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      Stream These Great Christopher Plummer Movies

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Christopher Plummer (1929-2021)Obituary5 Movies to StreamA Look Back at ‘The Sound of Music’Theatre Review: BarrymoreReview of His MemoirAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyStream These Great Christopher Plummer MoviesThe oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award, Plummer only needed a few minutes to leave a lasting impression.Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer and Don Johnson in “Knives Out,” one of Plummer’s last roles.Credit…Claire Folger/LionsgateFeb. 5, 2021Updated 7:35 p.m. ETThe Canadian actor Christopher Plummer, who died Feb. 5 at 91, made his first appearances on the Broadway stage and in Hollywood movies in the 1950s, when he was still in his 20s. He left behind a wealth of unforgettable work in film, theater and television, including Oscar-, Emmy- and Tony-winning performances.Originally introduced to the public as a dignified leading man in the classical English mold of Laurence Olivier and James Mason, Plummer would go on to play a range of roles — from adventure heroes to villainous creeps — and would find some of his greatest success in supporting parts. In his later years especially, Plummer specialized in bringing a sense of depth and weight to characters who sometimes appeared on-screen for just a handful of scenes. He only needed a few minutes to leave a lasting impression.Here are 10 of Plummer’s best roles, all available to stream:Mr. Plummer as Captain von Trapp with Julie Andrews as Maria and their harmonious children in “The Sound of Music.”Credit…20th Century Fox Film Corporation‘The Sound of Music’Stream on Disney+; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Plummer focused much of his creative attention on theater in the U.S. and the U.K., while dabbling only occasionally in television and cinema. Then he played a stuffy Austrian naval officer and widowed father in the film version of the musical “The Sound of Music,” and he became a bona fide movie star. In the decades that followed, Plummer would sometimes dismiss the film, one of his biggest box office hits, as cloying and simplistic. But the picture is beloved for many reasons, one of which is the rich romantic chemistry between its leading actors: Julie Andrews as a headstrong governess, and Plummer as a heartbroken grump who melts when he hears her teach his children to sing.Christopher Plummer, left, and Ewan McGregor in “Beginners.”Credit…Focus Features‘Beginners’Stream it on HBO Max; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.Plummer became the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award when he took home his first Oscar at 82 for the writer-director Mike Mills’s semi-autobiographical drama “Beginners.” He plays Hal, a septuagenarian who belatedly comes out as gay and subsequently strengthens his bond with his mixed-up middle-aged son Oliver (Ewan McGregor), who learns a lot from his dad’s embrace of radical honesty. At once gently funny and tearjerking, this is a film about how people subtly affect each other’s lives.‘The Silent Partner’Stream it on The Criterion Channel; rent it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play or YouTube.Plummer was proud of his Canadian roots, and though he worked all over the world, he frequently returned to make movies with some of his home country’s finest filmmakers. In the cult favorite “The Silent Partner,” he plays a brutal thief who matches wits with a devious bank teller (Elliott Gould) after a heist goes awry. The director Daryl Duke focuses primarily on the teller, treating Plummer’s master criminal as a shadowy force of evil, applying pressure from the periphery. The actor leans into the assignment, delivering a performance dripping with menace.James Mason as Dr. Watson and Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes in “Murder by Decree.”Credit…Screenshot, via Amazon‘Murder By Decree’Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play or YouTube.Another venerable Canadian director, Bob Clark, guided Plummer through one of his juiciest roles, playing Sherlock Holmes in a movie about the Jack the Ripper murders. James Mason plays the part of Dr. Watson, while Donald Sutherland plays the real-life medium Robert Lees, who claimed to have solved the case via psychic visions. But the star of the show is of course Plummer, who conveys the steely persistence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous sleuth, but also gives the character a bit of joyful bounce whenever he gets to outsmart somebody.‘An American Tail’Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.One of Plummer’s most useful tools as a performer was his voice: deep and resonant, with just enough rasp to add a little edge. He was in-demand as a voice-over artist for documentaries and commercials; and he brought gusto to several classic animated films, including “Up” and “My Dog Tulip.” His first turn in a cartoon was a charmingly kooky one, playing a French pigeon who encourages the hero to follow his dreams by singing the can-do ditty “Never Say Never.” It’s a refreshingly light performance from Plummer, spotlighting his showman’s spirit.‘The Insider’Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.In this docudrama about how the tobacco industry’s lawyers pressured the producers of the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” Plummer plays the reporter Mike Wallace, known and feared for his dogged interviewing style. The actor doesn’t attempt a Wallace impression. Instead he embodies the contradictions of a famous journalist, who believes in the pursuit of truth but also fears losing corporate sponsorship. Plummer captures Wallace’s natural charisma, along with his deep insecurities.Christopher Plummer as the mystery writer Harlan Thrombey in “Knives Out.”Credit…Lionsgate‘Knives Out’Stream it on Amazon Prime; rent or buy it on Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.In one of Plummer’s final performances, he plays a popular mystery novelist whose accidental death causes problems for his greedy, scheming family. Plummer’s character Harlan Thrombey only appears in flashbacks, but his friendship with his nurse Marta (Ana de Armas) — and his keen understanding of his heirs’ failings — help to fill the writer-director Rian Johnson’s clever murder plot with both genuine warmth and a sharp point-of-view. Harlan comes across as so wise and so kind that the audience will believe anything he says.‘The Thorn Birds’Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.Plummer notched one of the 11 Emmy nominations earned by this popular TV mini-series adaptation of Colleen McCullough’s novel. (He lost the “Outstanding Supporting Actor” award to his castmate, Richard Kiley.) Reunited with Duke, who had directed “The Silent Partner,” Plummer plays a very different kind of character: a high-ranking Catholic Church official who mentors a young priest (Richard Chamberlain) struggling with his desire for a woman (Rachel Ward) in the Australian farmlands. The elder archbishop has a small but vital part to play in this sweeping saga, serving as a voice of conscience and compassion to a man in spiritual crisis.‘The Last Station’Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.It took until 2010 — 52 years after his movie debut — before Plummer picked up his first Oscar nomination, for playing Tolstoy in the writer-director Michael Hoffman’s adaptation of the Jay Parini novel “The Last Station.” The story is set during the last year of the Russian author’s life, and mostly concerns how his wife Sofya (Helen Mirren) battled with her husband’s devotees over whether his work should fall into the public domain after he died. Though he’s at the center of the intrigue, Plummer’s Tolstoy remains a fascinating enigma, enjoying the raging argument around him, which recalls many of the themes of his work.Christopher Plummer as a Klingon general in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.”Credit…Screenshot, via Amazon‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country’Stream it on Amazon Prime or Hulu; rent or buy it on Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.Plummer brings some Shakespearean brio to what may be his best bad guy role, as the one-eyed Klingon general Chang. One of the great “Star Trek” nemeses, Chang takes advantage of a moment of mercy from his sworn enemies to upend their peace negotiations, and gives the Federation and the starship Enterprise one of their toughest tests. Between Chang’s blustering monologues and his ruthless machinations, Plummer makes villainy look fun.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Can an Abuser Make Amends? ‘The Color Purple’ Points the Way

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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 notebookCan an Abuser Make Amends? ‘The Color Purple’ Points the WayAfter #MeToo, as movies and TV grapple with issues of rape, revenge and restorative justice, a survivor reconsiders a male character at a crossroads.In the movie adaptation of “The Color Purple,” Celie, center, played by Whoopi Goldberg, escapes an abusive relationship and finds a better life with Shug (Margaret Avery) and Squeak (Rae Dawn Chong.)Credit…Warner Bros.Feb. 5, 2021Updated 6:28 p.m. ETRevenge is at the heart of “Promising Young Woman.” Not only does the film open with its main character Cassie (Carey Mulligan) targeting men who take advantage of inebriated women, but we soon realize that she does so in service of a larger goal: avenging the rape, and eventual suicide, of her best friend, Nina. Even though she ultimately appears to get justice, this result is far from gratifying. Rather, it is a sobering reminder that because most rape victims will never see their assailants held accountable in their lifetime, revenge, or at least the fantasy of it, is all that is left.To me, the movie is an example of how the #MeToo movement has influenced representations of sexual assault onscreen. Works like Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix special “Nanette” and Michaela Coel’s breakout HBO show “I May Destroy You” center the voices of rape survivors, while movies like “The Assistant” and “Promising Young Woman” show the perspective of friends or female bystanders who also suffer as secondary victims of sexual assault. Unfortunately, even as the embrace of these points-of-view represents progress, these narratives also reflect a real-world legal system that repeatedly denies or delays justice to rape victims.Arabella (Michaela Coel) and Zain (Karan Gill) in a scene from HBO’s “I May Destroy You.”Credit…HBOAs both a critic and as a feminist activist, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this dilemma. And over the past two years I have been working on the book “In Search of The Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece,” about Alice Walker’s groundbreaking novel that prioritized the vantage point of a rape and domestic abuse survivor named Celie. Through the redemptive arc of its antagonist, Albert, “The Color Purple,” from 1982, paved the way for today’s debates about atonement, rehabilitation and forgiveness. It anticipates the extralegal practice of restorative justice, a remedy that is intended to heal victims as well as prevent the accused from reoffending by having them accept full responsibility for their actions, while also engaging in a consensual, reparative process with their victims.When I began my research on “The Color Purple,” a story that I first read at 15, I knew that I would focus on Celie’s relationships with her sister, Nettie, her bawdy blues woman lover Shug and the defiant Sofia. Those are the Black female characters that I have turned to as I struggled with my own sexual assault as a teenager in the 1990s, the ones I highlighted to my students as a young college professor in the early 2000s, the ones I find renewed inspiration in today.But what I did not expect to find was how much my middle-aged self would be drawn to Albert, the figure Celie fearfully refers to as M______ (Mister) for most of her life. Celie is forced by Pa — who has raped and impregnated her and given away her two children — to marry Albert, a much older widower. When Celie joins Albert’s family, he continually beats her as she raises his children and tends to his house. It is only over time that we realize how broken he is, defeated both by Jim Crow and his domineering father, who prevented him from marrying his life’s love, Shug. In other words, while his rage is never justified, the novel seeks to understand its origins, giving it a powerful story line that was often initially overlooked by the novel’s biggest detractors.Though “The Color Purple” earned Walker a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the novel also generated much criticism, mostly from well-known Black male writers and community activists who were offended by the depiction of abuse by Pa and Albert and by Celie healing from that violence in a romantic relationship with Shug. By the time the movie debuted in 1985, Walker and the filmmakers were ill-prepared to defend themselves against accusations that the movie reproduced vicious stereotypes about African-American men. Such condemnations overlooked the healing made possible by Albert’s own desire to make amends.After Celie discovers that Albert has been hiding Nettie’s letters from her for decades, she leaves with Shug, and curses Albert.Soon Albert’s life — his farm, his home, his family — fall apart, forcing him to make a critical decision: either crumble or find a way to reconcile with Celie. And so he rises to the occasion, and begins the long journey of repairing his relationships with his son and grandchildren, and in time, Celie and her children.Celie (Goldberg) rebels against the abusive Albert (Danny Glover) on a day she prepares to leave him. Credit…Warner Bros.Albert’s arc, however, was far more abbreviated in the Oscar-nominated movie, in which he was indelibly played by Danny Glover. But even with his limited transformation onscreen, I see Albert anew when I watch the movie now.Glover imbued his character with such charisma, dignity and depth that Albert is neither pure villain nor a blameless victim. Instead, he is a Black man at a crossroads and thus has the opportunity to reimagine what paths of masculinity lie ahead.But Walker’s vision of Albert was realized in the musical adaptation that premiered on Broadway in 2005 and even more fully in a revival in 2015 with Isaiah Johnson in the role. In that version, Albert’s breakdown is even more totalizing, making his turnaround all the more meaningful, and memorable.“Albert gets his redemption and he does something,” said John Doyle, the director of the Tony-winning revival. “He does things for the children of the community and maybe that’s all a little through a pink gauze. But there’s something wonderful about that.”These days as we, on college campuses, in the halls of Congress, or in our homes, argue about how best to forgive or punish those who have harmed others, we often miss a crucial aspect of the debate that might help us move forward.A scene from the Broadway musical adaptation of “The Color Purple” in 2015; from left: Jennifer Hudson as Shug, Cynthia Erivo as Celie, Isaiah Johnson as Mister/Albert and Kyle Scatliffe as Harpo.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHow does one actually atone for violence they inflict on others?Given pervasive racial bias in the criminal justice system, it makes sense that Black women, like Walker, have imagined accountability outside of the courtroom. Among recent #MeToo narratives, “I May Destroy You,” created by the Black British artist Coel, gestures to restorative justice through the relationship between Arabella (Coel) and fellow writer Zain (Karan Gill). After he removes his condom without her consent during sex, Zain is later able to earn her begrudging trust by helping her complete her book, which in turn leads to her journey of self-acceptance and rebirth.But then Zain revives his own writing career under a pseudonym. Albert embarks on the much more arduous path of acknowledging his violence and all the harm that he caused.And in the final moments of “The Color Purple” onstage, his hard work leads to him standing together with his family. He is not a hero — that status belongs to Celie, Shug and Sofia — but he still gives us a reason to hope.Because most survivors of violence will never hear an apology or benefit from such restitution, Albert remains one of the more elusive and exceptional characters in American culture, a figure that can teach us all to take accountability for our actions, and to find redemption along the way.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      After the First Virtual Sundance, Four Writers Compare Notes

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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 storyAfter the First Virtual Sundance, Four Writers Compare NotesWhat worked online? What didn’t? And which films stood out? When you’re watching from home, feel-good movies don’t always have the same effect.Oscar the Grouch and his pal Caroll Spinney in the Sundance documentary, “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street.”Credit…Luke GeissbühlerFeb. 5, 2021At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, there were the usual premieres and Q. and A. sessions, breakouts and crowd-pleasers — but no actual crowd. Because of the pandemic, the Park City, Utah, event was pared back and conducted largely online. None of the attendees could, say, meet by chance and talk movies, and it was hard to get a sense of the festival overall. To rectify that, we asked the co-chief film critic A.O. Scott, the critic Devika Girish, and the reporters Kyle Buchanan and Nicole Sperling to compare notes. Here are excerpts from their conversation:NICOLE SPERLING I’m usually whiny and cranky about Sundance. Why are we in the snow? Why January? I could see all you people in Los Angeles. But this year, I was so nostalgic for every bit of the experience. I wanted nothing more than to be packed into a crowded shuttle bus, talking to strangers about tiny movies. I was so craving everything Sundance stands for that I even tuned in to festival director Tabitha Jackson’s morning broadcasts, something I would never do if I was actually in Utah, just to get an inkling of that geeky film love I was missing.DEVIKA GIRISH It was fun to be able to browse the program so conveniently (and to “walk out” of a lost cause without stepping on people’s toes), but it made my festival FOMO much worse! In Park City, there are geographical and material limits on what you can see and when. And if you’re famished, you choose dinner over a movie. But at home, on my couch, armed with takeout, I had at least 25 films to choose from at any given moment during the weekend. I spent a lot of time dipping in and out, and worrying that I was making all the wrong choices.SPERLING The feel-good movies really felt good this year, like “Coda,” the opening-night narrative film centered on a hearing teenage girl raised by her deaf parents. People glommed onto what was really a traditional story of struggle and triumph told about a demographic we don’t know enough about, a reminder that a movie well made yet sentimental can really work at this moment. I think it’s also why the documentaries on Rita Moreno and “Sesame Street” played so well in my house. Both were filled with joy and hope, things that make a big difference during this endless lockdown.Emilia Jones in Sian Heder’s competition winner, “Coda.”Credit…Sundance InstituteA.O. SCOTT On its own terms, “Coda” feels like a Sundance movie with all the rough edges sanded off. It has a specific, American location, a coming-of-age narrative, a class angle and an important representational agenda, and it handles all of these elements with the utmost caution. Every beat of the plot was signaled far in advance, and arrived with the assurance that nothing too terrible would happen. The performances of the deaf and hearing actors together were wonderful, but the conventional story sold out the reality of the characters’ lives. This will make for perfectly unobjectionable family television viewing, but that’s not necessarily what I look for at Sundance.KYLE BUCHANAN I agree with Tony. “Coda” is effective the same way a sitcom is effective, but the swerves and texture of real life are sadly lacking. It plays well because the actors are committed, but I was embarrassed at some of the hacky, seen-it-a-million-times scenarios they were called upon to animate.SPERLING: “Coda” won one of the grand-jury prizes and sold for $25 million. It will be interesting to see if the feel-good sentiment will remain when Apple decides to release the film.SCOTT I understand the appeal of “Coda,” but I’m still a bit startled at the scale of its triumph and the $25 million that Apple+ paid, partly because we will never know if it was a good investment. In previous years, the big-money Sundance sales were tested at the box office, where ordinary ticket-buyers validated or (more often) undermined the judgment of eager distributors.BUCHANAN To me, there was a letdown I felt watching many of these movies: The settings were gratifyingly specific, but the structure was straight out of Syd Field. I’m thinking of “Jockey,” a well-made horse-racing drama that nevertheless feels like the studio-notes version of Chloé Zhao’s “The Rider,” or even “Pleasure,” a clever and explicit treatise on pornography from the director Ninja Thyberg.“Pleasure” is at its best when it follows its lead character — an aspiring adult-film actress named Bella Cherry — through a series of naturalistic encounters that explore consent and coercion on triple-X sets. So why, in a film this daring, is Bella’s character arc so devoid of surprises? “Pleasure” continually telegraphs who Bella will betray and how in order to get ahead, and I kept waiting for a swerve that never came. (A movie this nervy should not be stealing its plot beats from “Showgirls.”)GIRISH One of my few surprise discoveries in the fiction slate was “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” a disquieting little film about a lonely, internet-obsessed teenager that hit me hard in my own solitude. But my highlights were the Opening Night documentaries. Questlove’s “Summer of Soul” brought the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 into my living room, with rousing performances by Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson and more. I was most captivated by the shots of the concert’s massive audience: A wistful spectacle of collective joy, grief and resistance.Nanfu Wang’s “In the Same Breath,” an incredibly thoughtful, personal and well-reported look at the propaganda-fueled narratives surrounding Covid-19 in China and the United States, offered a sobering full-circle moment. Starting the festival with these documentaries was a solemn reminder of why we were attending Sundance 2021 from home, and what (despite some of the perks of a virtual festival) we lose when we can no longer gather together in space and time.BUCHANAN Only the documentaries managed to truly keep me on my toes. There’s a moment in “Flee,” about an Afghan refugee smuggled to Europe, when the protagonist admits to family members for the first time that he is gay. I immediately braced myself for how this would go in any other Sundance movie, but what actually happened next — a reveal I will not spoil — caught me off guard and moved me to tears. Minor miracles can happen when independent films shake off the yoke of plot and let themselves be guided by the breath of real life.SPERLING “In the Same Breath” really stuck with me. So did Peter Nicks’s “Homeroom,” which tracked a group of activist high school seniors in Oakland last spring, as they watched their final year from their bedrooms and grappled with the killing of George Floyd. Sundance’s curation this year felt spot-on to me: fitting the festival squarely into the moment we are living through, not shying away from the momentous problems we are facing, while also offering some hope.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Promising Young Woman’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

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      Her Specialty Is Bringing Headstrong Women to Life Onscreen

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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 storyHer Specialty Is Bringing Headstrong Women to Life OnscreenWhether playing a social-climbing singer (in “Lola”) or an aging lesbian (in her latest, “Two of Us”), Barbara Sukowa brings the charisma of an old-fashioned star.The actress in Brooklyn. She has inspired filmmakers ranging from Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Margarethe von Trotta.Credit…Celeste Sloman for The New York TimesFeb. 5, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETThere is a scene in the new drama “Two of Us” in which an older woman played by Barbara Sukowa is so angry, so desperate — and so determined — that after someone terminates a conversation by closing a door on her, she breaks a window to make a statement.“She wouldn’t just let the door be shut: She’s going to do something,” the director, Filippo Meneghetti, recalled.He tweaked the script on set to suit his star’s temperament, and you can see why: Sukowa, 71, has played a lot of headstrong women in her 40-year career, starting with an ambitious, social-climbing singer-slash-tart in her breakthrough, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s biting satire “Lola” (1982). Some of the German actress’s signature parts have included a trilogy of sorts about passionate real-life intellectuals: the socialist activist and theoretician Rosa Luxemburg in the movie of the same name, the polymathic 12th-century nun Hildegard von Bingen in “Vision,” and the titular formidable political philosopher in “Hannah Arendt” (all from the director Margarethe von Trotta).In “Two of Us” — which has just been nominated for a Golden Globe in the foreign language category and opened Friday in theaters and on virtual cinemas — Sukowa’s Nina must jump into action when her longtime relationship with Madeleine (the French stage veteran Martine Chevallier), as comfortable as it is matter-of-factly sensual, is upended by a sudden event.Martine Chevallier and Sukowa in a scene from the drama “Two of Us.”Credit…Magnolia PicturesOlder lesbians facing illness, and having to come out to family under duress? Producers did not rush to open their checkbooks.“He could have had financing for his script in two years, probably, if he had taken some young, beautiful, sexy actresses,” Sukowa said over Zoom. “But he had made up his mind about Martine and me.”Meneghetti needed five years to rustle up the money but he would not budge on the casting.“I wanted to shoot a story about aging characters and I wanted to be honest with that,” the director said. “That’s why it was impossible for me to have actresses that have had surgery or whatever. They are natural, both of them, and they are beautiful, both of them. Every wrinkle is an emotion, tells a story.”Besides, he grew up loving cinema and Sukowa’s work: “Sooner or later, you will see her and she will astound you.”Sukowa as a social climbing singer in Fassbinder’s “Lola.”Credit…Criterion CollectionSukowa has the charisma and skills to carry movies — and indeed her surface appeal is immediate. She possesses the traditional attributes of an old-fashioned movie star: a piercing stare, high cheekbones, a blond mane. A close-up of that hair, in fact, opens the Fassbinder film. Yet she was not interested in capitalizing on those assets.“After ‘Lola’ I was offered a lot of these roles, but I turned them down mostly,” Sukowa said in lightly accented English by video from her Brooklyn home — she moved to the United States in the early 1990s. “I didn’t want to get into the beauty and, you know, sexy. Today I think maybe I should have done something, it would have been fun to see myself like that.”Her résumé does include a couple of femmes fatales, most notably in Lars von Trier’s stylish thriller “Europa” (1992), but Sukowa is most closely associated with von Trotta — they have collaborated seven times, going back to “Marianne and Juliane” in 1982. A scene from “Rosa Luxemburg,” one of a loose trilogy of films in which Sukowa plays a passionate intellectual.Credit…Criterion Collection“She is so intelligent, and a hard worker,” von Trotta wrote in an email. “She is preparing as much as I do with the research. In ‘Rosa Luxemburg’ I had taken a certain speech against the war of 1914. Then she showed me another speech she liked better, and indeed it was the more powerful one. I would have been an idiot not to take hers.”Sukowa also has a knack for handling one of acting’s toughest challenges. “For me she is the only German actress able to show me her moments of thinking without words,” von Trotta said.The trick, it seems, is to not have one.“I didn’t act thinking, I just thought,” Sukowa said of her performance as Arendt, known for her redoubtable intellect. “I was thinking of things that she might have thought — and I read a lot about her.” Her preparation even included hiring a professor at Columbia University as a tutor. The idea is that all the advance work will become so ingrained that instinct takes over during the shoot.“I always say to young actors, ‘You don’t have to make a lot of mimics,’ ” Sukowa said. “It’s almost like a lake that has no waves on it: You can look at the bottom and see the stones or whatever is in there.”Reviewing “Hannah Arendt” for The New York Times, A.O. Scott wrote that she captured her subject’s “fearsome cerebral power, as well as her warmth and, above all, the essential, unappeasable curiosity that drove her.”This juggling act is at the heart of the role for which many American viewers may know her: Katarina Jones, the operator of a time-traveling device on the Syfy series “12 Monkeys.”The co-creator Terry Matalas recalled seeing hundreds of performers for the part, none of them quite right. “There needed to be not just the erudite scientist but also a little bit of a maternal instinct, and all that had to be under this glaze of a cold exterior,” he said in a video call. “I kept describing what I was missing from these auditions to our director and he was like, ‘It sounds like you’re describing Barbara Sukowa.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, but she’s never going to read for this.’ One week later, we got an audition that she did on her iPhone. Within six seconds of watching, I knew it was her.”The actress as the operator of a time-traveling device in the series “12 Monkeys.”Credit…Ben Mark Holzberg/Syfy, NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesStill, while busy — she recently shot an episode of the M. Night Shyamalan series “Servant” and is scheduled to soon start the Mary Harron biopic “Dali Land,” playing Gala, the wife of Ben Kingsley’s Salvador Dalí — Sukowa remains somewhat hidden in plain sight. Maybe it’s because she has never been much of a careerist and has often gone on creative tangents.“Lola,” in which she delivers a fiery cabaret-punk rendition of the German tango “Capri-Fischer,” sowed the seeds of a steady singing career. After seeing the movie, the Schoenberg Ensemble asked her to perform the song cycle “Pierrot Lunaire” with it; she became one of that exacting piece’s foremost interpreters, and an in-demand narrator classical pieces. And since 1998, she has been fronting the art-rock band the X-Patsys, which she created with the artists Robert Longo (her husband at the time) and Jon Kessler.“I had a dream that Barbara had cowboy boots and a kind of western outfit and her hair, in that beautiful Barbara way, had lights behind her, and she was singing country music,” Kessler said in a video chat. “I told Barbara and Robert about it at the next dinner that we had. We kind of looked at each other and said, ‘Why don’t we try it?’ ”Next thing they knew, they were rehearsing Patsy Cline songs pared down to the two or three chords Kessler and Longo knew how to play. “I didn’t know who Patsy Cline was, I didn’t know who Dolly Parton was,” Sukowa said, laughing.The X-Patsys playing a show in Paris.Credit…Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty ImagesThe X-Patsys’ repertoire eventually grew to encompass standards and blues, performed in a highly dramatic manner halfway between noise rock and German art song, with Sukowa as a commanding siren.“I have to admit I made it a bit of a character in the X-Patsys,” Sukowa said when asked if it was hard to forgo the protection of a made-up persona.She is ready for a new challenge, though. “I would really like to go from there to being even more myself,” she continued. “I think I could do that now.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Little Big Women’ Review: Heartbreak is 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‘Little Big Women’ Review: Heartbreak is a Family AffairIn this maudlin melodrama, a Taiwanese family grapples with what it means to mourn someone who was already absent from their lives.Chen Shu-fang in “Little Big Women.”Credit…NetflixFeb. 5, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETLittle Big WomenDirected by Joseph Chen-Chieh HsuDrama2h 3mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.In the Taiwanese melodrama “Little Big Women,” a matriarch and her three adult daughters grieve a complicated loss. Early in the film, the sisters learn that their father, long absent from their lives, has passed away. Embracing sentimentality in every scene, this occasionally endearing and often cloying film examines what it means to mourn someone who was already gone.Streaming on Netflix after a successful box office run in Taiwan, the film follows Lin Shoying (Chen Shu-fang), a restaurant owner whose family confronts a number of crises over the course of this slow-moving story. But her biggest heartbreak comes in the opening minutes, when her 70th birthday is interrupted by the death of her estranged husband. As Shoying grudgingly arranges his funeral, she privately vows to track down his most recent romantic partner.[embedded content]Her daughters face dramas of their own. The eldest, Ching (Hsieh Ying-xuan), encounters health issues. Jiajia (Sun Ke-fang) resents Shoying’s pushiness. And the successful doctor Yu (Vivian Hsu) puts undue pressure on her own daughter, the sunny Clementine (Buffy Chen). As the sisters struggle, the director Joseph Chen-chieh Hsu peppers small moments of humor — most memorably, a cockroach that appears during an incense ceremony — amid the distress.But even such charms become bogged down by the movie’s schmaltz. A gentle panning camera and a bland score milk every scene for emotion, and at more than two hours, the women’s journeys drag. By the time it is over, “Little Big Women” has lost any sense of restorative power — all that registers is tedium.Little Big WomenNot rated. In Mandarin and Hokkien, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Sandie Crisp, ‘Goddess Bunny’ of the Underground Scene, Dies at 61

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThose We’ve LostSandie Crisp, ‘Goddess Bunny’ of the Underground Scene, Dies at 61She became a muse among the Hollywood avant-garde, appearing in movies, music videos and photographs. She died of Covid-19.Sandie Crisp in 2016. She appeared in music videos, movies and stage shows.Credit…Chuck GrantFeb. 4, 2021Updated 6:20 p.m. ETThis obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.Sandie Crisp, a transgender actress and model who, under her stage name the Goddess Bunny, served as a muse to generations of artists, gay punks and other denizens of the West Hollywood avant-garde, died on Jan. 27 at a hospital in Los Angeles. She was 61.Her death was confirmed by Mitchell Sunderland-Jackson, a friend. The cause was Covid-19, he said.For decades, Ms. Crisp was a familiar presence on the sidewalks of Santa Monica Boulevard and in the hustler bars that once lined it, where she dressed like a grungy diva and lip-synced songs by Donny Osmond, Judy Garland and Selena.In the 1980s and ’90s, she became a popular subject for artists who frequented that scene as well as their collaborator. Directors cast her in underground movies, and she appeared in music videos by Dr. Dre and Billy Talent. A nude photograph of her sits in the permanent collection of the Louvre.Her aesthetic, which blended the Hollywood noir of David Lynch with the punk offensiveness of GG Allin and Lydia Lunch, knew few boundaries. For one performance she dressed as Eva Braun alongside a man dressed as Hitler. An audience member leapt to his feet and punched her in the face.“Being able to shock and offend as a way of avoiding co-option by corporate capitalism — she was the muse for people pursuing that sensibility,” said the Canadian filmmaker Bruce La Bruce, the director, most recently, of “Saint-Narcisse” (2020).Ms. Crisp was equally renowned among drag performers, especially those of a rawer sensibility.“If you’re an actual drag queen, you know about the Goddess Bunny,” said Simone Moss, the founder of Bushwig, an annual drag conclave that started in New York and gave Ms. Crisp a lifetime achievement award in 2017. “She’s a part of drag history as much as Divine,” she said, referring to the actress made famous by John Waters in films like “Pink Flamingos.”Sandie Crisp was born on Jan. 13, 1960, in Los Angeles to John Wesley Baima, a lawyer, and Betty Joann (Sherrod) Baima, a secretary.Their child contracted polio, causing limited use of her arms and legs. Doctors prescribed a variety of surgeries and medical devices — Milwaukee braces, Harrington rods — but they caused only further physical damage. She used a wheelchair to get around.After the Baimas divorced, Sandie spent several years in foster homes around Los Angeles, at times subjected to abuse by doctors and at least one foster parent, according to Sandie’s account and that of her half brother, Derryl Dale Piper II.She returned to live with her mother when she was 11, and by 14 she was beginning to present herself as a woman, Mr. Piper said, a turn that brought conflict with their mother, who was deeply religious.Ms. Crisp left home after high school, moving to West Hollywood and joining a small community of punks, artists, homeless teens and hustlers. She made her mark almost immediately. Foulmouthed and dressed in sequined gowns that she often sewed herself, she insisted on being treated like a celebrity. Her penchant for telling wild tales about herself — like how she had appeared in off-Broadway musicals and dated celebrities — only made her more intriguing to her peers.Sandie Crisp was equally renowned among drag performers, especially those who lean toward a raw, edgy sensibility.Credit…Gibson Fox“She was such a visually extreme person,” said the photographer Rick Castro, one of many artists who hired Ms. Crisp to appear in their work in the 1980s and ’90s. “The way she carried herself, like she was a movie star, like old-school Hollywood royalty — she didn’t carry herself like someone who should be ashamed,” he said in an interview.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      ‘Little Fish’ Review: Do You Remember Love?

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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‘Little Fish’ Review: Do You Remember Love?This sci-fi romance imagines a world with widespread memory loss through the eyes of one couple.Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell in “Little Fish.”Credit…IFC FilmsFeb. 4, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETLittle FishDirected by Chad HartiganRomance, Sci-Fi1h 41mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Chad Hartigan’s “Little Fish” is set amid a pandemic. Not the one we’re currently living through, but one that raises many more existential questions. Instead of Covid-19, the film’s fictional world is suffering from NIA (neuroinflammatory affliction), which causes a mysterious, mass memory loss.Hartigan (“Morris From America”) and the screenwriter Mattson Tomlin tell the story of a newlywed couple, Emma (Olivia Cooke) and Jude (Jack O’Connell), while jumping timelines before and after NIA, including their engagement in the fish section of a pet store. The film may be shortsighted about the global scope of this disease, but the microcosmic focus allows for a much more emotionally devastating film.[embedded content]Once you’re swept up in Emma and Jude’s romance — it’s not hard, even though the montages veer a little too precious — the skimmed-over science matters little. This is sci-fi rooted more in feelings than fact. Its resonance is similar to “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” though it’s arguably antithetical in plot.The weight of the epidemic is felt through Emma and Jude’s small social circle. First, their couple friends Ben and Samantha are affected (Raúl Castillo and the singer Soko, who contributed to the soundtrack). Then Emma’s mother learns she has it. But the real gut-punch lands when Jude’s memory starts to fade. “They say you can’t forget feelings,” Emma says. But what happens when one party has no recollection of the past that led to falling in love? And if memories shape one’s identity, what does it mean for Emma to continue loving someone who is no longer his original self? The answers are not all there, but the questions keep the film intriguing.Little FishNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters and 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