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      The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in September

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      Our picks for September, including ‘Billions,’ ‘Goliath’ and ‘Worth’Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for September.New to NetflixSEPT. 2‘Q-Force’ Season 1The animated series “Q-Force” is both a campy social satire and a parody of over-the-top action-adventure movies. It follows the exploits of a team of secret agents who are frequently undervalued by their government handlers, because many of these superspies are openly gay. Sean Hayes cocreated the show and also voices the main character, Agent Steve Maryweather (dubbed “Agent Mary” by his dubious bosses). Wanda Sykes, Matt Rogers and Patti Harrison voice some of the hero’s colleagues, who have to fight both the nation’s enemies and their peer’s prejudices.SEPT. 3‘Worth’Kenneth Feinberg was the attorney assigned by the U.S. government to help manage its 9/11 compensation fund, intended to get the terrorist attacks’ survivors and the victims’ families paid quickly — while saving American businesses from potentially devastating lawsuits. In the provocative drama “Worth,” Michael Keaton plays Feinberg as a well-meaning pragmatist, who changes his way of thinking about the project after many of his potential payees take offense at the idea of putting dollar values on human lives. Sara Colangelo directed and Max Borenstein wrote this film, which has a unique take on the true cost of 9/11.‘Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali’NetflixSEPT. 9‘Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali’The boxer Muhammad Ali and the activist Malcolm X were close friends for a few years in the early 1960s, leaning on each other for advice and support at a time when they were each defying an establishment determined to silence them. The director Marcus A. Clarke’s documentary “Blood Brothers” — based on a book by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith — uses new interviews and vintage footage to tell the story of how these two men urged each other on, while also examining the circumstances that eventually drove them apart.SEPT. 10‘Kate’In this gritty thriller, Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the title character: a skilled assassin who gets dosed with a deadly poison, leaving her with 24 hours to find out who is trying to kill her. As she races through Tokyo, Kate seeks the guidance of her longtime handler, Varrick (Woody Harrelson), while also trying to protect a teenager, Ani (Miku Martineau), who is related to one of her former targets. This story of violence and redemption puts an all-too-rare spotlight on Winstead, a fine actress and a compelling action heroine.‘Chicago Party Aunt’NetflixSEPT. 17‘Chicago Party Aunt’ Season 1The actor and comedian Chris Witaske is probably best-known as part of the cast of the Netflix series “Love,” but for several years Witaske has also run a Twitter account called “Chicago Party Aunt,” writing in the voice of a fictional Windy City long-timer who has spent some wild nights with nearly every famous Chicagoan. That Twitter feed has now been adapted into an animated series, with Lauren Ash voicing the legendary libertine Diane Dunbrowski, who knows how to find a good time in every neighborhood dive from Wrigleyville to Armour Square.SEPT. 22‘Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan’In the late 1970s, an Ohio man named Billy Milligan was accused of being a serial rapist. He was ultimately committed to a mental hospital instead of a prison term, after a team of psychiatrists determined that Milligan suffered from multiple personality disorder, and thus had no conscious awareness of having committed his crimes. The four-part docu-series “Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan” looks back at a trial and verdict which still raise a lot of questions today about mental health and justice.SEPT. 24‘Midnight Mass’The writer-director Mike Flanagan — the creator of Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House” — combines supernatural horror with small-town melodrama in this mini-series about a floundering fishing community which sees its fortunes start to change with the arrival of a mysterious new Catholic priest, Father Paul (Hamish Linklater). The increasingly strange and possibly dangerous phenomena that sweep across this tiny island cause the locals to face their past mistakes and regrets. Particularly shaken up is Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford), an ex-con hoping to repair his broken life without the aid of any shady miracles.Also arriving: “Afterlife of the Party” (Sept. 2), “Money Heist” Season 5, Part 1 (Sept. 3), “Kid Cosmic” Season 2 (Sept. 7), “Into the Night” Season 2 (Sept. 8), “JJ+E” (Sept. 8), “Lucifer” Season 6 (Sept. 10), “Metal Shop Masters” (Sept. 10), “Pokémon Master Journey: The Series” Part 1 (Sept. 10), “Prey” (Sept. 10), “Nailed It!” Season 6 (Sept. 15), “Schumacher” (Sept. 15), “Too Hot to Handle: Latino” (Sept. 15), “Sex Education” Season 3 (Sept. 17), “Confessions of an Invisible Girl” (Sept. 22), “Dear White People” Season 4 (Sept. 22), “My Little Pony: A New Generation” (Sept. 24), “Ada Twist, Scientist” (Sept. 28), “Sounds Like Love” (Sept. 29), “Love 101” Season 2 (Sept. 30).New to Stan‘Minari’StanSEPT. 1‘Animaniacs’ Season 1Aimed primarily at the ’90s kids who grew up watching the original “Animaniacs,” this revival mostly sticks with what fans loved the first time: zany irreverence, a blizzard of pop-culture references, and an animation style that is broadly cartoony and un-slick. The new series features the same core characters: the kooky siblings Yakko, Wakko and Dot, and the would-be world-dominating mice Pinky and the Brain. The show features a lot of the same entertaining schtick, balancing third-wall-breaking, “Looney Tunes”-style slapstick adventures with some cleverly snarky songs.SEPT. 2‘The Dissident’Bryan Fogel’s documentary “The Dissident” is an illuminating piece of investigative journalism, digging into both the scandalous murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the rise of tech-savvy authoritarian regimes around the world. The film is about how Khashoggi and the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — who has been accused of ordering the reporter’s assassination — each used the media to shape the international community’s opinions about the future of the Arab world. Fogel asks his audience to consider what becomes of society if the powerful decide which voices are heard and which crimes go unpunished.‘Billions’StanSEPT. 6‘Billions’ Season 5, Part 2This popular drama about the rivalries of the mega-rich was in the middle of another great season last year when COVID-19 shut down production. The creative team was finally able to reassemble to shoot the last five episodes, continuing a story which has seen the venture capitalist Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) try to buy respectability by founding his own bank, while the ruthless U.S. attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) is using every quasi-legal method at his disposal to bring Bobby down. “Billions” fans have been waiting for over a year to see how the season ends; they should savor every juicy plot twist still to come.SEPT. 16‘Minari’Youn Yuh-jung won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in the writer-director Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-autobiographical dramedy “Minari,” about a Korean immigrant named Jacob (Steven Yeun) and his wife Monica (Yeri Han), who move to rural Arkansas to establish a produce farm. Youn plays Monica’s mother, who joins the family and urges them to preserve their cultural traditions as they pursue their American dream. Chung surrounds his leads with vivid detail, placing the humor, the anxiety and the hope of this family in the context of the sometimes welcoming and sometimes alienating Southern state where they try to make a home.SEPT. 26‘Black Mafia Family’The producing team of Randy Huggins and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (best-known for the “Power” franchise) turn to the true crime genre for their latest series, which begins in Detroit in the late 1980s. Demetrius “Lil Meech” Flenory Jr. plays his own father, “Big Meech,” who alongside his brother Terry “Southwest T” Flenory (Da’Vinchi) rose from low-level drug trafficking to become nationwide gang bosses and players in the hip-hop industry. As with Huggins’ and Jackson’s other shows, expect “Black Mafia Family” to be frank about what it takes to get ahead in the criminal underworld — and about the toll it takes on those who succeed.Also arriving: “The Zhu Zhus” Season 1 (Sept. 1), “Code 404” Season 2 (Sept. 2), “Les Misérables” Season 1 (Sept. 2), “A.P. Bio” Season 4 (Sept. 3), “Jamie’s American Road Trip” Season 1 (Sept. 3), “Scaredy Squirrel” Season 1 (Sept. 3), “Dead Pixels” Season 2 (Sept. 7), “Where the Wild Men Are” Season 1 (Sept. 8), “Wu-Tang: An American Saga” Season 2 (Sept. 9), “Spliced” Season 1 (Sept. 10), “Love, Inevitably” (Sept. 10), “The Remarkable Mr. King” Season 1 (Sept. 10), “The Departed” (Sept. 12), “Liar” Season 2 (Sept. 15), “Storks” (Sept. 15), “The Fear” Season 1 (Sept. 16), “Streamline” (Sept. 16), “They Call Me Dr. Miami” (Sept. 19), “Pacific Rim” (Sept. 21), “New Amsterdam” Season 4 (Sept. 22), “Home Economics” Season 2 (Sept. 23), “Trigonometry” Season 1 (Sept. 23), “The Town” (Sept. 26), “Supernova” (Sept. 28), “Silk Road” (Sept. 30).New to Amazon‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’AmazonSEPT. 17‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’The title character in the hit British stage musical “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” is a teenage boy who challenges the bullies at his school and ultimately wins over his classmates when he opens up about his dream of becoming a drag performer. In the movie version, Max Harwood plays Jamie, while Richard E. Grant plays one of his drag mentors and Sharon Horgan plays a teacher who urges the youngster to get back into the closet. The show’s writer Tom MacRae also wrote the lyrics to its songs, set to upbeat and crowd-pleasing music by Dan Gillespie Sells.SEPT. 24‘Goliath’ Season 4In the fourth and final season of this moody, noir-influenced legal drama, the underdog attorney Billy McBride (played by Billy Bob Thornton, in peak form) tackles the big opioid companies, joining his ambitious colleague Patty (Nina Arianda) at a high-class San Francisco firm. “Goliath” has quietly been one of TV’s best crime shows since its 2016 debut; and while it’s too bad it’s coming to an end, at least it’s going out with another season of tense confrontations, big surprises, and stellar performances.Also arriving: “Cinderella” (Sept. 3), “LuLaRich” (Sept. 10), “Pretty Hard Cases” (Sept. 10), “The Voyeurs” (Sept. 10), “Do, Re & Mi” (Sept. 17), “The Mad Women’s Ball” (Sept. 17). More

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      in Movies

      12 Shows and Movies to Watch on Netflix Before They Expire in September

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      This month’s losses are heavy, including films from Noah Baumbach and Wong Kar-wai, along with one of history’s most beloved TV shows.This month’s exits from Netflix in the United States include films by the likes of Noah Baumbach, Wong Kar-wai and Edgar Wright. They also include two of our favorite recent genre series and one of the most beloved television shows ever. (Hint: It had a five-year mission but only a three-season run.) Dates reflect the final day a title is available.‘Kicking and Screaming’ (Sept. 3)The “Marriage Story” and “Frances Ha” director Noah Baumbach made his feature debut with this wry and witty 1995 indie comedy. He tells a story of early-20s ennui, as four university pals (played with verve by Chris Eigeman, Josh Hamilton, Carlos Jacott and Jason Wiles) knock around their college town in the year after graduation, not quite sure what to do with themselves. Baumbach’s dialogue is crisp and quotable, and the relationships are uncommonly rich, thanks in no small part to the performances of Olivia d’Abo, Parker Posey and Cara Buono as the endlessly patient women in their lives.Stream it here.‘Midnight Special’ (Sept. 6)One of the truly unsung gems of the past few years, this energetic and entertaining science-fiction thriller from the writer and director Jeff Nichols (“Take Shelter”) reverberates with the influences of “E.T.,” John Carpenter and early Stephen King, yet synthesizes those styles into something altogether its own. Michael Shannon is in top form as the father on the run with his 8-year-old son (Jaeden Martell, credited as Jaeden Lieberher), whose special gifts have attracted the attention of government officials (led by Adam Driver) and a religious cult (led by Sam Shepard). Kirsten Dunst, Joel Edgerton and Bill Camp round out the ensemble cast.Stream it here.‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ (Sept. 15)With his latest film, “Last Night in Soho,” finally making its pandemic-delayed debut this fall, it’s a fine time to revisit Edgar Wright’s electrifying 2010 adaptation of the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley. Michael Cera stars as the title character, a likable schlub who falls hard for the perfectly-named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), only to discover that in order to win her heart, she must defeat her “seven evil exes” (including Chris Evans, Brandon Routh and Mae Whitman). Wright finds just the right note for his comic book movie, jazzily incorporating the format’s visual touchstones and storytelling devices while juicing the picture with jolts of his unmistakable energy.Stream it here.‘Penny Dreadful’ Seasons 1-3 (Sept. 16)The Tony-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan created this ingenious Showtime series, mixing up a tasty stew of Victorian-era monsters, mythology and literary flourishes. Eva Green is a marvel — scary, funny, entertainingly self-aware — as a monster hunter whose adventures in late 19th century London intersect with the worlds of “Dracula,” “Frankenstein,” “The Picture of Dorian Grey” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” as well as various gunslingers, werewolves and alienists. Those who know the characters and the books they inhabit will eagerly devour the references and intersections, but even newbies can latch on easily to the show’s dark humor, intricate narratives and copious gore.Stream it here.‘The Grandmaster’ (Sept. 26)Mainstream audiences who have discovered the charismatic Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai by way of Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” would be wise to queue up this 2013 martial arts drama, one of the actor’s many collaborations with the dazzling director Wong Kar-wai. Leung stars as Ip Man, master of the Southern Chinese kung fu style known as Wing Chun, who trained a young Bruce Lee. But Wong’s film is less a biopic than a Lee-style adventure, filled with stunningly photographed fight sequences and action set pieces. Netflix is streaming the film’s U.S. version, which is shorter and simplified but less impressive. Still, even in this truncated form, “The Grandmaster” is an overwhelming experience.Stream it here.‘Air Force One’ (Sept. 30)“Get off my plane!” growled Harrison Ford in this 1997 action extravaganza that, put simply, is “Die Hard” on the president’s airplane. Ford plays President James Marshall, who is en route from Moscow to the White House when a band of terrorists hijack Air Force One, taking his family and staff hostage. But Marshall is a combat vet and decides to back up his “no negotiating with terrorists” rhetoric with action. The director Wolfgang Petersen knows how to direct claustrophobic action (his breakthrough film was “Das Boot”), and Ford is a sturdy anchor, retaining credibility even in the script’s sillier moments. Gary Oldman, meanwhile, has a blast, chewing up copious amounts of scenery as the leader of the hijackers.Stream it here.‘Evil’ Season 1 (Sept. 30)With the second season of this supernatural drama migrating from CBS to Paramount+, it’s not too surprising that the first year is leaving Netflix to join it. Katja Herbers, Mike Colter and Aasif Mandvi star as three “assessors” for the Roman Catholic Church, almost like a Ghostbusters team for possessions, sent to determine the validity of such encounters. But “Evil” isn’t just another “Exorcist” rip-off; it has a classy pedigree, coming from the pens of Robert and Michelle King, the team behind “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight.” It is lifted by its uncommonly intelligent dialogue and pointed characterizations — and then it delivers the genre goods.Stream it here.‘Kung Fu Panda’ (Sept. 30)It’s forgivable to assume that this 2008 family favorite was DreamWorks’s transparent attempt to recreate the success of “Shrek”: a potentially franchise-starting, computer-animated feature, rife with pop culture references and built around the personality of a comic superstar. And those assumptions aren’t wrong. But “Kung Fu Panda” is enjoyable in spite of its unmistakable formula, primarily because of the incalculable charisma of its star, Jack Black; he is simultaneously funny, cuddly, sympathetic and inspiring as a slapstick-prone panda who must fulfill his destiny as the “Dragon Warrior.” (The first sequel also leaves Netflix on Sept. 30.)Stream it here.‘The Pianist’ (Sept. 30)Adrien Brody won the Oscar for best actor, and Roman Polanski (controversially) picked up a statue for best director for this 2002 adaptation of the 1946 memoir by the Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman. Brody stars as Szpilman, a popular Polish-Jewish pianist confined to the Warsaw Ghetto, and forced later into hiding, by the Nazi invasion of Poland. Polanski, himself a Holocaust survivor, directs the scenes of Nazi terror with a lived-in immediacy that feels like cinematic therapy. But he finds notes of humanity and even hope in Szpilman’s story. Brody is marvelous, disappearing into the role’s pain and joy, while Thomas Kretschmann shines in the complicated role of an unlikely ally.Stream it here.‘The Queen’ (Sept. 30)Before he took on the task of dramatizing the full life of Queen Elizabeth II, the creator of “The Crown,” Peter Morgan, tackled a much shorter period of her reign: the days and weeks immediately after the death of Princess Diana. Yet as the newly elected prime minister, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), pushes the queen (Helen Mirren, in an Oscar-winning performance) to acknowledge the loss of “the People’s Princess,” Morgan’s penetrative screenplay keenly frames their conflict as symbolic of the shifts happening in the roles of Britain’s government and monarchy at that time.Stream it here.‘Star Trek’: Seasons 1-3 (Sept. 30)In light of the franchise’s eventual revenues, budgets and cultural footprint, it’s frankly charming to revisit the original “Star Trek” TV series (1966-1969) and marvel at what a lo-fi endeavor it was. Still, its strengths were evident from the beginning: a setup that allowed for endless imagination; intelligent scripts that slyly framed contemporary issues; and a perfectly balanced cast, from the finely drawn supporting cast to the ying-and-yang acting styles of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Later iterations — like the 2009 cinematic reboot, the seven-season “Voyager” or the four-season “Enterprise,” all also leaving Netflix this month — may have been slicker, but few were as genuine.Stream it here.‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’ (Sept. 30)We’ve seen no shortage of pop music biopics in recent years, with icons like Aretha Franklin, Freddie Mercury and Elton John getting the big-screen treatment. But this 1998 musical drama makes the case for dramatizing the lives of more obscure musical figures — which seems to allow for more dramatic freedom (and comic possibilities). The subject here is Frankie Lymon (Larenz Tate), whose group “The Teenagers” had a giant hit with the title track before disappearing into obscurity. The screenwriter Tina Andrews and the director Gregory Nava (who also directed the more conventional “Selena”) ingeniously tell his story through the eyes of three women (played by Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Lela Rochon), all of whom claimed to have married Lymon, who are battling over his estate. It’s a fascinating, untold story, thoughtfully exploring not only romantic entanglements but also themes of musical exploitation and the fleeting nature of fame.Stream it here.Also leaving: “Boogie Nights,” the “Austin Powers” trilogy and the “Karate Kid” trilogy (all Sept. 30). More

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      in Theater

      In ‘Back to The Future: The Musical,’ the Car Is the Star of the Show

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      A devoted fan of the 1985 movie helped the London production’s creative team recreate the iconic time-traveling DeLorean, down to the last detail.LONDON — During a recent performance of “Back to the Future: The Musical,” at the Adelphi Theater here, the audience couldn’t stop cheering.They cheered a preshow announcement asking everyone to turn off their cellphones, “since they weren’t invented in 1985,” the year the original movie was released. They cheered when Marty McFly, the show’s main character (played by Olly Dobson), skateboarded onstage in an orange body warmer. And they cheered, again, when he started singing, surrounded by break dancers and women in aerobics getup to complete the 1980s vibe.But the loudest applause came about 20 minutes in. After three loud bangs and a flash of light, a DeLorean car seemed to magically appear in the middle of the stage, lights bouncing off its steel bodywork and gull-wing doors.The audience went wild.Bob Gale, who co-wrote the original movie with Robert Zemeckis and wrote the musical’s book, said in a telephone interview that he always knew the car would be vital to the show’s success. “We knew if we pulled it off, it was going to make the audience go nuts,” he said.He added he had been working on making that happen for over 15 years. In 2005, Gale recalled, Robert Zemeckis took his wife, Leslie, to see “The Producers” on Broadway — another musical adaptation of a cult film. As the couple left the theater, she asked if he had ever considered doing a “Back to the Future” musical. Neither Gale nor Zemeckis had any professional theater experience, but decided to give it a shot — yet finding a producer who would take the project on their terms took the better part of a decade, Gale said.Getting the car right didn’t take as long, but Simon Marlow, the show’s production manager, said it was still a yearlong process. There were two challenges: to achieve the impression of movement and speed on the cramped stage of a theater, and to make sure every detail of the car onstage matched the DeLorean in the movie. “‘The ‘Back to the Future’ fan base is massive, and they’re very pedantic,” Marlow said.Steven Wickenden poses with his replica of the DeLorean time machine, near his home in Deal, southern England.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesOnly about 9,000 of the stainless-steel cars were made at a factory in Northern Ireland before the company went bankrupt in 1982 (John Z. DeLorean, the company’s founder, went on to be tried, and acquitted, for trying to sell cocaine to prop up his firm’s finances). So Marlow’s team contacted Steven Wickenden, a “Back to the Future” superfan who lives in the seaside town of Deal, England. He owns a drivable replica of the movie’s DeLorean that regularly appears at fan events.Wickenden, 49, said in a telephone interview that he had loved the DeLorean since watching the “Back to the Future” movies on videocassette as a teenager. It was “so cool and futuristic,” he said. In 1980s Deal, a local greengrocer and a dentist had owned DeLoreans, he added. “As far as I was concerned, we had two time machines driving around town,” he said.When he was 21, Wickenden traveled to Universal Studios in Florida to see one of the film’s original cars, he said, and eventually his wife bought him his own as a 40th birthday gift.Wickenden said he was surprised when the musical’s producers got in touch. He put the car onto a truck — because, under the terms of its “classic car” insurance, allowed mileage is limited — and took it to Souvenir Scenic Studios, a London prop maker, where “six or seven guys” used 3-D scanners and took thousands of photos, to capture its likeness, inside and out, to use as the basis for the onstage version. (They called him later to check some details, like the original brand of the tires, he said.)Once the model was made, the show’s team had to “pack it with engineering,” Marlow said, including a device that allows it to spin on its axis (so it looks like it’s doing stunt turns) and pneumatic equipment that lets it tilt in the air (when it crashes into a farmer’s barn). Projections also help create the illusions of movement.“We’re pushing the technology to the limit,” Marlow said. He added that around 20 people had worked on developing the production’s car and associated visual effects.Creating the impression of movement and speed on the cramped stage of a theater was one of the show’s main challenges, a producer said.Sean Ebsworth BarnesAlthough the DeLorean is one of the most memorable features of both the movie and the musical, Gale said it wasn’t part of the original concept. In the first script he wrote, in the 1980s, Marty McFly climbed into a fridge to travel through time; he swapped the fridge for a car when the movie was in preproduction. In addition to its futuristic look, the DeLorean was notorious at that the time because of its maker’s cocaine trial, Gale said, so it seemed an attention-grabbing choice.At the Adelphi Theater, all the hard work on the car seemed to pay off. Ten audience members — many dressed as “Back to the Future” characters or wearing DeLorean T-shirts — said that the car had been a highlight. “I was in tears the first time I saw the DeLorean come out,” said Stephen Sloane, 43. “It’s just got the ‘wow’ factor,” he added.Yet for all the team’s painstaking attention to detail, Roy Swansborough, 44, said he had noticed a few differences between the stage and movie cars. “The steering wheel is slightly different,” he said. But his wife, Beverley, said he was splitting hairs. “If you don’t look too carefully, you can go, ‘Oh, it’s like watching the film,” she said.The only moment of the show when the actors seemed to upstage the DeLorean came right at the end. The cast all came onstage for a final song and dance number, and each player took their moment to claim an ovation. But the car didn’t get one of its own. Despite all the technical wizardry, the one thing it can’t do is bow. More

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      ‘Anne at 13,000 Ft’ Review: A Woman Adrift

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      A young day-care employee struggles to live and love in a world that, much like her, remains a blur.For much of the wispy drama “Anne at 13,000 Ft,” you wait for it to expand on its title and maybe even coalesce into something more than its nebulous parts. The title character is one of those difficult women that the movies just can’t quit and rarely prove as interesting as filmmakers seem to think. Anne obviously has issues — psychological, behavioral, familial — but the movie isn’t big on specifics. It’s a pretty, uninvolving blur.So is its title character. The story, such as it is, centers on Anne (Deragh Campbell), who works in a day-care center and seems to have recently moved into her own pad. She’s skittish and often unfocused, but, at 27, she’s eager to be in the world even if she isn’t ready for its pressures. There are early signs of trouble, including from a co-worker, an older woman who reasonably reminds Anne that she needs to keep an eye on the young children they care for. Anne later throws a cup at the co-worker, calling her dumb.It’s an empty paper cup and no biggie — or so the movie would have you believe. The act earns Anne a gentle, comically indulgent lecture from a supervisor (it only makes Anne seem more childlike) and that’s about it; you may feel less patient and sympathetic. The problem isn’t the cup or the insult, but that the writer-director Kazik Radwanski doesn’t do anything with the incident. Instead, it becomes one in a series of floaty if progressively leaden moments — butterfly wings brushing the skin, a wedding veil sailing in the air, a giddy escape to a roof — that alternately suggest flight, freedom and falling.Things happen, including a parachute jump that kind of explains the title and provides the movie with some ominously airy visuals. Anne’s mother (Lawrene Denkers) indulges her, as does a lover (Matt Johnson), one of several moths drawn to her. These guys all seem just to want to get it on, though that’s too earthy a take for a movie that prettily drifts. This wafting extends to the restless camera, which moves around in agitated fashion, as if to convey Anne’s unsettled mind. Everything else often remains out of focus, underscoring her isolation. Amid the blurred edges, the children look at Anne openly and curiously but without great interest. They’re the truest thing in the movie.One insurmountable problem with “Anne at 13,000 Ft” is that its protagonist isn’t interesting enough, isn’t deeply felt or substantially drawn enough, to serve as the axis for a movie that hovers around mental illness and tries to substitute free-floating metaphors for a story. There’s nothing wrong with messiness and mistiness and camerawork so insistently agitated that it seems to be addicted to amphetamines. But you need something to keep you engaged, like a persuasive lead performance. Campbell tries hard to express Anne’s inner life — she erupts into giggles, lets her face drain, casts her gaze downward — but these pieces also never cohere.Anne at 13,000 FtNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. In theaters. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Who You Think I Am’ Review: A Woman of Feeling, in Bed and Out

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      Juliette Binoche plays an academic with a turbulent inner life that makes her complicated romantic life all the more difficult.Juliette Binoche moves through the French drama “Who You Think I Am” as if possessed. From moment to moment, her character — an academic with a turbulent inner life — looks tense or wildly happy. Emotion, by turns, lightens and darkens her translucent face, and changes her body, gait and gestures. She laughs, she cries, expands, contracts. At times, she all but floats down the street, buoyed by the love of a younger man. Then again, she may be less high on him, per se, than on how he makes her feel.Filmmakers can get a lot of mileage just by filling the screen with Binoche’s face, which is often a movie’s greatest special effect. It’s a lovely face, eternally so, yet while beauty tends to pull us in, it doesn’t necessarily hold and bewitch us, keeping us hooked. But Binoche is a virtuoso of sentiment, with a mesmerizing control of her face. She can soften, harden or crumple it into blotchy fragments, and then effortlessly piece it back together, with or without ragged seams. And while she’s a great weeper, more impressive is how these inundations, these eddies of feeling, move under her skin.You get to know Binoche’s character, Claire, through the modern-era version of the confessional box, a.k.a. a shrink’s office. She’s a mess, and a guy is to blame, or so it seems. What transpires proves more complex or at least complicated. There are two guys, Claire tells her new therapist (Nicole Garcia), both perfectly coifed and readily undressed. When the first (Guillaume Gouix), dumped her, Claire reveals, she turned to the modern-era version of the devil, a.k.a. social media, to spy on him. With a seductive photo and a fake identity, Claire transformed into the much younger Clara, sneaking into his life and then into that of the conveniently situated lover No. 2 (François Civil).There are twists and turns, some obvious, others preposterous. Characters come and go (Charles Berling pops in too briefly as Claire’s ex-husband), and time slips away as Claire giggles, glows, musses her hair and loses her bearings. Throughout, there are gestures toward larger issues, including desire, beauty, gender and age. There’s a lot of talking, some dancing and more talking, this being a French movie. In one funny, pointed scene, Claire drives in circles frantically talking to a lover on her cell while her puzzled, exasperated sons watch, waiting to be picked up. Binoche seems to be having a good time, but her character could have benefited from fewer tears and histrionics.Binoche nevertheless fluidly navigates all the narrative switchbacks and emotional storms, enough that you may not mind the pileup of strained developments and coincidences. (You may, however, snort at an expedient car accident, but only because it’s such a howler of a cliché.) You realize all too soon that Claire has a way of making things — life, love — more complicated than need be. Then again, as cutaways to her lecturing in a university classroom remind you, she does teach novels of intrigue and deception like “Dangerous Liaisons.” Given this particular movie, she presumably also lectures on “Cyrano de Bergerac” and topics like the dissimulating heroine.It’s understandable that the director Safy Nebbou, who shares script credit with Julie Peyr, keeps his focus and camera so relentlessly on Claire. (The movie is adapted from a novel by Camille Laurens.) Yet because much of the rest of the story is so underdeveloped — notably Claire’s intimate life with her frustratingly generic children — the character overwhelms everything, including the fragile realism. Some of this is obviously intentional: Claire relates swathes of the movie in the therapist’s office, so it’s all about her. Yet while Claire’s therapist (or rather Garcia) turns out to be an ideal audience, the kind of transference that makes movies work never happens.Who You Think I AmNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Marvel’s ‘Shang-Chi’: How 88rising Crafted an Evocative Soundtrack

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      The Asian arts collective worked closely with the director Destin Daniel Cretton to put its imprint on the anticipated movie.One concert was all it took to spark the idea of the Asian arts collective 88rising overseeing the soundtrack for one of the most hotly watched action movies of the year.It happened in early 2019, when Destin Daniel Cretton, the director of the forthcoming Marvel Studios movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” caught an energetic Los Angeles gig by the Chinese hip-hop group Higher Brothers. “I’ve never been to a show that was primarily made up of Asian Americans who were all just owning themselves,” Cretton said in a recent interview. “Nobody felt like an outsider; I don’t know if you want to call it a punk rock mentality, but everybody was so pumped to be there.”Sean Miyashiro, the 40-year-old founder of 88rising (which includes Higher Brothers on its roster) was there, and when the two met backstage, Miyashiro didn’t need a formal pitch to convince the director of what his artists could do. Cretton “looked like he was hypnotized,” Miyashiro recalled. “He told me he’d never seen a bunch of Asian kids just wilding out like that — thrashing and jumping in the mosh pit. That really stuck with him.”Over the last few years, 88rising has steadily made inroads into the music industry. Its artists rack up millions of streams on listening services; it stages a festival, Head in the Clouds, which will return in November to Los Angeles (the pandemic foiled last year’s event). And the “Shang-Chi” soundtrack is an opportunity to showcase how Miyashiro’s mission for 88rising — to “provide and celebrate Asian creatives, especially in music, no matter where you’re from” — is part of a shift in available creative outlets for Asian Americans across the United States.Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé previously assembled albums that accompanied “Black Panther” and the remake of “The Lion King.” The 88rising roster doesn’t possess a generational megastar (yet), so “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: The Album,” which was executive produced by Miyashiro and 88rising and arrives Friday alongside the movie, functions as a sampler for the label’s offerings.“There’s this trust — that’s what makes the whole machine work,” Niki said.Natt LimRich Brian raps throughout the LP, including on “Run It.”Natt LimRich Brian, whose wry lyricism and laid-back persona made him the first 88rising artist to receive mainstream attention, raps throughout the record. DPR Ian and DPR Live, who Miyashiro calls “two of the most exciting artists coming from Korean R&B,” sound like smooth-voiced Daft Punk robots on “Diamond + and Pearls.” There are also contributions from artists outside of the 88rising universe, such as Anderson .Paak and Jhené Aiko, who serve as a bridge between musical worlds.While the typical orchestral palette — stirring strings, ethereal voices — is used to score “Shang-Chi,” the 88rising album is liberally incorporated throughout the film. The delirious party cut “Run It,” a collaboration between DJ Snake, Rich Brian and Rick Ross, is synced with the hero’s first fight scene, as he battles a group of villains on a city bus. “We were able to go back and forth with Sean and his artists to mold that track, so when you watch that scene, you’ll see very classic scoring techniques but through an electronic song,” Cretton said.In 2015, when 88rising was founded, a close collaboration with a director of a Marvel film might have sounded like an overly ambitious goal. Miyashiro, who was between jobs and “super broke,” as he put it, decided to take the plunge and break ground on his long-gestating dream of centering Asian creatives under one hub.“Nothing existed at the time, which is staggering to think about because this was only six years ago — there was not one media platform or YouTube channel dedicated to this type of creativity,” he said. “So I was like, ‘Man, we should do that.’ And it just took off.”A one-time employee of Vice, where he helped found the electronic music website Thump, Miyashiro had the instincts for identifying and packaging compelling content. After Rich Brian went unexpectedly viral in 2016 with his self-released song “Dat $tick,” Miyashiro signed him to 88rising. In an equally savvy move, he and his team filmed a video where established rappers reacted to the song. (21 Savage, a skeptic in that video, has since collaborated with Rich Brian and also appears on the “Shang-Chi” soundtrack.)Despite its ascendance onto a larger stage, those involved with 88rising stressed that it’s still an independent brand that’s learning how to operate in real-time. “It feels like a family; it’s very tight knit; it’s not like this major company with thousands of employees,” said the 88rising singer Niki, who appears on several songs on the “Shang-Chi” album. “The same people that I’ve worked with four years ago are the same people that I’m still on a text thread with today.”Though 88rising has steadily grown from those early days, the “Shang-Chi” album represented a very different kind of assignment. Miyashiro and Cretton said Marvel was mostly hands-off with the music. However, there were some ground rules. None of the songs could include cursing, and Miyashiro had to install a bank vault’s worth of security programs on his computer before he could see any material from the movie.The pandemic threw the process for a loop, too. After the Covid-19 lockdowns began, Miyashiro didn’t hear from Cretton for months. “Frankly speaking, I forgot about it,” he said. The conversation picked back up over the summer, with Miyashiro and Cretton hashing out the loose thematic framework for the album, which parallels the movie: a young Asian American, beholden to his family lineage and expectations, must grow into his own person.Miyashiro’s mission for 88rising is to “provide and celebrate Asian creatives, especially in music, no matter where you’re from.”Philip Cheung for The New York TimesWarren Hue appears on “Always Rising” (alongside Niki and Rich Brian), “Lazy Susan” (with 21 Savage, Rich Brian and Masiwei) and “Foolish” (with Rich Brian and Guapdad 4000).Natt Lim“We didn’t want to make music about a superhero,” Miyashiro said. Instead, he wanted to depict what it’s like to absorb a particular environment while growing up, citing Kendrick Lamar’s album “good kid, m.A.A.d. city” and the film “Goodfellas” as references. The movie begins in San Francisco, and Miyashiro, who was raised in San Jose, said the Bay Area was a big inspiration: “I took a lot about what I saw and what life at home was like: life with my friends, getting into trouble, mischief, all these different themes wrapped around growing up as an Asian American kid in California.”Beyond that initial template, and the demands of whatever particular scene Cretton happened to be scoring, Miyashiro let his artists have free rein. “There’s this trust — that’s what makes the whole machine work,” Niki said. “He doesn’t really micromanage or anything; he’s very much allowing us to find ourselves, and just be completely what we want to be.”The realities of recording during a pandemic, with a roster that splits time between Asia and America, introduced additional pressures. Warren Hue, a Indonesian-born rapper who’s featured on multiple tracks, recorded in both Jakarta and Los Angeles; Niki said she tracked her vocals with a USB microphone in her guest room in Los Angeles. “We had to take Zoom calls super late at night, into 4 a.m.,” said Miyashiro, who noted that they did rapid testing for every in-person studio session.But sleeplessness has long been a demand of Miyashiro’s quest to expand 88rising and further a musical dialogue between Asian, American and Asian American audiences. It’s exceedingly rare to find a company that puts out pan-Asian music, he pointed out: Korean labels tend to stick with Korean artists, and so forth. “When we’re growing up in America, it’s all Asian homies — we’re kicking it with everybody,” he said. “So naturally, we’ll work with creatives from a lot of different countries, and we’re really proud of that, too.”Cretton, who was born and raised in Hawaii, said he never listened to any Asian American musicians growing up, simply because he wasn’t aware that any existed. “As a kid, you don’t really think you’re missing anything until your brain develops enough to realize, ‘Oh, that’s kind of weak,’” he said.“When I go to an 88rising show, I’m seeing a reflection of myself not only up onstage, but also in those giant crowds of Asian faces,” he added. “There’s an exhilaration and a release that almost feels like a buildup of generations who’d lacked that. It’s very exciting to be at a point where new artists are being celebrated across all cultures.” More

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      Venice, Day 1: See the Almodóvar, Free the Nipple

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      The director was the toast of a glamorous dinner with Penélope Cruz, Isabelle Huppert and Denis Villeneuve, who talked about “Dune” as if he were a proud parent.VENICE — Denis Villeneuve, the director of “Dune,” wanted to apologize in advance.“This will be a long answer,” he said, “because of the Champagne.”We were at the Hotel Excelsior on Wednesday night for the lavish opening-night dinner of the Venice Film Festival, where the bubbly flowed freely, guests like Isabelle Huppert and Jane Campion supped on pink prawn tartare, and a wide array of major films — including “Dune,” Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel,” the Princess Diana drama “Spencer” and Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” — all waited to make splashy debuts on the Lido over the next week and a half.Jane Campion x Isabelle Huppert pic.twitter.com/HOsnH9qng0— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) September 1, 2021
      Though Venice was one of the few major film festivals to mount an in-person edition in 2020, this year’s program is significantly more robust. Many consider Venice to be the kickoff to awards season, an expectation goosed even further by the presence on the Venice jury of the last two auteurs to direct best-picture winners: Chloé Zhao, whose “Nomadland” premiered here last year, and the “Parasite” director Bong Joon Ho, the jury president.Will Villeneuve’s “Dune” be that kind of contender? The sci-fi drama, adapted from the Frank Herbert novel, has loftier aspirations and a more refined eye than most would-be blockbusters. Villeneuve (whose credits include “Arrival” and “Blade Runner 2049”) will debut “Dune” on Friday with a starry cast expected to show up to the premiere, including the lead Timothée Chalamet, who arrived in Venice via speedboat on Wednesday.At dinner, Villeneuve told me Venice is “the perfect way to launch the movie and it’s the first time that I’ve had time to really finish — usually, I’m finishing movies and then releasing them three days later.”Instead, the French Canadian director has had the better part of a year to tinker, as “Dune” was supposed to come out in November 2020 before a pandemic-induced delay. Now, on the verge of its Venice premiere (and with a release date rescheduled for Oct. 22), Villeneuve talked about “Dune” almost as if he were a proud, anxious parent about to send his young child off to school.“I think it has a soul,” he said. “I recognize myself in it. It’s my biggest project and still, I have the most intimate relationship with it. I know it can walk by itself, but what will other people think?”Villeneuve paused. “How do I say it in English?” he wondered, before finding the words: “I just have to let it go.”Denis Villeneuve said of “Dune”: “I have the most intimate relationship with it. I know it can walk by itself, but what will other people think?”Ettore Ferrari/EPA, via ShutterstockThough Venice is limiting audiences in each theater and requiring moviegoers to wear masks (and to show proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test), the festival still offers the most glamorous launchpad for movies since Cannes in July. Still, even in ideal circumstances (or especially because of them), it can be daunting to show your film to an expectant international crowd ready to gauge its award prospects.That goes double when you’re first in line. “You are more vulnerable if it’s the opening,” said Pedro Almodóvar, whose “Parallel Mothers” was selected as the opening-night entry of the festival. How did he feel in the hours before the premiere? Not nervous, he told me. Just a little exposed.Fortunately, reviews were strong. This intimate, precisely judged drama stars Penélope Cruz as a Madrid photographer who suspects her newborn baby was switched at birth with the child of an unwed teenage mother (Milena Smit). Though that logline is outrageous, the film is surprisingly down to earth and accessible, even as Cruz’s character is driven to increasingly desperate decisions.“I didn’t want to ask myself what I would have done in that situation until I had finished the movie,” Cruz said at dinner. “She and I are very different, but when I look back now, I feel I would have done something similar. The way Pedro wrote these imperfect mothers, it makes it impossible for you to judge them.”“Parallel Mothers” is Cruz’s seventh film with the director. “I look at him and feel like he could give his life for the film,” she said. Because of that, Cruz was determined to show the camera her most vulnerable depths as an actor: “The standard is really high and he gives me a character that is a treasure, so I don’t want to disappoint him. I try every day to give him a hundred percent.”Speaking of matters of exposure, Almodóvar was amused at the recent reaction to the poster for “Parallel Mothers,” which crops a lactating nipple as if it were the pupil in an eye shedding a single milk-tear. Upon the poster’s release last month, Instagram banned the image for nudity and then, after an online uproar, promptly unbanned it.“It’s not erotic at all!” Almodóvar protested. “You have to be very dirty to think there’s something sexual about it.”The 71-year-old director doesn’t use Instagram himself, but he knows what he’s up against. “What is very dangerous for all of us is that it’s a machine that decides to reject the poster,” he said. “It’s an algorithm, there is nobody in charge that I can talk to.”But for the time being, at least, Almodóvar has conquered the algorithm. As I left the director, other guests at the dinner swooped in to take selfies with him. You’ll never guess where they posted them. More

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      5 Things to Do on Labor Day Weekend

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      Our critics and writers have selected noteworthy cultural events to experience virtually and in person in New York City.Art & MuseumsMoMA PS1’s Engaging CourtyardNiki de Saint Phalle’s “La femme et L’oiseau fontaine” (1967) will be on view in MoMA PS1’s courtyard until Monday.Niki Charitable Art Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris; MoMA PS1; Marissa AlperIn 1997, the courtyard at MoMA PS1 became the main venue for “Warm Up,” a summer event that mingled art, music and design in order to draw new audiences. But things change. “Warm Up” certainly hasn’t gone away, but last fall, the institution began “PS1 Courtyard: an experiment in creative ecologies,” a program testing out ways to use the outdoor space that encourage community engagement.The initiative’s projects include a fountain from Niki de Saint Phalle, part of a larger exhibition at PS1 that closes on Monday, and Rashid Johnson’s “Stage.” Visitors are welcome to get up on his installation’s large yellow platform and freely use its five live microphones of varying heights. By showing a microphone as a dynamic social tool, Johnson’s piece, which will be on view through the fall, indicates the many things a stage can represent: a site of protest, music making, solidarity and, most important, amplification of your voice.MELISSA SMITHFilm SeriesScenes From Every SeasonA scene from “A Summer’s Tale,” one of four features in Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, all of which Film Forum will screen through Sept. 9.Janus FilmsThe maximalist moviegoing event of Labor Day weekend is “Lawrence of Arabia,” screening on Saturday and Sunday on 70-millimeter film at the Museum of the Moving Image. But for a minimalist alternative, try Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons — four features, each set at a different time of year, that Rohmer, the most conversation-oriented French New Wave director, turned out from the late 1980s through the late 1990s. (Together, the running times total roughly two showings of “Lawrence of Arabia.”) With the changing of the seasons, Film Forum is showing all the titles separately from Friday through Sept. 9.Watching them in tandem illustrates how Rohmer — superficially so consistent and serene — subtly toys with structure and variation, recombining types of characters in friendships and romances that rarely develop as expected. The most summery is, naturally, “A Summer’s Tale.” Melvil Poupaud plays a commitment-phobe vacationing in Brittany who somehow winds up juggling a surfeit of commitments to women.BEN KENIGSBERGJazzCelebrating a Visionary Record LabelCharles Tolliver at the 50th anniversary of Another Earth in 2019. Through Saturday, he will be celebrating another 50th anniversary at Birdland — that of the record label he started with Stanley Cowell, Strata-East.Lev Radin/Pacific Press, via Getty ImagesIn 1971, seeking refuge from an exploitive, increasingly commercialized jazz industry, the trumpeter Charles Tolliver and the pianist Stanley Cowell founded Strata-East, a record label offering artists creative freedom and relative commercial control. Though short-lived, Strata-East inspired Black musicians in other cities to undertake similar efforts. And it captured a moment in time: Nearly every Strata-East album simmers with the heat and tension of the Black Power era, delivering terse, syncopated rhythms and pushing jazz linguistics into a more spare, confrontational zone.Cowell died last year after a prolific career, but Tolliver, 79, continues to perform. At Birdland through Saturday, he is celebrating the label’s 50th anniversary with an ensemble of all-stars, including some who recorded on Strata-East in the 1970s: the tenor saxophonist Billy Harper, the pianist George Cables, the bassist Buster Williams and the drummer Lenny White. Sets are at 7 and 9:30 p.m. The late show on Saturday, which will also be livestreamed at dreamstage.live, will feature a guest appearance by the storied bassist Cecil McBee and will be hosted by the actor Danny Glover.GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOComedyNo Labor for These LaughsErik Griffin in his Showtime special “AmeERIKan Warrior.” He is headlining at Carolines on Broadway through Saturday.ShowtimeEven workaholics know they should take it easy this weekend, and fans of “Workaholics” will recognize the headliner at Carolines on Broadway through Saturday: Erik Griffin, who played Montez Walker on that Comedy Central sitcom. Griffin also portrayed a stand-up in “I’m Dying Up Here,” a dramedy about comedy in the 1970s on Showtime, where you can find two of Griffin’s comedy specials. At Carolines, he will perform one set at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and two sets at 7 and 9:30 on Saturday. Tickets start at $31.25.On Sunday at 7 and 9:30, Carolines will welcome Rosebud Baker, who released her debut special, “Whiskey Fists,” in August on the Comedy Central Stand-Up YouTube channel. Tickets are $27.25 and up.There will be a two-drink minimum at each show.SEAN McCARTHYKIDSThis Is How They RollA child at an NYC Unicycle Festival event in 2019. The 12th edition of the annual celebration takes place throughout the boroughs this weekend.Kenneth SpringleIn New York, casual basketball games are about as common as strutting pigeons. But the contest scheduled on Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Bronx should result in a lot of head-turning, not to mention wheel-turning.That’s when the King Charles Unicycle Troupe will play — while riding its favorite vehicles — at the basketball court in Clinton Playground in Crotona Park. (Enter at Clinton Avenue and Crotona Park South.) A beloved local circus act, these guys can double-Dutch jump rope on one wheel, too.Their show is a highlight of the 12th annual NYC Unicycle Festival, a free outdoor celebration presented by the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. The festivities also include long-distance group rides on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which proficient young unicyclists can join if they’re accompanied by an adult. (Details are on the festival’s website.) Experienced riders can participate in a post-performance pickup game with the King Charles players on Saturday, too, along with a free-throw basketball contest and a unicycle obstacle course.Neophytes, however, can do more than watch. On Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m., at Grant’s tomb in Morningside Heights, the festival’s conclusion will offer instruction and youth-size equipment for children who want to give unicycling a whirl.LAUREL GRAEBER More