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      ‘Yes Day’ Review: It’s a Family Affair

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Yes Day’ Review: It’s a Family AffairA sunny family of five agrees to a day where a mother and father must consent to whatever the kids want in this broad Netflix comedy.From left, Edgar Ramírez, Jenna Ortega, Everly Carganilla and Jennifer Garner in “Yes Day.”Credit…NetflixMarch 12, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETYes DayDirected by Miguel ArtetaComedy, FamilyPG1h 26mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Ice cream for breakfast? Silly costumes in public? Parents are required to give the green light to every request on Yes Day, a designated 24-hour period when kids take charge.Despite the farce and chaos such a premise could contain, there is little that’s edgy or engaging in “Yes Day,” a mediocre comedy streaming on Netflix. Directed by Miguel Arteta, the film follows the Torres family, a sunny and fairly conventional suburban household. Mornings find the dad (Edgar Ramírez) dancing and bantering with the kids while the mom (Jennifer Garner), type-A and in the kitchen, wags a finger.All seems well until parent-teacher night, when teachers suggest the Torres children are suffering from draconian rules at home. No matter that the kids construct waffle volcanoes at breakfast, scatter toys around the house and appear to lead an altogether breezy life. Once the siblings call their mom a fun-killer, she schedules a Yes Day to prove them wrong.[embedded content]Adapted from a children’s book, “Yes Day” ticks off a series of youthful wishes as the Torres clan engages in extravagant — but never out-of-the-question — behavior. Using slow motion and montage, the film follows the family as they give Mom a makeover, slurp an enormous sundae and visit a carwash with the windows down. Later, in the movie’s grandest set piece, the siblings escort their parents to a game of capture the flag with water balloons — a sequence that feels less like a forbidden desire granted than an oddly elaborate event for three kids to have organized.But though “Yes Day” does not lack for energy, the jokes are too broad and the mishaps too safe for the movie to emerge as an honest or imaginative journey through family conflict and compromise. Dad is chased by vindictive birds, Mom picks a fight at a theme park and the kids come to appreciate that, sometimes, adults are right to say no to things — like this movie.Yes DayRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Hollywood Loses $10 Billion a Year Due to Lack of Diversity, Study Finds

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHollywood Loses $10 Billion a Year Due to Lack of Diversity, Study FindsA McKinsey report that combined previous research and new interviews argues that concrete steps like company bonuses tied to improved representation can lead to change.A scene from “Black Panther,” starring, from left, Lupita Nyong’o, Chadwick Boseman and Danai Gurira. A new study found that when studios “are looking for Black content, they’re looking for Wakanda or poverty, with no in between.”Credit…Marvel/DisneyMarch 11, 2021Updated 12:00 p.m. ETBy ignoring the systemic racial inequities that plague the film and television business, Hollywood is leaving $10 billion annually on the table. That is one of the main findings in a new report from the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which for the first time turned its attention to the lack of Black representation in Hollywood. And, unlike many other studies that do excellent jobs of pointing out problems without giving concrete solutions, this one includes a series of steps that could help change the makeup of the industry.The consultants examined multiple existing research reports on thousands of film and TV shows including the “Hollywood Diversity Report” conducted annually by the University of California, Los Angeles; Nielsen’s 2020 “Being Seen on Screen: Diverse Representation and Inclusion on TV”; and annual work by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. The McKinsey researchers collaborated with the BlackLight Collective, a group of more than 90 Black leaders who work in film and television.McKinsey conducted anonymous interviews with more than 50 Black and non-Black industry participants including studio executives, producers, writers, directors and agents. The goal was to both reflect their experiences and identify the “pain points” as they try to create content. Examples of such obstacles include Black talent being “forced to sell stories about personal trauma to get ideas optioned” and white executives’ stereotypical assumptions about target audiences being “valued more than lived experiences of creators.”The study noted that Hollywood’s unique structure — involving unpaid or underpaid apprenticeships, tight-knit networks, small, informal and temporary work settings, often in far-flung locations — contributed somewhat to the ecosystem’s failings. But the report also recognized persistent trends that occur in large corporate settings: Black creatives are primarily responsible for providing opportunities for other Black offscreen talent; emerging Black actors receive fewer chances in their career and have a lower margin for error; and there is little minority representation among top management and executive boards. The film industry, the authors concluded, is a less diverse one than even typically homogeneous sectors like energy and finance.“In the same way that collective action is needed to advance racial equity in corporate American, real and lasting change in film and TV will require concerted action and the joint commitment of stakeholders across the industry ecosystem,” said the study’s authors, Jonathan Dunn, Sheldon Lyn, Nony Onyeador and Ammanuel Zegeye.According to the study, the average production budget for films with a Black lead or co-lead is a quarter less than the budget for films with no Black actors. One creative executive, who talked to the authors anonymously, said that when executives “are looking for Black content, they’re looking for Wakanda or poverty, with no in between.” Added one anonymous Black actor, “I have to take stereotypical works, because that’s what’s out there, but then when I take those roles, they say that’s all I am capable of.”To solve these issues, McKinsey offered several concrete measures, including urging studios, networks, streaming services, agencies and production companies to commit publicly to a specific target for Black and nonwhite representation across all levels and roles that reflect the American population: 13.4 percent Black or a total of 40 percent for all people of color. And the report encouraged those companies to expand recruiting efforts beyond New York and Los Angeles into the South, where 60 percent of the Black American labor force is concentrated, and at historically Black colleges and universities.The consultants also suggested increasing transparency and accountability with regular reporting on the racial, gender and ethnic makeup of their organizations. As reinforcement, the study said, executive bonuses should be tied to diversity targets so companies can “ensure that leaders are held to account for progress on racial equality.”Another idea: financially support a range of Black stories by committing 13.4 percent of annual budgets to projects starring Black actors with Black producers, writers and directors behind the camera.And lastly, the authors encouraged Hollywood to create an independent organization to promote diversity — an arms-length group with vocal backers and strong partnerships with film and TV leaders.“It would seem unreasonable to expect on- and off- screen Black talent to continue spending countless hours trying to reform this vast, complex industry on their own, time they could otherwise be spending creating the next hit series or blockbuster movie franchise,” the authors wrote.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ Review: Life and Death in Srebrenica

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s pick‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ Review: Life and Death in SrebrenicaBosnia and Herzegovina’s Oscar entry is the harrowing and rigorous story of a U.N. translator’s fight to save her family from slaughter.Jasna Djuricic is Aida, a high school teacher turned U.N. translator, in Jasmila Zbanic’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?”Credit…Super LTDMarch 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETQuo Vadis, Aida?NYT Critic’s PickDirected by Jasmila ZbanicDrama, History, War1h 41mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army, under the command of Gen. Ratko Mladic, overran the town of Srebrenica, which had been declared a safe haven by the United Nations. Muslim civilians sought refuge at a nearby U.N. base, but were handed over to Mladic’s soldiers, who separated them by gender and loaded them into buses and trucks. Around 8,000 men and boys were murdered, their bodies buried in mass graves, in one of the worst atrocities of the wars that convulsed the former Yugoslavia for much of the decade.At the time, many in the West wondered how this could happen — how genocidal violence could erupt in Europe barely 50 years after the end of World War II. “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” Jasmila Zbanic’s unsparing and astonishing new film, shows precisely how. This isn’t the same as explaining why, though Zbanic’s granular, hour-by-hour, lightly fictionalized dramatization of the events leading up to the massacre sheds some glancing light on that question.Mladic (Boris Isakovic) is an unnervingly familiar figure. A self-infatuated bully who travels everywhere with a cameraman, he punctuates his displays of power with litanies of grievance. But the movie isn’t really about him. He and his officers may be the authors of the nightmare, but the viewer suffers through it in the company of Aida Selmanagic (Jasna Duricic), who works as a translator for the U.N.[embedded content]In her previous life, Aida was a teacher. Her husband, Nihad (Izudin Bajrovic), was the principal of the local high school. At one especially tense moment, she and a Serb soldier exchange polite greetings: he’s a former student, who sends regards to Aida’s sons, Hamdija (Boris Ler) and Sejo (Dino Bajrovic). That encounter is one of several reminders of the prewar normal, when Serbs and Muslims lived side by side and Aida and her family pursued an uneventful middle-class existence. A flashback shows her participating in a whimsical pageant devoted to “Eastern Bosnia’s best hairstyle.”Now, she runs an increasingly desperate gantlet of contradictory demands. Her U.N. identification badge affords her some protection, which she tries to extend to her husband and children. She persuades Nihad to volunteer as a civilian delegate alongside the U.N. commander in farcical negotiations with Mladic, and uses her access to restricted areas of the base to find hiding places for Sejo and Hamdija.In her official capacity, Aida dutifully translates Serbian lies and U.N. equivocations, a role that becomes both horrific and absurd. She must convey to the panicked masses at the base — some of them her friends and neighbors — reassurances that she knows to be false. Amid the promises of safety, she can see clearly what is about to happen.Duricic’s performance is somehow both charismatic and self-effacing. Aida is tenacious and resourceful, and also terrified and overwhelmed by circumstances. The story she is caught up in moves swiftly and relentlessly, but sometimes nothing seems to move at all. The victims-in-waiting are trapped. Their ostensible protectors are paralyzed, and the predators are in no particular hurry. Who can stop them?There is relentless, dread-fueled suspense here, and a kind of procedural efficiency that reminds me of Paul Greengrass’s fact-based films, like “Bloody Sunday” and “United 93.” The rigorous honesty of “Quo Vadis, Aida?” is harrowing, partly because it subverts many of the expectations that quietly attach themselves to movies about historical trauma. We often watch them not to be confronted with the cruelty of history, but to be comforted with redemptive tales of resistance, resilience and heroism.Aida may have some of those qualities, but her brave attempts to escape only emphasize how trapped she really is. The title asks where she is going. The available answers are grim. If she can save herself, can she also save her family? And if so, what about the thousands of others whose lives are in peril?Her situation is dramatized with exquisite empathy. Pity isn’t the only emotion in play; it does battle with shame and disgust. The failure of the U.N. is almost as appalling as Mladic’s viciousness. The rule-bound, well-meaning Dutch officers in charge of the base become the general’s hostages and then his accomplices. The massacre was a war crime supervised by peacekeepers — a failure of institutional resolve, of humanity, of civilization.Eventually, Mladic was tried in The Hague and sentenced to life in prison. The final act of “Quo Vadis, Aida,” Bosnia and Herzegovina’s official Oscar entry, makes clear that many other perpetrators escaped with impunity. The war ended, and some version of normalcy returned, but Zbanic takes no consolation in the banal observation that life goes on. It’s true that time passes, that memory fades, that history is a record of mercy as well as of savagery. But it’s also true — as this unforgettable film insists — that loss is permanent and unanswerable.Quo Vadis, Aida?Not rated. In Bosnian, English and Dutch, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch through Angelika’s virtual cinema.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Come True’ Review: Bad Dreams? A Sleep Lab? What Could Go Wrong?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Come True’ Review: Bad Dreams? A Sleep Lab? What Could Go Wrong?Anthony Scott Burns’s superior throwback horror film is marred mainly by familiarity.Julia Sarah Stone in “Come True.”Credit…IFC MidnightMarch 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETCome TrueDirected by Anthony Scott BurnsHorror, Sci-FiNot Rated1h 45mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.On “Come True,” the Canadian filmmaker Anthony Scott Burns is billed as the director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor and lead member of the visual-effects team. Under the pseudonym Pilotpriest, he also shares credit for the synth-driven, ’80s-style score. He acquits himself well on all counts except maybe scripting (he wrote the story with Daniel Weissenberger). Like “Our House” (2018), Burns’s underseen feature debut, “Come True” is superior throwback horror marred mainly by familiarity and, in this case, an ending that feels like a tease.[embedded content]Still, it’s hard to complain until then. The protagonist is Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone), an 18-year-old we first meet as she awakes in the morning on a playground slide. Owing to unspecified home troubles, she needs a regular place to spend the night. Her ingenious solution is to sign up for a sleep lab. The researchers can’t tell her what they’re studying, but it becomes clear that Sarah has an active dream state. Her nightmares, which we can squint at in dark, labyrinthine effects sequences, involve bald, shadowy figures. Viewers of Rodney Ascher’s documentary “The Nightmare” may sense where this is going.Sarah becomes an object of obsession for one researcher (Landon Liboiron), whose repeated violations of good science and ethics warrant prompt dismissal, at least. But the characters are just the beginning of what’s creepy about “Come True.” Atmosphere is its primary virtue: Burns has an eye for medical spaces and tech that look dingy and out of date and for architecture that evokes anonymous, forgotten corners of academia.Come TrueNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Google Play, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Honeydew’ Review: Homegrown Horror

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Honeydew’ Review: Homegrown HorrorA camping trip gone wrong lands a tetchy couple at a remote farm in this horror tale.Malin Barr and Sawyer Spielberg in “Honeydew.”Credit…Dark Star Pictures/Bloody DisgustingMarch 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETHoneydewDirected by Devereux MilburnHorror1h 46mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Harold Bloom’s 1973 book “The Anxiety of Influence” looked at the crisis of poets trying to create new work while contending with the aesthetic sway held over them by their forebears. Someday, a film critic, one with plenty of viewing experience, might want to write about the irritation of influence, particularly as it applies to genre film.In “Honeydew” — written, directed and edited by Devereux Milburn (from a story he concocted with Dan Kennedy, who shot the movie) — a vintage cassette recorder placed prominently as a prop in early scenes, and a retro approach to split-screen, check off the box of a nouveau British horror player like Peter Strickland. The rural setting and the creepy simple-mindedness of some characters suggest elements of Ben Wheatley and Ari Aster. There’s a whole queue of grindhouse shockers from years past informing the plot. And never mind the man-mountain character named Gunni, pronounced “Goonie.”[embedded content]An uningratiating young couple (Sawyer Spielberg and Malin Barr) on a camping trip find themselves compelled to spend the night at a farmhouse presided over by Karen (Barbara Kingsley) the sort of wide-eyed babbling character who, if encountered in reality, would be immediately told, “You know what, we’ll wait in the car.”Food — its preparation, consumption and just what the hell its ingredients are — figures in a minimal plot that the filmmakers inflate in a variety of slick but ultimately unimpressive ways (particularly in the editing). Before various reveals aimed at churning the stomach, the movie revels in oozy atmospherics (ceiling insulation that looks like it’s breathing, a dripping pipe, static on an old tube TV). The showiness is finished, so to speak, with a misanthropy likely inspired by the 1974 “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” but miles more callow than that film.HoneydewNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘The Inheritance’ Review: Poetry, Visualized

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Pick‘The Inheritance’ Review: Poetry, VisualizedIn this feature, a Black collective becomes a site of robust intellectual exchange, inspired artistry, joy and humor.Aurielle Akerele in “The Inheritance.”Credit…Grasshopper FilmMarch 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETThe InheritanceNYT Critic’s PickDirected by Ephraim AsiliDrama1h 40mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.“The Inheritance,” Ephraim Asili’s debut feature film, beautifully abandons genre to consider questions about community, art and Black liberation.The experimental film opens with the story of Julian (Eric Lockley), a young Black man who has recently inherited his grandmother’s house in West Philadelphia. Inspired by his partner, Janet (Aurielle Akerele), Julian turns the house into a collective, and it quickly becomes a site of robust intellectual exchange, inspired artistry, joy and humor. Interspersed within these scripted moments is archival footage that looks at the legacy of MOVE, a Black liberation group whose West Philadelphia row home was bombed in 1985 by the Philadelphia police. The attack destroyed 61 homes and killed 11 people. Also included are meditations on Black art, shown through still shots, from the album cover of a recording of “The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass,” as read by Ossie Davis, to a photo of Gwendolyn Brooks.[embedded content]“The Inheritance” feels like poetry visualized. Asili remixes Jean-Luc Godard’s style in the 1967 film “La Chinoise” to examine how people form or expand the scope of their own politics and the realities of shared responsibility and communal living. This investigation relies on the surprising ways the film connects the past and the present: Clips of the history-making politician Shirley Chisolm follow a scene in which Janet staples a photograph of Chisolm to a wall in the house, and current members of MOVE make appearances at the fictional collective’s meetings to share their testimonies. And although viewers shouldn’t expect easy resolutions, they should anticipate more than one viewing of Asili’s striking film.The InheritanceNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Producers Guild Nominations Boost ‘Chicago 7’ and ‘Nomadland’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonOscar Nomination PredictionsOscars Dos and Don’tsOscars DiversityDirectors Guild NominationsBAFTA NominationsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ProjectionistProducers Guild Nominations Boost ‘Chicago 7’ and ‘Nomadland’But some contenders were snubbed. The road to a best-picture Oscar nomination nearly always goes through this group, which may doom “Da 5 Bloods.”“The Trial of the Chicago 7,” featuring Jeremy Strong, center left, and Sacha Baron Cohen, was among the films included on the producers’ list.Credit…Nico Tavernise/Netflix, via Associated PressPublished More

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      Louis Valray Made Only 2 Movies. But Both Are Incredible.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLouis Valray Made Only 2 Movies. But Both Are Incredible.After “La Belle de Nuit” and “Escale,” the French director went on to become an engineer and died in obscurity. A virtual release gives these moody, sensual films new life.Jacques Dumesnil and Véra Korène in “La Belle de Nuit” (1934).Credit…Lobster FilmsMarch 10, 2021Updated 4:19 p.m. ETSomething old is sometimes new as with the rediscovery of French director Louis Valray (1896-1972), whose hitherto unknown films enrich the era of Jean Vigo, Jean Renoir, Sacha Guitry and Marcel Carné.Two of Valray’s features, “La Belle de Nuit” (1934) and “Escale” (1935), restored and subtitled by Lobster Films, are currently streaming for members via the Museum of Modern Art’s Virtual Cinema.Included last year in MoMA’s annual series, “To Save and Project,” the movies are surprisingly fresh period pieces — infusing the moody atmosphere of French “poetic realism” with a breath of plein-air cinema and a jaunty music-hall energy. Valray’s distinctive style is marked by off-center compositions and elliptical storytelling as well as a near-documentary obsession with the seamy side of Mediterranean ports like his hometown, Toulon. Both movies lavish attention on waterfront dives, roistering sailors and back-alley hôtels de passe.“La Belle de Nuit” (“The Beauty of the Night”) adapts a late work by the boulevard playwright Pierre Wolff and features Véra Korène, a star of the Comédie Française, in a juicy double role. Cleverly theatrical, the movie is a backstage tale of erotic revenge in which a cuckolded dramatist stage-manages his rival’s comeuppance. Life is a performance, heard as much as seen. “To encounter ‘La Belle de Nuit’ is to see a film stunningly ahead of its time,” Ben Kenigsberg wrote in The New York Times last year, comparing Valray’s use of sound to that of Orson Welles.Samson Fainsilber in “Escale.”Credit…Lobster FilmsLesser but more eccentric with its blunt shifts in tone and showy transitions, “Escale” (translated as “stopover”) details the unhappy love affair between an upright ship’s officer and a moll (Colette Darfeuil) associated with a waterfront tough (Samson Fainsilber). Among other things, the film includes a romantic idyll on a jungle isle whose animating spirit is the hero’s servant, played to the hilt by the Senegalese dancer Féral Benga.Many of Valray’s innovations are a function of his frugality. Clearly low-budget, “Escale” makes economical use of music and sound effects to power a scene and then cuts back, trading in close-ups, for the emotional climax. When the movie was released in the U.S. in 1942 as “Thirteen Days of Love,” The New York Times reviewer found it grotesquely, rather than boldly, anachronistic: “Perhaps there was some procrustean age when this languidly sentimental trash may have seemed important.” Perhaps that age is now.Unmentioned in the review is the movie’s most obviously retro element. Good-looking, athletic and professionally underdressed, Benga was the male equivalent of Josephine Baker with whom he sometimes partnered at the Folies-Bergère. Jean Cocteau cast him as an angel in “The Blood of a Poet”; Pavel Tchelitchew painted his portrait. Whether or not Benga is camping on his clichéd role, he turns the movie to his own exhibitionist purpose — even referring to his trademark “saber dance.”After the war, Benga opened a Left Bank club that featured Senegalese music, dance and poetry and, according to Boris Vian’s Manual of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, attracted a youthful, significantly African clientele. For his part, Valray made one more short film, became a radio announcer, then a chemical engineer and died in obscurity.La Belle de NuitEscaleMuseum of Modern Art Virtual Cinema, through March 18.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More