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      ‘Running Against the Wind’ Review: Love and Friendship in Addis Ababa

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      Two childhood best friends reunite in this unfocused yet uplifting sports drama by the filmmaker Jan Philipp Weyl.Following two childhood besties from a rural area in Ethiopia who reunite after a decade apart, “Running Against the Wind” is a lot of things: a sports drama, a coming-of-age story, a gangster flick. Cramming a flurry of events into its one hour-and-56-minute run time — to constant, ever-shifting pop tunes — the film is, at the very least, never boring.It’s also, despite a potentially compelling conceit, pretty ridiculous.In the opening scenes, the friends are still young: Abdi is a gifted runner while Solomon takes a liking to photography after a humanitarian worker takes the boys on an eye-opening trip to the bustling capital of Addis Ababa. But before too long, little Solomon nabs the worker’s fancy camera and runs away to the city, never to be seen again.Fast-forward to the present-day and Abdi (Ashenafi Nigusu) is a national running champion still searching for his lost pal. Turns out Solomon (Mikias Wolde) is alive, but he has gotten mixed up with a group of thugs who are vexed when the strait-laced Abdi comes on the scene and sets his friend up with an honest job working for his running coach — who eventually promotes Solomon to team photographer.The director, Jan Philipp Weyl (who also stars as Soloman’s photography mentor), injects his sprawling buddy story with a glossy, music video sensibility full of roller-coaster-like intrigue involving Abdi’s athletic rival, Solomon’s wife and baby, as well as his pugilistic friend.Instead of deepening our connection to the characters, these weak subplots distract from the bond at the film’s center, giving it a fragmented, episodic feel that makes even the most harrowing incidents seem inconsequential.At the very least, its light and uplifting mode is a welcome departure from the violent, overwhelmingly tragic course of most films set in Africa that are released in the United States. Sometimes happy endings do the trick.Running Against the WindNot rated. In Amharic, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Google Play, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Summertime’ Review: Poetry and Motion in Los Angeles

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      In this film that uses spoken word poetry as its guiding light, the camera only stops long enough for its new subject to enter a recitation.In a poetry reading, pursuing a distraction can be a kindness. Looking away, listening for room tone rather than to the speaker’s words — these are ways of granting the poet reprieve from judgment. But when watching a film, the camera controls where you gaze, and sound design limits the audible disturbances. Ultimately, this is the undoing of “Summertime,” a movie that uses spoken word poetry as its guiding light. The direction limits, rather than expands the words of its performer-poets.The director Carlos López Estrada works with contemporary poets to present a semi-fictional portrait of Los Angeles. The story draws inspiration from the Richard Linklater movie, “Slacker” — here, strangers cross paths momentarily and the camera transitions to new characters with each coincidental meeting. There are some recurring figures, like Tyris (Tyris Winter), a young man who posts Yelp reviews of the city’s restaurants, but most of the stories come and go quickly. The camera only stops long enough for its new subject to enter a recitation.The most successful sequences are the ones that find new ways of illustrating the meaning of a poem besides lingering on the face of the performer uttering purposefully syncopated and painstakingly intonated lines. A dance sequence in a parking lot demonstrates a fantasy of freedom with greater vitality than even the most animated speaker is able to muster. Some of the film’s most moving lines are spoken over a radio at a Korean restaurant. The new rhythm provided by a different language breaks up the film’s more predictable patterns of verses, and the broadcast from afar grants both the audience and characters room for imagination — a quality that unfortunately feels in short supply.SummertimeRated R. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Rock, Paper and Scissors’ Review: There’s No Place Like Home

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      In this Argentine drama, two unhinged siblings trap and torture their half sister after she pursues her share of their father’s inheritance.Soon after reuniting with her half siblings, Magdalena (Agustina Cerviño), the unlikely protagonist of “Rock, Paper and Scissors,” takes a tumble down the many, many stairs of her childhood home. It is unclear if she was pushed — and if so, by whom — but it is apparent that this movie, directed by Macarena García Lenzi and Martín Blousson, wisely withholds its revelations.Forced into the care of her siblings, Magdalena languishes in the bed where their father recently died. Her sister María José (Valeria Giorcelli) remains ever-watchful while their brother, Jesús (Pablo Sigal), acts as a passive confidant. Before Magdalena arrived to collect her share of their father’s inheritance, the three hadn’t spoken in years. As her condition worsens and the siblings’ behavior becomes increasingly erratic, she must use their shared past to try and manipulate her way out of captivity.That past is loaded, to be sure. María José, as devoted to God as she is to “The Wizard of Oz,” vacillates wildly between the familial nurturer and an Annie Wilkes impersonator. Jesús is just as menacing but hovers in the periphery, content to make violent, experimental short films. He is something of a family outsider for being gay, while Magdalena is occasionally maligned for having a mother with darker skin, though these details don’t add much to the script except a few jarring slurs.There are no easy answers at the end of Magdalena’s journey, but her story is as interesting as it is confounding. Given the cast’s three outstanding performances and slick camerawork by Nicolás Colledani, this makes for a fascinating capsule of family brutality.Rock, Paper and ScissorsNot rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      Robert Downey Sr., Filmmaker and Provocateur, Is Dead at 85

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      His movies, most notably “Putney Swope,” didn’t make a lot of money. But they attracted a lot of attention and influenced a lot of younger directors.Robert Downey Sr., who made provocative movies like “Putney Swope” that avoided mainstream success but were often critical favorites and were always attention getting, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.The cause was Parkinson’s disease, his wife, Rosemary Rogers, said.“Putney Swope,” a 1969 comedy about a Black man who is accidentally elected chairman of a Madison Avenue advertising agency, was perhaps Mr. Downey’s best-known film.“To be as precise as is possible about such a movie,” Vincent Canby wrote in a rave review in The New York Times, “it is funny, sophomoric, brilliant, obscene, disjointed, marvelous, unintelligible and relevant.”The film, though probably a financial success by Mr. Downey’s standards, made only about $2.7 million. (By comparison, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” that same year made more than $100 million.) Yet its reputation was such that in 2016 the Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry, an exclusive group of movies deemed to have cultural or historical significance.Shelley Plimpton and Ronnie Dyson in a scene from Mr. Downey’s “Putney Swope” (1969).Cinema VAlso much admired in some circles was “Greaser’s Palace” (1972), in which a Christlike figure in a zoot suit arrives in the Wild West by parachute. Younger filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson (who gave Mr. Downey a small part in his 1997 hit, “Boogie Nights”) cited it as an influence.None other than Joseph Papp, the theater impresario, in a letter to The New York Times after Mr. Canby’s unenthusiastic review, wrote that “Robert Downey has fearlessly descended into the netherworld and come up with a laughing nightmare.” (Mr. Papp’s assessment may not have been entirely objective; at the time he was producing one of Mr. Downey’s few mainstream efforts, a television version of the David Rabe play “Sticks and Bones,” which had been a hit at Mr. Papp’s Public Theater in 1971.)Between “Putney Swope” and “Greaser’s Palace” there was “Pound” (1970), a political satire in which actors portrayed stray dogs. Among those actors, playing a puppy, was Robert Downey Jr., the future star of the “Iron Man” movies and many others, and Mr. Downey’s son. He was 5 and making his film debut.That movie, the senior Mr. Downey told The Times Union of Albany, N.Y., in 2000, was something of a surprise to the studio.“When I turned it into United Artists,” he said, “after the screening one of the studio heads said to me, ‘I thought this was gonna be animated.’ They thought they were getting some cute little animated film.”Allan Arbus in Mr. Downey’s “Greaser’s Palace” (1972), of which the theater impresario Joseph Papp wrote, “Robert Downey has fearlessly descended into the netherworld and come up with a laughing nightmare.”via PhotofestRobert John Elias Jr. was born on June 24, 1936, in Manhattan and grew up in Rockville Centre, on Long Island. His father was in restaurant management, and his mother, Betty (McLoughlin) Elias, was a model. Later, when enlisting in the Army as a teenager, he adopted the last name of his stepfather, Jim Downey, who worked in advertising.Much of his time in the Army was spent in the stockade, he said later; he wrote a novel while doing his time, but it wasn’t published. He pitched semi-pro baseball for a year, then wrote some plays.Among the people he met on the Off Off Broadway scene was William Waering, who owned a camera and suggested they try making movies. The result, which he began shooting when John F. Kennedy was still president and which was released in 1964, was “Babo 73,” in which Taylor Mead, an actor who would go on to appear in many Andy Warhol films, played the president of the United States. It was classic underground filmmaking.“We just basically went down to the White House and started shooting, with no press passes, permits, anything like that,” Mr. Downey said in an interview included in the book “Film Voices: Interviews From Post Script” (2004). “Kennedy was in Europe, so nobody was too tight with the security, so we were outside the White House mainly, ran around; we actually threw Taylor in with some real generals.”The budget, he said, was $3,000.Mr. Downey’s “Chafed Elbows,” about a day in the life of a misfit, was released in 1966 and was a breakthrough of sorts, earning him grudging respect even from Bosley Crowther, The Times’s staid film critic.“One of these days,” he wrote, “Robert Downey, who wrote, directed and produced the underground movie ‘Chafed Elbows,’ which opened at the downtown Gate Theater last night, is going to clean himself up a good bit, wash the dirty words out of his mouth and do something worth mature attention in the way of kooky, satiric comedy. He has the audacity for it. He also has the wit.”Mr. Downey with his son, the actor Robert Downey Jr., at a Time magazine gala in 2008. The younger Mr. Downey made his acting debut in one of his father’s movies when he was 5.Evan Agostini/AGOEV, via Associated PressThe film enjoyed extended runs at the Gate and the Bleecker Street Cinema. “No More Excuses” followed in 1968, then “Putney Swope,” “Pound” and “Greaser’s Palace.” But by the early 1970s Mr. Downey had developed a cocaine habit.“Ten years of cocaine around the clock,” he told The Associated Press in 1997. His marriage to Elsie Ford, who had been in several of his movies, faltered; they eventually divorced. He credited his second wife, Laura Ernst, with helping to pull him out of addiction. She died in 1994 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Mr. Downey drew on that experience for his last feature, “Hugo Pool” (1997).In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by a daughter, Allyson Downey; a brother, Jim; a sister, Nancy Connor; and six grandchildren.Mr. Downey’s movies have earned new appreciation in recent decades. In 2008 Anthology Film Archives in the East Village restored and preserved “Chafed Elbows,” “Babo 73″ and “No More Excuses” with the support of the Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation. At the time, Martin Scorsese, a member of the foundation’s board, called them “an essential part of that moment when a truly independent American cinema was born.”“They’re alive in ways that few movies can claim to be,” Mr. Scorsese told The Times, “because it’s the excitement of possibility and discovery that brought them to life.”Mr. Downey deflected such praise.“They’re uneven,” he said of the films. “But I was uneven.”Alex Traub contributed reporting. More

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      On the Scene: Cannes Film Festival 🇫🇷

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      On the Scene: Cannes Film Festival 🇫🇷Kyle BuchananReporting from the French RivieraThe standing ovation for “Annette” — an esoteric musical with songs from the band Sparks — lasted so long (over five minutes!), Adam Driver and Leos Carax, its director, both lit up cigarettes in the theater. More

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      ‘Black Widow’ Review: Spies, Lies and Family Ties

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      Scarlett Johansson plays the latest Avenger to get her own movie, but she’s overshadowed by Florence Pugh in this Cate Shortland-directed entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.If I were Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. the Black Widow, a.k.a. the first original female Avenger and yet years overdue for her own film, I’d be hella miffed.After wearing myself out doing flips and kicks and spy work, I finally get my own movie, but the result, Marvel Studios’ “Black Widow,” opening Friday, uncomfortably mashes up a heartwarming family reunion flick with a spy thriller — and then lets its star, Scarlett Johansson, get overshadowed.“Black Widow” begins in Ohio in the ’90s: Natasha is a brave but serious young girl who already has a hardened look in her eyes. She looks after her younger sister, Yelena, and suspiciously follows the lead of her parents, Melina (Rachel Weisz) and Alexei (David Harbour), who are actually spies posing as a married couple. Natasha, who has already started training at the Red Room, a secret Soviet boot camp turning young women into deadly agents, is split from Yelena, and the girls are taught to kill.The main action of the film skips ahead to the time immediately following “Captain America: Civil War” (2016), when Natasha (now played by Johansson) is a fugitive separated from the rest of the Avengers. If jumping back a few films in the franchise sounds confusing, “Black Widow,” along with the current Disney+ series “Loki,” serves as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most recent attempt at retroactively building character narratives and back stories by doubling back on its own colossal, ever-expanding timeline. And so Natasha finds out that not only is the Red Room still in business and its leader, Dreykov (Ray Winstone), still alive, the other “widow” operatives are chemically manipulated so they become mindless assassins without free will. To bring down Dreykov and his Red Room, Natasha reluctantly joins forces with her fake family, including an older Yelena (Florence Pugh), who has found an antidote to the mind control.Despite the intriguing opening sequence, which involves shootings, a jet and a family escape, “Black Widow,” directed by Cate Shortland, lags, unsure of how to proceed with the story. There’s Natasha puttering around while in hiding, some muddled exposition and the introduction of a helmeted assassin who looks like a Mandalorian cosplayer.For a story about a woman named after a deadly spider, “Black Widow” is surprisingly precious with its hero. An Avenger who has been afflicted with something of a savior complex, Natasha hopes to redeem the red in her ledger with good deeds but ends up sounding like the dull Dudley Do-Right of the superhero film.In a lot of ways “Black Widow” feels different from the usual M.C.U. film. The coercion and manipulation of young women, the kidnapping and murder missions with civilian casualties — the film seems more like a Bond or Bourne movie, with a tacked-on moral about the importance of family, and it sits awkwardly with heavier themes. (In one scene, an exchange about the forced sterilization of the widows is played for comedy but just sounds absurdly dark.)Though Johansson gets some great action shots, she is outshined by the other strong actors (strong despite their inconsistent, and often odd, Russian accents). Harbour’s Alexei is an obnoxious though endearing Russian teddy bear of a retired super soldier. Weisz’s Melina is the tough but cowardly scientist who is used to being complicit in a system of which she’s also a victim. But most often Pugh steals the show. Her Yelena is steely and sarcastic yet still reeling from what she’s done while under mind control. Pugh brings cleverness and vulnerability to the character, and she and Johansson have the chemistry to pull off the comic taunting and teasing that comes with a sibling relationship.Why does Natasha always pose in the middle of fights, landing close to the ground, flipping her hair up and back? Yelena asks mockingly. And she challenges Natasha’s self-righteous idea of heroism: “I’m not the killer that little girls call their hero,” Yelena tells her. There’s a whole movie in that exchange alone.The script, by Eric Pearson, grants Yelena more personality, emotional depth and intrigue. It not only mines the more immediate trauma she has faced but also, through her, critiques the wishful optimism that Natasha holds for the Avengers, whom she considers her real family.The film also struggles to figure out its deeper politics. Natasha and Yelena’s rough beginnings as immigrant children who are pushed into the extraordinary world of superheroes and villains recall the early years of the Maximoffs, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. There’s some statement here about young immigrants who are left behind, but the movie never figures it out. And the villain with a love for controlling little girls? Well, I’m sure I don’t need to go into the sinister implications of that.Women assassins, women mad scientists: There seems to be a thematic undercurrent of girl power and the strength of women, which is often systematically subdued or controlled by men, but it feels superficial. We aren’t introduced to the other widows, and, for a film about expert fighters, the fight choreography and cinematography don’t do our female warriors justice; the rapidly shifting camera angles obscure rather than reveal the martial arts.By the end of the story, which leads into “Avengers: Infinity War” (and a post-credits scene jumps forward to the future, in case the hops around the M.C.U. timeline haven’t been confusing enough), it seems as though “Black Widow” is self-satisfied with its protagonist. She’s got the freshly dyed-blond ’do, and her journey with her spy family inspires her to get back to her other family, the Avengers. But “Black Widow” never feels more than just a footnote in the story, a detour that holds no weight in the larger M.C.U. narrative, except to set up Yelena for a larger role in the future.With many of these new Marvel productions, however, it seems that’s the best we could hope for: stories that finally feature the underrepresented heroes we want to see, but that often still serve as placeholders, slotting in another piece of the puzzle of the larger M.C.U. as it continues to grow.I’d hoped “Black Widow” could be deadly and fierce, but it ultimately slides just under the radar.Black WidowRated PG-13 for spy vs. spy stabbings, fisticuffs and some naughty Russian words. Running time: 2 hours 13 minutes. In theaters and on Disney+. More

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      Dilip Kumar, Film Star Who Brought Realism to Bollywood, Dies at 98

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      One of India’s earliest Method actors, he was the last survivor of a triumvirate of actors who ruled Hindi cinema in the 1950s and ’60s.Dilip Kumar, the last of a triumvirate of actors who ruled Hindi cinema in the 1950s and ’60s, died on Wednesday in Mumbai, India. He was 98. His death, at a hospital, was confirmed by Faisal Farooqui, a family friend, who posted a brief statement on Mr. Kumar’s official Twitter account. In post-independence India, Mr. Kumar and two other stars set about defining the Hindi film hero. Raj Kapoor reflected the newly minted Indian’s confusion: his signature role was that of the Chaplinesque naïf negotiating a world that was losing its innocence. Dev Anand, known as the Gregory Peck of India, embodied a Western insouciance that still lingered; he became a stylish matinee idol.Mr. Kumar, though, delved deeply into his characters, breaking free from the semaphoric silent-movie style of acting popularized by megastars like Sohrab Modi and Prithviraj Kapoor.As one of the country’s earliest Method actors, he was often compared to Marlon Brando, another early adopter of the technique, even though Mr. Kumar claimed he had used it first.“I learned the importance of studying the script and characters deeply and building upon my own gut observations and sensations about my own and other characters,” Mr. Kumar said in his autobiography, “The Substance and the Shadow” (2014). “The truth is that I am an actor who evolved a method.”His preparation for roles became the stuff of legend. For his death scene in the 1961 megahit “Gunga Jumna,” he ran around the studio so that he could enter the set at the point of exhaustion.For a song sequence in the 1960 film “Kohinoor” (“Mountain of Light”), he learned to play the sitar. For emotional sequences in the 1982 movie “Shakti” (“Power”) and the 1984 movie “Mashaal” (“Torch”), he drew from memories of when his brother died, recalling the pain that registered on his father’s face.Mr. Kumar, right, with Raj Kapoor and Nargis in the 1949 film  “Andaz” (“Style”).via AlamyMr. Kumar was born Yousuf Khan in Peshawar (then part of British India, now in Pakistan) on Dec. 11, 1922, the fourth of Ayesha and Mohammad Sarwar Khan’s 12 children. His father, a fruit merchant, moved the family to Bombay, now known as Mumbai, and then to Deolali, in west India, where Dilip attended the Barnes School before enrolling in Khalsa College in Bombay.He wanted to play soccer or cricket professionally, but the family’s economic situation forced him to look for work elsewhere. For a time he was an assistant at an army canteen in Poona (now Pune).A chance encounter with a former teacher changed his life. When he said he was looking for a job, the teacher introduced him to the pioneering Indian actress Devika Rani, who, along with Himanshu Rai, had established the Bombay Talkies studio. The idea was to get a job, any job, but Ms. Rani asked if he would consider becoming an actor.Mr. Kumar, who had seen only one film in his life — a war documentary — was flummoxed, but the money persuaded him. Ms. Rani said that taking on a Hindu screen name to obscure his Muslim background would help his career. He became Dilip Kumar.His first film, “Jwar Bhata” (“Ebb and Flow”), released in 1944, was a flop; Baburao Patel, the acerbic critic of Film India, called him “anemic.” But three years later his performance in “Jugnu” (“Firefly”), alongside Noor Jehan, received more favorable attention. By the time “Shaheed” (“Martyr”) was released in 1948, Mr. Patel was singing his praises: “Dilip Kumar steals the picture with his deeply felt and yet natural delineation of the main role.”The hits kept coming, including “Nadiya Ke Paar” (“Across the River”), “Shabnam” (“Dewdrops”) and Mehboob Khan’s “Andaz” (“Style”), in which Mr. Kumar was cast with Mr. Kapoor and the actress Nargis. In 1954, Mr. Kumar won the newly instituted Filmfare Award for best actor for his performance as an alcoholic in the tragic love story “Daag” (“The Stain”). He won seven more Filmfare statuettes for best actor in addition to a lifetime achievement award. Guinness World Records honored him on his 97th birthday for his “matchless contribution” to Indian cinema.Many of his early films had him chasing unattainable women. The 1950 melodrama “Jogan” (“Nun”) ends with him weeping at his lover’s grave. That same year, he played a Heathcliff-like character in “Arzoo” (“Desire”), one of three variations on “Wuthering Heights” in which he acted.He earned the nickname Tragedy King after appearing in a series of dramas that a psychiatrist later said took a toll on his health. In the 1951 movie “Deedar” (“Sight”), he played a blind man whose eyesight is restored through surgery but who blinds himself again when he realizes that he and the surgeon are in love with the same woman. (To prepare for the role, Mr. Kumar observed a blind beggar at the Bombay Central railway station.)One of Mr. Kumar’s best-known tragedies is Bimal Roy’s “Devdas” (1955), about a man who becomes an alcoholic when his childhood sweetheart deserts him.Mr. Kumar with Madhubala in “Mughal-e-Azam” (1960), made long after their well-publicized relationship had ended. via Everett CollectionMr. Kumar’s love life made news; he had relationships with the actresses Kamini Kaushal, Madhubala (they co-starred in the 1960 blockbuster “Mughal-e-Azam,” about thwarted lovers, long after they broke up) and Saira Banu, whom he married in 1966 when he was 44 and she was 22. In the 1980s, while still married to Ms. Banu, Mr. Kumar married the socialite Asma Rehman in secret. The news quickly came out, and the marriage became a scandal, but Ms. Banu stuck with Mr. Kumar, who ended the second marriage.He is survived by Ms. Banu.Professionally, Mr. Kumar’s record was spotless, with films that have not only been successful but have left a lasting impact. Films like “Naya Daur” (“New Era”) in 1957, “Yahudi” (“The Jews”) in 1958, “Madhumati,” also in 1958, and “Ram Aur Shyam” (“Ram and Shyam”) in 1967 are still remembered.Mr. Kumar found fewer roles in the 1970s, with younger, more agile actors being cast as heroes, and he took a break.He returned in 1981 with a blockbuster, “Kranti” (“Revolution”), which reshaped his screen persona as an older moral center. He had similar roles in star-heavy mega-productions like “Vidhaata” (“The Creator”) in 1982, “Karma” in 1986, Saudagar (“The Merchant”) in 1991 and especially “Shakti,” in which he was cast for the first time opposite the reigning Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.Mr. Kumar’s last film was “Qila” (“Fort”), released in 1998. By then, a reviewer wrote in India Today, his style felt “more than just outdated, it’s prehistoric,” adding, “Dilip Kumar’s long-drawn-out dialogue delivery is out of sync with the times.”Mr. Kumar received the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s highest civilian awards, in 1991; the Dadasaheb Phalke, India’s highest award for cinematic excellence, in 1994; and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015. From 2000 to 2006, he served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament.But these honors from the Indian government consumed far less newsprint than the decision by the Pakistani government, in 1998, to confer on him its highest civilian honor, the Nishan-e-Imtiaz. Amid heightened religious tensions, Mr. Kumar was branded an anti-national by Hindu politicians who asked him to return the award to Pakistan. He did not. He said in his autobiography that returning it “could have only soured relations further and produced bad vibes between India and Pakistan.”Those words proved that Mr. Kumar was a tactful diplomat off screen.On the screen, his characters would launch into more rebellious rhetoric. In the 1974 period drama “Sagina,” when labeled a traitor, his character responded, “If you’ve drunk your mother’s milk” — meaning, if you’re man enough — “then come get me.”Even in this larger-than-life context, there was a dash of the realism that defined him. Mujib Mashal More

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      Theater to Stream: 'Notes on Grief' and Russell Brand's Take on Shakespeare

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      An adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Notes on Grief,” Russell Brand’s take on Shakespeare and a two-day event anchored by a Milo Rau film are among the highlights.Productions from the multidisciplinary Manchester International Festival often end up traveling around the world, making pit stops at well-heeled performing arts centers. This year, we don’t have to wait, as the festival is making some of its offerings available online — an approach we hope will become commonplace among international gatherings.Of particular interest to theater audiences is “Notes on Grief,” Rae McKen’s adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essay-turned-book about her father’s sudden death. The show is bound to be compared to the Joan Didion memoir-turned-play “The Year of Magical Thinking.”One day in June 2020, Adichie learned that her father — with whom she had chatted just a day earlier — died. “My brother Chuks called to tell me, and I came undone,” she wrote in an essay that The New Yorker published in September. McKen’s show stars Uche Abuah, Michelle Asante and Itoya Osagiede. Audience members lucky enough to be in Manchester can see it in real life through July 17, and the rest of us can watch from home from July 15-18. mif.co.uk.‘Our Little Lives: Shakespeare and Me’Those who associate Russell Brand only with his excesses and shock tactics may be surprised by his quieter mien these days — he’s become the kind of guy who occasionally finds life lessons in sonnets. He is now reprising a one-man show he conceived with the director Ian Rickson and developed in 2018, in which he uses Shakespeare’s writings to illuminate his own story. Brand promises an appearance by his dog, Bear (perhaps timed to his exit, so he can be pursued by Bear). Through July 14; live-now.com‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder’CollaborAzian is streaming an abridged version of this Tony Award-winning musical from 2013 with an all-Asian American cast and production team. Karl Josef Co takes on Monty Navarro, who sets out to kill multiple members of the D’Ysquith family, all of them to be portrayed — often in lightning-fast succession — by Thom Sesma. It should be interesting to see how the director Alan Muraoka and his actors handle the show’s high-farcical style online. Look also for a special appearance by Lea Salonga. July 15-22; collaborazian.com‘I Hate It Here’Last year, Studio Theater presented the Chicago playwright Ike Holter’s anthology of vignettes as an audio drama; now the Goodman Theater is producing it as a fully staged livestream, directed by Lili-Anne Brown. The stories cover various aspects of life during the peak of the pandemic year, touching on Covid-19, racism and activism, and possibly even hope. July 15-18; goodmantheatre.orgThe New Solidarity: Art, Organizing and Radical PoliticsPresented by various institutions and organizations across the country, including the Foundry Theater in New York, this two-day event is anchored by a streaming presentation of the Milo Rau film “The New Gospel.” Rau, an audacious Swiss director whose production company “for theater, film and social sculpture” is called the International Institute of Political Murder, set the Passion of Christ in the context of 21st-century conflicts about migration; the Jesus character is played by the activist and writer Yvan Sagnet, who was born in Cameroon and then later moved to Italy to study. Rau will also participate in a couple of panels: “How are artists seizing power today?” and “How are artists and organizers building solidarity between art and movements?” (Sagnet will participate in the latter one as well). July 9-10; howlround.com‘Lines in the Dust’Nikkole Salter emerged in 2005 with the play “In the Continuum,” which she and Danai Gurira wrote and starred in. Since then, Salter continues to make theater that inspires and engages, stirs and advocates. The New Normal Rep company is reviving her 2014 play “Lines in the Dust,” in which a working-class New Jersey mother alters her residency paperwork so her daughter can attend a good school. July 8-Aug. 8; https://www.newnormalrep.org/next-up‘Silent’Pat Kinevane in “Silent.” Ste MurrayThe respected Dublin company Fishamble celebrates the 10th anniversary of one of its biggest hits, “Silent,” from the writer-performer Pat Kinevane, with a virtual American mini-tour of a filmed version: It’s presented first by Odyssey Theater Ensemble in Los Angeles (July 9-11) then by Solas Nua in Washington (July 11-18). Kinevane portrays a mentally ill homeless man who emulates the silent movie star Rudolph Valentino. Praising “Silent” in The New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote that “there is breath and blood to spare in this carefully wrought production.” fishamble.comDiscover Imitating the DogThe explosion of streaming theater last year allowed us to discover many artists doing stellar work in their corners of the world. One such outfit is Britain’s Imitating the Dog, whose shows make inventive use of multimedia techniques and translate remarkably well online. Luckily the company remains proactive in making its catalog available. Check out, for example, “Dr Blood’s Old Travelling Show,” from October 2020, or the collection of shorts “Street,” which smartly spruces up the aesthetics of documentary theater. http://www.imitatingthedog.co.uk/at-home/2021 Short New Play Festival: RestorationRed Bull Theater, in New York, has made a name with such zippy revivals as “The Government Inspector,” which gave Michael Urie a golden opportunity to display his comic timing, but the company is not stuck in the past. For this year’s edition of its festival dedicated to short new plays, Red Bull commissioned a work from José Rivera (“Cloud Tectonics” and the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for “The Motorcycle Diaries”) and selected six entries from hundreds of open submissions. The winning playwrights are Constance Congdon, Rosslyn Cornejo, George LaVigne, David Lefkowitz, Abigail C. Onwunali and Charlotte Rahn-Lee, and their pieces should be in good hands with the directors Margot Bordelon and Timothy Douglas. July 12-16; redbulltheater.com‘Possible’The Welsh writer and performer Shôn Dale-Jones’s new solo show has been compared to Bo Burnham’s Netflix special “Inside”: both are autobiographical works that explore lockdown life while occasionally reaching further back in time. Dale-Jones refers to digital interactions he’s had in the past year, including WhatsApp group chats and Zoom calls, and includes tough discussions about his mother’s mental well-being. After a livestreamed run, the National Theater Wales production is available on-demand. Through July 13; nationaltheatrewales.orgEast to Edinburgh Goes VirtualEvery year, 59E59 Theaters in New York presents a showcase of productions headed to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. While the United States have made great steps toward a return to a theatrical normal (whatever that might be), the new edition of East to Edinburgh is still virtual, with nine shows you can watch from home. Among the titles that caught my eye is Priyanka Shetty’s docu-theater solo “#Charlottesville,” about the events that roiled the Virginia city in August 2017. Borrowing from Anna Deavere Smith, Shetty built her text from interviews. Other intriguing entries in the showcase include “Testament,” in which Tristan Bernays (“Frankenstein”) imagines what would happen if four biblical characters lived now; and Somebody Jones’s “Black Women Dating White Men,” whose title is an apt description of the show. July 15-July 25; 59e59.org More