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      Mo Abudu Isn’t Waiting for Permission

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      LONDON — Mo Abudu has always understood the power of storytelling, and the impact of its absence. Growing up here as the daughter of Nigerian parents, she found herself being asked mind-boggling questions about the time she spent in Africa, including whether she danced around a fire or lived in a tree.“Never was I ever taught anything about African history,” she said during a recent video call. And, on the television screen at home, a lack of representation of anyone who looked like her also left its mark.“It affected me in such a way that I felt like I didn’t count,” said Abudu, 57, who has since gone on to become the kind of media mogul who can do something about it. “You therefore always felt a need to overcompensate by telling everybody who cared to listen who you were.”Decades later, Abudu is getting the entire world to listen. Her company, EbonyLife Media, has produced some of the biggest TV and box-office successes in Nigeria’s history. The Hollywood Reporter ranked her among the “25 Most Powerful Women in Global Television,” and she was invited this year to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.And last summer, EbonyLife became the first African media company to sign a multi-title film and TV deal with Netflix. The first of those TV titles to debut new episodes in the United States, the Nigerian legal procedural “Castle & Castle,” arrived last week. (Netflix picked it up beginning with Season 2; Season 1 debuted in 2018 on the now-defunct EbonyLife broadcast network.)In separate interviews — one by video last month from her home in Lagos, Nigeria, and the other last summer in person, at a park near her second home, in north London — Abudu talked about the whirlwind of recent years and the challenges of building a media empire. It was all part, she said, of her quest to “sell Africa to the world,” with productions that are high-quality — and locally made.“I think people are tired of storytelling, to a certain extent, from the West because you’re seeing the same stories time and time again — can I just have something new, something fresh?” she said. “And I think the likes of Netflix have understood this.”Born in London, Abudu was sent by her parents to Nigeria at age 7 to live with her grandmother in Ondo, a city about 140 miles northeast of Lagos. Returning to Britain at 11, she said, “I found that I became kind of like an unofficial ambassador.”Growing up, Black faces were next to nonexistent in the onscreen entertainment she had access to. Those she recalled were few, including in the 1980s TV series “Fame,” which led her briefly to dream of being a dancer; and in the landmark 1977 mini-series “Roots,” about the history of American slavery, which she said left her in tears after each episode.At 30, having enjoyed a brief modeling career, she moved back to Nigeria with the goal of seizing professional opportunities she saw opening up in her motherland. Eventually, she worked her way up to becoming the head of human resources for Exxon Mobil, but she couldn’t shake an ambition she had felt since childhood: to tell the modern story of Nigeria to itself, and ultimately to the rest of the globe.With no experience in the industry, she bought an Oprah Winfrey box set, enrolled in a TV-presenting course and drew up a business plan, going on to establish the first Pan-African syndicated daily talk-show, “Moments With Mo.” She soon earned herself the unofficial title of “Africa’s answer to Oprah.”Richard Mofe-Damijo and Ade Laoye in a scene from “Castle & Castle,” which Netflix picked up for Season 2 as part of its overall deal with Abudu. The series made its U.S. debut last week. Kelechi Amadi-Obi/NetflixAlong the way, certain obstacles proved stubborn. Abudu faced discrimination on three fronts, she said: “You face inequality and racism for being Black. You face it for being African. You face it for being a woman. It happens at every point in time.”At every point, she overcame. As Abudu was contemplating her growing role in a changing media landscape, a guest on her chat-show sofa had some particularly inspiring words, she said: Hillary Clinton, who at the time of the interview, in 2009, was the secretary of state.“I said to her, ‘The stereotypical Africa is disease, despair, destitution, deceit — why is that?’” Abudu said, paraphrasing the conversation. “And she said, ‘Mo, more and more voices like yours need to be speaking on behalf of Africa.’”Abudu’s takeaway? “If you don’t take the responsibility to change the narrative, when you leave your storytelling to someone else, then you can’t blame them,” she said.By 2013, “Moments” had made Abudu a household name in Nigeria. Seeing opportunities, Abudu went full Winfrey and started a Pan-African television network: EbonyLife TV. In 2020, Abudu’s umbrella company, EbonyLife Media, abandoned its TV channel to focus on a model based on partnerships with some of the world’s biggest streamers and studios.Today, along with what Abudu described as “over 30 deals” yet to be announced, EbonyLife Media has contracts with Sony Pictures Television, AMC and Westbrook Studios, the production company founded by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.“I’ve been knocking on these international doors from Day 1,” she said, “but you know, people weren’t ready to listen.”At the start of EbonyLife TV, in 2013, the mission centered on lifestyle programming that showcased the booming, cosmopolitan continent of the 21st century. But Abudu has been gradually flexing her muscles and broadening her creative palette.“Castle & Castle,” which Abudu co-created and executive produces, is about a Lagos law firm run by a husband and wife, whose respective cases threaten to destroy their marriage. With that series, Abudu wanted to focus on legal issues that were specific to Nigeria. In one episode, for example, “there’s a case around lesbianism,” she said. “It’s actually still illegal to be in a homosexual relationship in Nigeria.”Other projects include a TV drama from Sony Pictures Television about the historical all-female West African army known as the Dahomey Warriors; the dystopian series “Nigeria 2099,” set to debut on AMC; the Netflix Original film “Oloture,” released last year, which explores human trafficking and forced prostitution; and the 2022 film “Blood Sisters,” also for Netflix, which depicts drug addiction and domestic abuse across class boundaries in Nigeria.“What unites them,” Ben Amadasun, Netflix’s content director in Africa, said about some of the Netflix titles, “is Mo and her EbonyLife team’s unique ability to portray the realities of the everyday Nigerian and bring a unique perspective to each character.”Among the other productions underway with Netflix is an adaptation of “Death and the King’s Horseman,” the 1975 play by Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize for literature; as well as an adaptation of the Nigerian author Lola Shoneyin’s novel “The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives.”Abudu entered show business in 2006, becoming first a successful talk-show host, with “Moments With Mo,” and later a bona fide media mogul. Her mission, as she put it, is to “sell Africa to the world.”Stephen Tayo for The New York Times“I’m a huge admirer,” Shoneyin said in a video call from her home in Lagos. Shoneyin had turned down several offers of adaptation since “Secret Lives” was published in 2010, she said, but Abudu “really kind of wooed me.”“It was very important to me that the story is told first by an African who I knew would understand the book and the characters almost instinctively,” Shoneyin added. “But also because I wanted the story to be told in the tradition of African storytelling.”Given Abudu’s attitude and ethic, she certainly fit the bill.“Gone are the days whereby you can force-feed me only American content,” Abudu said. “They don’t own all the stories to be told in this world. They’ve had their fair share of telling them.”Abudu has made Nigeria her base and her focus so far, but she is not constricting her horizons. (Already, she employs about 200 staff members across her Lagos organizations, which include the EbonyLife Creative Academy film school and EbonyLife Place, a hotel, cinema and restaurant complex.) She also wants to tell stories from South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia.That could be good news for the rest of the continent. Ultimately, she said, she would like her main contribution to be an “entire ecosystem of storytelling” — generating jobs for everyone from camera operators to costume designers — whose productions can showcase African brands and talent to continents beyond.She hasn’t ruled out a move to the United States. But if she does, it’s just a means to an end — in a field where she has already made great strides.“I will never be lost to my roots,” she said. “It’s not possible, even if I’m living and working and breathing in Hollywood; they cannot have me to a point whereby I’m ever going to forget where I came from.“I think it’s important, because by me making that transition, I am taking a whole bunch of people with me on that journey.” More

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      ‘My Little Pony: A New Generation’ Review: The Ponies Get Political

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      The latest entry in the children’s franchise pits an eclectic team of progressive ponies against a fear mongering demagogue and the prejudices of their communities at largeOut with the hand drawn-animated ponies, in with their creepily-anthropomorphized, digitally-animated brethren: the “new generation,” if you will, which includes not only ponies but Pegasi and unicorns from all over Equestria. This “My Little Pony” movie takes a contemporary spin on the franchise’s tot-friendly tenets of love and friendship by staging a political awakening about tolerance, prejudice, even fascism — sweetened, of course, with musical numbers, cutesy gags, and pastel vistas.In “My Little Pony: The Next Generation,” directed by Robert Cullen and José L. Ucha, earth ponies are anti-magic (read: anti-science) and prone to fear mongering. Except for our enlightened heroine, Sunny Starscout (Vanessa Hudgens), who crashes a demonstration led by, essentially, a defensive weapons manufacturer who profits from a community comically afraid of being attacked by other ponylike creatures.The panic is obviously unwarranted when a ditsy unicorn, Izzy (Kimiko Glenn), comes on the scene. Sunny whisks her new pal away to safety, unfolding a learning tour that shows just how silly and retrograde the beliefs cultivated by their separate communities about the not-so-scary “other” actually are.In search of sacred objects that might restore magic in Equestria, Sunny and Izzy assemble an eclectic team of progressive youngsters — including a tomboyish Pegasus and her social-media obsessed sister — while back in earth pony-land, Sprout (Ken Jeong), a crimson demagogue with a bleach-blonde mane, ascends to power.However generic (just this year, “Raya and the Last Dragon” depicted a similar treasure hunt geared toward bringing together diverse groups), the film’s messaging about unity and the need for a new generation to band together against misinformation and rabble rousing isn’t the worst thing. At the same time, parents might get a kick out of the film’s surprisingly unsubtle references to American politics — something to numb the pain of watching yet another “My Little Pony” movie, which the kiddies will demand whether you (or I) like it or not.My Little Pony: A New GenerationRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘I’m Your Man’ Review: Living Doll

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      Dan Stevens plays a dreamy, pleasure-driven android in this delightful near-future romance.“Your eyes are like two mountain lakes I could sink into” is a compliment most women would be disinclined to take umbrage at. But Alma (Maren Eggert) is not most women: A prickly scientist and cuneiform expert, she’s interested neither in flattery nor the man who’s delivering it. His name is Tom (Dan Stevens), he’s gorgeous, and he’s available. He is also a robot.Inspired by a short story by Emma Braslavsky, “I’m Your Man” is a cool and clever sci-fi love story. Alighting on weighty questions with disarming playfulness, the script (by the director, Maria Schrader, and Jan Schomburg) never overreaches. Alma is lonely, but not desperate; brisk, but not unromantic. (She sees poetry in the ancient texts she’s studying). So when she’s asked to test-run a synthetic soul mate in exchange for a donation to the Berlin museum where she works, she reluctantly agrees.More gentle and droll than joke-a-minute, “I’m Your Man” — like the excellent TV series “Humans” — muses over the barriers to human-android partnerships. Tom, like much of the internet, is algorithmically designed to give Alma increasing amounts of what she likes; yet her exasperation over these attentions is as confusing to her as to him. Flirting, we learn, is the most difficult skill to program, but adjusting for human cussedness must run a very close second.Edging now and then into the surreal, this unusual and tender little movie gingerly interrogates the gulf between digital and biological wiring. Stevens, speaking fluent German, is fabulous, giving the character unexpected depth and delicacy. Tom can quote Rilke and dance the rumba, whip up brunch and a rose-petal bath, but so what? He had me at those mountain lakes.I’m Your ManRated R for cross-life-form canoodling. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘El Planeta’ Review: A Comedy of Austerity

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      In this dry Spanish comedy, a mother and daughter commit to grifting as a full-time job.“El Planeta” is a Spanish comedy of financial errors that opens with a negotiation. Leo, played by the film’s director, Amalia Ulman, is a fashion student who meets with a middle-aged man to discuss her sexual rather than sartorial services. Leo’s coffee date lays out his preferences and kinks, and she names her price. Her date laughs in response. In their city of Gijón, Spain, he explains, oral sex might go for a cool 20 euros, not the 500 euros she proposed. In “El Planeta,” not even sex work can fetch a living wage.After her failed attempt to earn an honest wage, Leo returns to the apartment she shares with her mother (played by Amalia’s real mother, Ale Ulman). There is no food in the fridge, no bills have been paid, and neither mother nor daughter has work. Instead, they get by through grifting, donning fur coats to dine at restaurants where they’ve run up unpayable tabs. Leo is conflicted, but her mother is cheerfully committed to the scam regardless of the consequences. She reasons that at least in prison, the food is always free.This is a dry comedy that elicits amused recognition rather than belly laughs, and Ulman, as a first-time feature director, makes canny decisions to set a wry tone. The movie was shot in black and white, and music is used sparingly. Even when Leo and her mother present an appearance of opulence, with bespoke gowns and designer T-shirts, they remain visually trapped in a world of austerity. Like its grifter characters, “El Planeta” signals luxury but it does not luxuriate, creating an experience that is more intellectually than sensually satisfying.El PlanetaNot rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 19 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Starling’ Review: For the Birds

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      Melissa McCarthy stars in this film on Netflix that takes shortcuts, at nearly every turn, in portraying the messiness of acceptance.A soppy, facile look at grief, “The Starling” finds its protagonist coping with the death of her infant daughter — and a marriage that has faltered in its aftermath — with the aid of a flapping metaphor.Lilly (Melissa McCarthy) is a supermarket employee who has channeled her anguish over losing a child into compulsive snack-food stacking. Lilly’s husband, Jack (Chris O’Dowd), has been living in a psychiatric institution. And a starling has taken up residence by Lilly’s garden. It keeps swooping down and striking her in the head.Starlings, explains a doctor named Larry Fine (Kevin Kline) — yes, like the Three Stooges, Lilly notes — are not easily scared away. Eventually, Lilly will learn that the bird is out of her control. She simply has to live with it.To be fair, “The Starling,” directed in bland, undistinguished terms by Theodore Melfi (“Hidden Figures”), never suggests that mourning is as easy or rapid a process as coexisting with a bothersome yard guest. But it does, at nearly every turn, take shortcuts in portraying the messiness of acceptance. Larry is both a veterinarian and a former psychiatrist, a combination that allows Lilly to economize on office visits and the screenwriter, Matt Harris, to dispense unrelated bromides from one character. (Larry also commits what seems like an ethical violation by visiting Jack without Lilly’s knowledge.)Blatant product placement, unconvincing bird effects and awful soundtrack selections all undermine a potentially wrenching, difficult premise with utter bogusness.The StarlingRated PG-13. Grief and animal cruelty. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘The Village Detective: A Song Cycle’ Review: Soviet Film Hero Emerges

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      Bill Morrison, the poet laureate of lost films, turns the story of footage found near Iceland into a history of a slice of Soviet cinema.The main title of this movie could be referring to two different people. The first would be Fyodor Ivanovich Aniskin, the avuncular hero of a banal 1969 Soviet film, played by the frequently avuncular actor Mikhail Zharov. Consulting on a case in which a musician, new to his hamlet, complains of a purloined accordion, Aniskin notes that the man does not yet understand the values of their small town.The other “village detective” might be Bill Morrison himself. For Morrison, who is the producer, director and editor of this strangely intoxicating film, is a cinematic investigator of the first stripe. The values of his own corner of film revival place as much emphasis on ruin as on restoration. His astonishing 2017 feature, “Dawson City: Frozen Time,” unearthed an uncanny swatch of buried film history from the end of the line of the Klondike Gold Rush. Other films, like “Decasia” (2002), are audiovisual tone poems reveling in the beautiful rot of old reels in varying states of disrepair.Like “Frozen Time,” “The Village Detective” tells the story of a find. After a preface in which two films featuring Zharov, one from the 1930s and another from the early 1970s, conduct a kind of dialogue with each other, Morrison tells, in onscreen titles, of a 2016 email from a friend, the Icelandic musician and composer Johann Johannsson.On a trip home, Johannsson heard of an Icelandic lobster trawler catching a forgotten film canister in its net. We learn that the canister was picked up on the border of the tectonic plates that hold North America and Europe — the West abutting the East, so to speak. Underneath these plates is molten lava; the hydrogen sulfide emanating from that lava is a very high-quality preservative. Film preservationists in Iceland were practically salivating over the possibilities.What was found, and what we see, in mesmeric images transferred from celluloid that was steeped in mud, was the Soviet movie from 1969, “Derevensky Detektiv,” savaged by critics but a huge popular hit — so much so that Zharov continued to play Aniskin in sequels for the last decade of his career. He died in 1981 at the age of 82.As Morrison demonstrates through exhaustively selected clips, the actor’s story is also a, if not the, story of Soviet cinema. His film debut, as an extra, was in 1915, in a pre-Soviet film about Ivan the Terrible. He appeared in movies by important Soviet directors such as Boris Barnet and V.I. Pudovkin — and by many less important filmmakers. As he grew a bit stout in his thirties, he began to resemble the players of friendly-but-hapless supporting roles in American studio films. He’s got a touch of Alan Hale Sr., you could say.He did some of his best work in Sergei Eisenstein’s “Ivan the Terrible, Part II,” which got its director in hot water with Stalin. And when Zharov’s in-laws were imprisoned as part of the so-called “doctors’ plot” to assassinate Stalin (no such plot existed; the whole affair was an antisemitic fraud), Zharov was ostracized for not denouncing them.Morrison weaves this history into a treatment of Zharov’s 1969 star turn that renders its stodgy corniness poetic. (The accordion-centered score, by David Lang, is essential to this near-alchemical process.) The movie ends on a droll semi-cosmic joke that one expects its dedicatee, Johannsson, who died in 2018, might have appreciated.The Village Detective: A Song CycleNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 21 minutes. In English, with some Russian and Icelandic, subtitled. In theaters. More

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      ‘Undine,’ ‘My Zoe’ and More Offbeat Streaming Gems

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      From slasher musicals to water nymph dramas, we recommend a number of unusual films to breathe new life into your streaming routine.This month’s off-the-radar recommendations include a trio of terrific (but modest) indies from earlier this year, along with a thoughtful biblical drama, a wild slasher musical (yes, you read that right) and a documentary to fill that “Summer of Soul”-sized hole in your heart.‘Together Together’ (2021)Stream it on Hulu.The writer and director Nikole Beckwith opens her character-driven comedy-drama with credits rendered in a white Windsor font — unmistakable as Woody Allen’s go-to title font. It seems like a bold, even ill-advised choice, but it’s a purposeful reference; the flaws of Allen’s cinematic worldview are discussed later in the film, which can be read as a feature-length rebuke to the ubiquity of May-December romances in that director’s work. The relationship here, between a would-be single dad (Ed Helms) and his gestational surrogate (Patti Harrison), is much more nuanced than that, though awkwardness gives way to affection and even love over the course of the pregnancy. Beckwith dares suggest that such emotion can exist outside the realm of romance, and scene after scene lands with sensitivity and depth, without sacrificing any laughs along the way. Helms crafts his best film work to date, and Harrison is a real find.‘My Zoe’ (2021)Stream it on Amazon.Julie Delpy writes, directs and stars in this tender familial drama with an unexpected dose of science fiction. Delpy’s Isabelle is a scientist and newly single mother who is struggling to navigate through the minefield of conflicts and emotions tied to her recent divorce; both parents want what’s best for their daughter, but have vastly different methods of achieving it. What begins as a 21st-century riff on “Kramer vs. Kramer” veers into more serious territory when little Zoe (Sophia Ally) is struck by tragedy, prompting Isabelle to call upon her vast scientific knowledge — and willingness to experiment. Delpy writes about parenthood from the inside out, capturing its fears and presumptions with a vividness that borders on emotional brutality. But her gift for dialogue and mood makes “My Zoe” an ultimately rewarding experience.‘Undine’ (2021)Stream it on Hulu.Christian Petzold’s latest begins in the middle of a breakup, with the standard explanations and platitudes, until Undine (Paula Beer), the woman on the receiving end, says something you don’t typically hear in such conversations: “If you leave me, I’ll have to kill you. You know that!” This is no ordinary romance, obviously; true to her name, Undine is a water nymph, and according to legend, when a man betrays her, she must kill him and return to the sea. But she’s waylaid by another, immediate romance, with (of course) a kindhearted deep-sea diver (Franz Rogowski), and complications ensue. Petzold is delving into the realm of magic realism, but with an emphasis on the realism; “Undine” is first and foremost a romantic drama, with the compelling intimacy and chemistry of its leads front and center, and the fantastical present mostly as well-drawn flourishes.‘Mary Magdalene’ (2019)Stream it on Netflix.Like “Ophelia,” from last month’s column, Garth Davis’s biblical drama “Mary Magdalene” repositions a woman into the center of a familiar tale, while simultaneously retelling it to a modern audience. Rooney Mara is quietly superb as the title character, carrying much of her faith and fear in her soulful eyes, and Joaquin Phoenix is a surprisingly effective Jesus of Nazareth, adroitly using his naturalistic approach to emphasize Jesus’s humanity and charisma. Davis and the screenwriters, Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett, revisit the expected highlights — the raising of Lazarus, the conflict with the money changers, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection — but never present them as tableaux or pageants. Much like in Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ” (a clear stylistic influence), these scenes have an urgency and immediacy to them, as if they’re being staged for the first time.‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’ (2012)Stream it on HBO Max.The genuine end-of-the-world vibes of late — floods, fires, a mutating plague — might make this apocalyptic romantic comedy hit a bit too close to home. On the other hand, its underlying message of giving in to the insanity, and making the best of the time you have left, feels exceedingly welcome. Steve Carell is at his sad-sack best as an average guy whose wife abandons him the second it becomes clear that the end is near; Keira Knightley is charming as the neighbor who accompanies him on an impromptu road trip. The writer and director Lorene Scafaria, later acclaimed for “Hustlers,” makes an assured debut, orchestrating a top-notch ensemble cast with skill, and creating wildly funny comic situations that remain anchored in the story’s crumbling reality.‘All Good Things’ (2010)Stream it on Amazon.Those who eagerly followed the twists and turns of the true crime documentary series “The Jinx” should seek out this earlier dramatization of its events from the “Jinx” director Andrew Jarecki. Ryan Gosling stars as David Marks — a fictionalized version of Robert Durst — who leaves his life of privilege to be with his wife, Katie (Kirsten Dunst), only to become a suspect in her disappearance, as well as an increasingly bizarre series of unsolved murders. Gosling is given a tricky task, finding the humanity in a seemingly impenetrable character who may or may not be a murderer; and Dunst makes a good match, conveying how this sincere woman could have seen that humanity — and the price she paid for it.‘Disobedience’ (2018)Stream it on Hulu.Sebastián Lelio narrates a sequence from his film, starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams.Bleecker StreetRachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams star as members of a strict Orthodox Jewish community whose shared past forcefully returns in this powerful drama from the director Sebastián Lelio (adapting Naomi Alderman’s novel). Ronit (Weisz), estranged from the community, returns following the death of her father and resumes her romance with Esti (McAdams), who has repressed her desires and entered a loveless marriage. Lelio approaches the material matter-of-factly, refusing to either sensationalize or desexualize the relationship; it’s a rare mainstream portrayal of same-sex attraction that considers both emotional and physical attraction, on equal footing.‘Like Crazy’ (2011)Stream it on Netflix.Young romance is dramatized so often in popular culture that yet another story of lost love hardly seems noteworthy — but few are rendered with the kind of lived-in experience that the director Drake Doremus brings to this Sundance hit. Anton Yelchin stars as Jacob, who falls hard for the British foreign exchange student Anna (Felicity Jones) and must face the geographical and emotional difficulties of a long-distance relationship. Doremus and his co-writer Ben York Jones penned only an outline, working with their actors to improvise the dialogue, creating intimacy and authenticity in even their offhand exchanges. Yelchin and Jones convincingly convey their longing and desperation, while a pre-fame Jennifer Lawrence shines as a potential complication for Jacob.‘Stage Fright’ (2014)Stream it on Amazon.Fans of throwback horror will delight in this cheerful mash-up of “The Phantom of the Paradise” and “Friday the 13th,” in which a summer musical theater camp’s production of a “Phantom of the Opera” rip-off is disrupted by the troubled past of its leading lady, and the return of the bloodthirsty killer that murdered her mother. The writer and director Jerome Sable both embraces and sends up the conventions of Gothic horror and slasher movies, while convincingly staging the musical-within-the movie (and ensuring echoes of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” by casting Meat Loaf in a supporting role). Keep an eye out for the “Schitt’s Creek” star Daniel Levy in a cameo role.‘Mr. Soul’ (2020)Stream it on HBO Max.If “Summer of Soul” whetted your appetite for archaeological explorations of forgotten pop culture artifacts, this energetic documentary makes a fine companion piece. It concerns “Soul!,” a variety and talk program produced for public television from 1968 to 1973 — one of the first such programs produced by Black talent, aimed at a Black audience. As such, it showcased an astonishing array of musical stars, including Stevie Wonder, Al Green and Earth, Wind & Fire (whose awe-inspiring performances are excerpted), as well as prominent Black authors, intellectuals and activists. The show was the brainchild of Ellis Haizlip, who produced and hosted; “Mr. Soul!” is written and co-directed by Ellis’s niece, Melissa Haizlip, who captures the show’s history with a mixture of cultural awareness and familial pride. More

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      ‘Intrusion’ Review: We’re All Trying to Find the Guy Who Did This

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      This domestic thriller from Netflix is painfully dumb and laughably obvious.In the simplest terms, “Intrusion” is about a woman who begins to think that her husband may be up to something sinister. The movie makes it immediately obvious, however, that her husband really is up to something sinister, because he’s always prowling around suspiciously, with ominous music playing pretty much whenever he’s onscreen. But this is a feature-length thriller, and it needs to buy some time and build suspense, so the faithful wife is obliged to be very, very obtuse and draw some very foolish conclusions. It’s an exercise in watching someone have the world’s slowest revelation.The wife is Meera (Freida Pinto), a cancer survivor and therapist, and the husband is Henry (Logan Marshall-Green), an architect who has designed the couple’s modernist dream home in rural Corrales, outside of Albuquerque. After their home is burgled, Meera surmises that they may have been targeted, and seeks answers by investigating Henry’s private life, which is both highly dubious and conveniently easy to look into. This is one of those mysteries where both the suspect and the sleuth keep making the kind of implausible, idiotic mistakes that generate trite suspense. Henry leaves evidence lying around with laughable carelessness; Meera roots around his office as he’s right about to walk in the door.If “Intrusion” has one redeeming feature, it’s Marshall-Green, whose performance as the husband with a dark secret has a crackling, tightly controlled intensity far more nuanced and persuasive than anything else in the film. Marshall-Green was similarly sensational in Karyn Kusama’s excellent thriller “The Invitation,” but the director of “Intrusion,” Adam Salky, squanders the actor’s terrific work. It’s tempting to imagine this material realized with the maniac verve of a film like James Wan’s “Malignant,” where the ridiculous verges on camp, instead of how Salky plays it: thuddingly literal and painfully dumb.IntrusionNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More