNT. Usually the Avengers work together to fight against alien armies or a supervillain warlord trying to decimate the planet. But in this movie, Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) make it personal and battle over political beliefs: Captain America thinks that superheroes should operate without interference, but Iron Man wants the government to be involved. A.O. Scott called it a “very crowded, reasonably enjoyable installment in the Avengers cycle” in his review for The New York Times. “The best part of the movie,” Scott wrote, “is a six-on-six rumble at an airport, in which two teams of costumed co-workers, with a few ringers in the mix, face off to work out their issues.” The battle, he said, “is entertaining precisely because the stakes are relatively low.”TuesdayTian Richards in “Tom Swift.”Fernando Decillis/The CWTOM SWIFT 9 p.m. on CW. This mystery show, named after the long-running series of young adult books that inspired it, ends this week after just one season. It has followed the title character, played by Tian Richards, as he sifts through conspiracy theories and mysterious phenomena to solve the disappearance of his father with the help of his best friend (Ashleigh Murray), his bodyguard (Marquise Vilson) and his A.I. companion (LeVar Burton).EDGE OF THE EARTH 9 p.m. on HBO. Skiers, kayakers, climbers and surfers show off their skills and put themselves to the test by completing near-impossible challenges around the world in this four-part documentary mini-series. The first three episodes featured skiing in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park; kayaking in the Chalupas River in Ecuador; and climbing around Pik Slesova in Kyrgyzstan. The final installment, airing Tuesday, brings the surfers Ian Walsh and Grant Baker (known as Twiggy) to Africa’s western coast.WednesdayCMA FEST 8 p.m. on ABC. This music festival that took place at Nissan Stadium in Nashville in early June comes to small screens, with footage of select performances airing on Wednesday. Elle King and Dierks Bentley, who previously worked together on the songs “Worth a Shot” and “Different for Girls,” host the three-hour broadcast. It will feature performances from Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Thomas Rhett and others, as well as collaborations between Bentley and Billy Ray Cyrus; Wynonna Judd and Carly Pearce; Zac Brown Band with Darius Rucker; and more.ThursdayFrom left, James Murray, Sal Vulcano and Brian Quinn in “Impractical Jokers.”truTVIMPRACTICAL JOKERS 10 p.m. on TruTV. The ninth season of this long-running prank show has not been without speed bumps: Production had to adhere to Covid-19 protocols, which required the show to rethink its entire format — instead of going up to strangers in public places, they rent out locations and film over longer periods of time. Since Joe Gatto, one of the series’s founders, abruptly stopped appearing on the show earlier this year, it has brought in celebrity guests including Jillian Bell, Adam Pally and Colin Jost. Brooke Shields will join for this week’s season finale.FridayAN ORSON WELLES MARATHON from 2 p.m. on TCM. See the varied talents of Orson Welles — as a director, actor and screenwriter — in this lineup of classics. The marathon starts off at 2 p.m. with THE STRANGER (1946), followed by MR. ARKADIN (1955) at 4 — both of which Welles directed, starred in and wrote. Then, OTHELLO (1952) — which Welles acted in and directed — airs at 6, followed by THE THIRD MAN (1949), directed by Carol Reed, which Welles acted in and was a writer of. THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1948) follows at 10, with CITIZEN KANE (1941) at 11:45.THE INN AT LITTLE WASHINGTON: A DELICIOUS DOCUMENTARY (2020) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). A fight for three Michelin stars, an old garage converted into an inn and a seasoned chef: This documentary follows the cook Patrick O’Connell as he plans the 40th anniversary celebration for the Inn at Little Washington, a quaint hotel and restaurant that he founded in 1978. The documentary shows the execution of many of O’Connell’s culinary creations and discusses the tumultuous history of the inn.SaturdayROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) 8 p.m. on TCM. Audrey Hepburn was only 24 when this romantic comedy was released, and it turned out to be her breakout movie. The story follows a European princess, Ann (Hepburn), who takes a night off from her overwhelming life. Instead of having an enjoyable night out, things go awry and she is rescued by Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), an American reporter. A love story begins, despite Bradley’s intentions to take advantage of the princess’s fame.SundayFrom left, Alicia von Rittberg, Romola Garai and Oliver Zetterström in “Becoming Elizabeth.”StarzBECOMING ELIZABETH 8 p.m. on Starz. In 1547, Queen Elizabeth I — then known as Elizabeth Tudor — watched her 9-year-old half brother become king after the death of her long-absent father, the infamous King Henry VIII. These are the true circumstances that set off the fictionalized telling of Elizabeth’s teenage years in this series. The show, which ends its first season on Sunday, centers on Elizabeth (Alicia von Rittberg) and her siblings, Mary (Romola Garai) and Edward (Oliver Zetterström), as their personal lives are scrutinized by the royal court and the public.BET SPECIAL: 37TH ANNUAL STELLAR GOSPEL MUSIC AWARDS 8 p.m. on BET. The gospel artists Jekalyn Carr and Kierra Sheard host this awards show, which was recorded live in Atlanta in mid-July. The ceremony features performances by Kirk Franklin, Erica Campbell, Maverick City Music, Marvin Sapp and others. More

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      Will Smith Says He Is ‘Deeply Remorseful’ Over Chris Rock Slap

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      In an apologetic video, Mr. Smith addressed questions over his behavior at the Oscars, which resulted in a 10-year ban from the ceremony.Four months after slapping the comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars, shocking audiences and prompting a decade-long ban from attending the ceremony, Will Smith posted a video on Friday expressing regret over the incident and promising that he was doing “personal work” to address his behavior.“It hurts me psychologically and emotionally to know I didn’t live up to people’s image and impression of me,” Mr. Smith said in the video. “I am deeply remorseful, and I’m trying to be remorseful without being ashamed of myself, right? I’m human, and I made a mistake.”Mr. Smith, who resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences days after the ceremony, apologized to numerous people during the nearly six-minute video — starting with Mr. Rock, who had made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head shortly before Mr. Smith walked up and slapped him on live television. (Ms. Pinkett Smith has been open about her struggles with alopecia, a condition that leads to hair loss, and in a statement shortly after the incident, Mr. Smith said a joke about his wife’s medical condition was “too much for me to bear.”)“Chris, I apologize to you,” Mr. Smith said in the video. “My behavior was unacceptable, and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.”Shortly after the attack, Mr. Smith won the Oscar for best actor. In the video, he explained that he had failed to apologize to Mr. Rock during his speech because he was “fogged out” following the incident.Mr. Smith said he had tried to contact Mr. Rock later on but had received a message in response that the comedian was not ready to talk and would reach out when he was. Mr. Smith apologized to Mr. Rock’s family, including his mother, Rosalie Rock, who gave a television interview saying, “When you hurt my child, you hurt me.”He also apologized to his own family “for the heat that I brought on all of us,” as well as the other nominees that night for having tarnished their moment.Ms. Pinkett Smith has said little about her own experience of that night, but last month she centered an episode of her online talk show, Red Table Talk, on alopecia, interviewing a woman whose 12-year-old daughter died by suicide as a result of bullying over the condition.Regarding the slap, Ms. Pinkett Smith said: “My deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have an opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile.”Mr. Rock has not publicly discussed his response to the attack in depth, but earlier this week, at a comedy show in Brooklyn, Mr. Rock mentioned it in a joke. During a portion of his set that was focused on victimhood, he told the crowd that after Mr. Smith slapped him, he shook it off and “went to work the next day,” prompting sustained applause from the audience. A representative for Mr. Rock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In Friday’s video, Mr. Smith seemed to be working to repair his reputation and reassure fans that his behavior at the ceremony did not reflect who he truly is, saying, “There is no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave in that moment.”“I know it was shocking, but I promise you, I am deeply devoted and committed to putting light and love and joy into the world,” he concluded. “If you hang on, I promise we’ll be able to be friends again.”Melena Ryzik and Jason Zinoman contributed reporting. More

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      ‘Not Okay’ Review: Posting Through It

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      In this social media satire, a young woman desperate to find her purpose executes a heinous hoax.In our era of branding and ubiquitous social media, where posts masquerade as life stories and mere traits become entire identities, it can feel inadequate — even impossible — to just be yourself. That’s how Danni Sanders, the ditsy antiheroine played by Zoey Deutch in “Not Okay,” becomes the most hated person on the internet. She can’t be just an upper-class 20-something living in “J train Bushwick,” so she pretends to be a survivor of a terrorist attack. As satires go, this one by the writer and director Quinn Shephard is hardly subtle — but though it lacks narrative finesse, “Not Okay” is brimming with provocative in-jokes for the extremely online.As the film opens, YouTube drama channels explain Danni’s deception, and several real-life influencers eviscerate her. Reece Feldman (or @guywithamoviecamera, to his more than 800,000 TikTok followers) both appears in the film and is credited as its “social media consultant.” Notably, Caroline Calloway, the messy influencer who rose to online infamy for bungling a self-run workshop series, is a recurring reference. Danni watches her makeup tutorials and reads articles about her on the subway. Calloway eventually makes a cameo in the film playing herself.“Not Okay” stabs at the adverse effects of social media on our psyches and mostly succeeds at making Danni more than just “a privileged white girl who thinks she’s the main character,” as a woman played by Shephard calls her. But the film is ultimately more content to luxuriate in the toxic sludge of internet culture than it is to try and clean it up. Giving Calloway the spotlight is a prime example. Like Danni, Calloway essentially rose to prominence for behaving erratically in public. “Not Okay” may sympathize with its protagonist’s mental health struggles, but it also leeches its clout from real, pitiable people.Not OkayRated R for sex, lies and a weed vape. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      An Avant-Garde Film That Went for Laughs Instead of Scandal

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      Nothing controversial: Adolfas Mekas’s “Hallelujah the Hills,” from 1963, is romantic slapstick, with two guys competing for the same young woman.The early 1960s was the golden age of underground movies. Some, like Jack Smith’s “Flaming Creatures,” provoked scandals. Others were too explicit to be written about (see Barbara Rubin’s “Christmas on Earth”). At least one was a commercial success: Adolfas Mekas’s “Hallelujah the Hills.”“A wild spoof on art movies by a new American director scored a surprise success Saturday at the New York Film Festival,” Eugene Archer reported in the New York Times in 1963, the festival’s first year.Returning to Lincoln Center for three shows, part of a series devoted to the early ’60s avant-garde, “Hallelujah the Hills,” may be the series’s most conventional selection — a feature-length movie with actors, some even professional, and a semblance of plot, shot in crisp black and white by Ed Emshwiller, an underground filmmaker of great technical expertise.The movie is romantic slapstick, set far from the bohemian Lower East Side in sylvan Vermont. Two guys, Jack (the intrepid photographer Peter Beard) and Leo (painter and assemblagist Marty Greenbaum) are infatuated with same young woman, Vera (“a lovely and enigmatic winter sprite” per Archer’s review). She is played by two different actresses (Sheila Finn and Peggy Steffans), both with a marked resemblance to Jean-Luc Godard’s muse Anna Karina. The rivals court Vera in different seasons over the course of seven years — a crisis arises when both show up for Thanksgiving.As its title suggests “Hallelujah” is nothing if not exuberant. Adolfas Mekas, the younger brother of Jonas Mekas and, like him, an immigrant from rural Lithuania, was in his late 20s when he made the movie. Pratfalls and drunken antics abound. Beard gives a particularly athletic performance — at one point bounding bare-assed through deep snow. (With his horn-rimmed glasses, Greenbaum seems more the Woody Allen type.)Jump cuts are common, too. Very much an American homage to the French new wave movie, “Hallelujah” suggests a frothy “Jules and Jim” made in the insouciant style of “Shoot the Piano Player.” Perhaps there was a two-way street. As “Hallelujah” was a hit at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival, reviewed by Godard, it’s not inconceivable that it was an inspiration for his 1964 “Band of Outsiders.”“Hallelujah” is not unduly sappy, although it does demand a tolerance for madrigal jazz (heavy on a tinkly harpsichord) and rampant cinephilia. “I haven’t seen a movie in 10 days,” Leo complains. The rivals play at being Kurosawa samurai. There are nods to not only Godard but the early cinema of Charlie Chaplin, Mack Sennett and W.C. Fields. Late in the movie, Mekas interpolates a celebrated bit of ice floe excitement from D.W. Griffith’s 1920 “Way Down East.” The sequence still works and so, in a more limited way, does “Hallelujah the Hills.”Actually, as fashionable as Mekas’s film once was it has an atavistic quality. Beneath the surface lurks a Lithuanian folk tale about rival princes and a princess (or goddess) linked to the changing seasons. Hallelujah indeed.Hallelujah the HillsJuly 29, Aug. 2 and 3, at Film at Lincoln Center, Manhattan, filmlinc.org. More

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      ‘Honor Society’ Review: Ivy League Strategist’s Cynical Shell Is Cracked

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      Angourie Rice plays an initially unappealing character, as a Harvard striver with sneaky moves.There’s a species of Young Adult novels — and their attendant film adaptations — that wears sophistication on its sleeve. Mostly for the purpose of demonstrating that sophistication won’t save the anguished teenage soul — see “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” In the teen rom-com, sophistication usually manifests itself in a near-endless stream of pop culture references.“Honor Society,” directed by Oran Zegman from a script by David A. Goodman, comes out of the gate flashing a formal and thematic sophistication so dazzling it might take you a while to realize it’s actually a Young Adult movie. The relentlessly driven title character, Honor (Angourie Rice, whom you may remember from “The Nice Guys,” terrifically appealing throughout), snidely dismissive of her working-class parents, has crafted a persona ruthlessly focused on getting out of her one-horse town and into Harvard. A place where “mediocre people get outsized opportunities,” she tells the camera.Notes of “Election” and “Rushmore” here are strong. Some fully grown-up viewers will feel old seeing Christopher Mintz-Plasse, of “McLovin” fame in “Superbad” (2007) playing the (ultimately sleazoid) guidance counselor who feeds Honor the unpleasant surprise that she’s actually one of four students vying for his Harvard recommendation.This news motivates Honor to weave a manipulative web that grows spectacularly tangled. One of her foils, Michael, is played by Gaten Matarazzo, that winsome kid from “Stranger Things”; Michael responds with sweet-natured goofiness to Honor’s temptress moves. So of course he is the one to crack her cynical shell.A twist whipsaws the movie into a darker place, one in the vicinity of Patricia Highsmith. But no murder takes place, and the movie’s resolution confirms what one may have suspected all along: Its dominant room tone is kinda-sorta that of “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.”Honor SocietyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      ‘Medusa’ Review: Liberated Women

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      This neon-soaked feminist thriller takes aim at Brazil’s evangelical communities by depicting a girl gang that targets sinners.In “Medusa,” a pop music-scored spooky story about women’s liberation, a group of churchgoing gals in Brazil play Christian Stepford Wives by day, and by night, rove the streets wearing white masks, terrorizing women they deem tramps into repentance.The writer and director Anita Rocha da Silveira takes a visual approach that feels played out, deploying the same blood-splattered fluorescent backdrops and techno-inflected bodily grotesquerie of recent feminist horror films like “Titane.”Yet these extremes also feel appropriate given the South American nation’s increasingly zealous movement against L.G.B.T.Q. individuals and sex positive culture. U.S. audiences might find this familiar, though in Brazil, where the rate of homophobic hate crimes is one of the highest in the world, there are in fact Evangelical gangs seeking to violently cleanse their communities.Rocha da Silveira lays hard on the creepy nature of indoctrination as it plays out in modern times: Mari (Mari Oliveira) and her girlfriends perform catchy worship songs for their congregation, and the queen bee Michele (Lara Tremouroux) makes YouTube beauty tutorials that demonstrate how to snap Christian friendly selfies.Mari undergoes an awakening after one of the gang’s midnight crusades leaves her with a facial scar. Fired from her cosmetic surgery job and certain of her eternal spinsterdom, she begins working at a clinic for people in comas, hoping she can make herself useful by taking a picture of the mythical Melissa, a sinful celebrity whose face was set on fire by a religious warrior.Eventually, with help from an attractive co-worker, Mari begins to realize the pettiness of her ways.Though dressed in shock-value clothing, “Medusa” is also a straightforward character study, tackling issues like the scourge of Western beauty standards and the difficulties of leaving an abusive relationship along the way. Most important, Mari’s evolution feels real, her triumphs genuinely moving. It’s here that “Medusa” presents an astute idea: The righteous mob is terrifying, but equally nerve-racking is leaving it.MedusaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Blue Island’ Review: In Hong Kong, the Past Is Present

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      In this hybrid of documentary and dramatization, real-life Hong Kong students re-enact the struggles of activists from earlier generations.In “Blue Island,” a hybrid of documentary and dramatization from the director Chan Tze Woon, real-life students from contemporary Hong Kong perform re-enactments of the political struggles of previous generations.Two students, Anson Sham and Siu Ying, step into the shoes of a couple, Chan Hak-chi and Git Hing, who fled to Hong Kong from the Cultural Revolution in 1973; part of the re-enactment of the escape is crosscut with documentary footage of a crackdown on demonstrators in Hong Kong in 2019. Elsewhere, Keith Fong Chung-yin, a student activist, meets with and plays Kenneth Lam, who traveled to Beijing in 1989 in solidarity with the protesters in Tiananmen Square.The younger subjects’ recent experiences color their portrayals. “You’re not just playing a 20-year-old Kenneth in the ’80s. You are also playing yourself,” the director instructs Fong, in one of many moments when the movie breaks the fourth wall. Elsewhere, Raymond Young, incarcerated by the British for bulletins he circulated in 1967, sits in a prison cell with Kelvin Tam Kwan-long, the student protester playing him (who notes that he’s been charged with rioting and is awaiting trial himself), and tells him that time will erode his ideals.“Blue Island” shows how Hong Kong residents have redefined themselves over time. Tam, while playing Young in 1967, defiantly tells a British official that he is Chinese. A moment later, Tam, still in costume but now appearing as himself, insists to an interrogator that he is not Chinese, but a Hong Konger.The movie concludes with a lengthy, silent montage of people who have faced charges for their involvement in pro-democracy activism. It is impossible to watch “Blue Island” without admiring their courage. The past-present parallelism is provocative, but it also seems faintly superficial — a way of eliding distinctions and streamlining history.Blue IslandNot rated. In Cantonese, Mandarin and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More