Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      When Some Critics Reject the Film That’s About Your Life

      by

      #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 storyWhen Some Critics Reject the Film That’s About Your LifeAfter Hollywood optioned his devastating essay about his dying wife, Matthew Teague vowed the movie would do right by her. The reviews landed like a gut punch.Matthew Teague in Fairhope, Ala.: “I wanted my wife’s legacy and memory to be one of enormous respect.”Credit…Akasha Rabut for The New York TimesJan. 20, 2021Matthew Teague is a journalist who’s traveled to remote corners of the world for stories. He covered C.I.A. operatives in Pakistan, famine in Somalia, double agents in Northern Ireland. But his greatest work may be the essay he wrote in 2015 for Esquire magazine, titled “The Friend.” Teague dedicated some 6,000 words to the arduous two years he spent caring for his wife, Nicole, who learned she had terminal cancer at age 34.The essay told the story of her deterioration and death through the prism of their friendship with Dane Faucheux, a rudderless soul who came to visit the Teague family for Thanksgiving and ended up staying for two years to care for the couple and their two young daughters. Besides winning a National Magazine Award, the essay connected Teague to readers in ways his dramatic reporting from Afghanistan or Sri Lanka never did. They shared their own painful stories with such overwhelming force he was often “struck dumb” by the response. To this day, he receives impassioned, heartbreaking letters.Hollywood, too, quickly came calling.And Teague, now 44, knew the drill. Two of his previous pieces were optioned by various producers, but no movies were ever made. He vowed things would be different this time.What he didn’t account for was just how cruel Hollywood can be when a movie does come together, an experience he is still coming to terms with.First he tried his hand at writing the screenplay himself. When that didn’t work (“I realized I’m too close to this,” he said) he signed on as an executive producer and worked closely with the writer Brad Ingelsby (“The Way Back”) to craft a film that both depicted the realities of death and celebrated the life that came before.Soon a cadre of well-known actors (Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson, Jason Segel) descended on Fairhope, Ala., to portray the Teagues and Faucheux. Gabriela Cowperthwaite directed the actors in scenes shot in the hospital where Nicole was treated and in a home just three doors down from the Teague residence. (The family still lives in the same house. Teague has remarried and now also has a 3-month-old son named Wilder.)Dakota Johnson and Casey Affleck as the Teagues in “Our Friend.”Credit…Claire Folger/Gravitas VenturesToggling between past and present, the script jumps headfirst into both the nastiness of cancer and the banalities of married life, presenting a portrait of a family that is both completely recognizable and terrifyingly unique. Young women are not supposed to die of cancer in their home while their small children are in the next room.But fueled both by the profound reaction to his essay and by his career as a journalist, Teague was wedded to authenticity.“The gist of it is I wanted my wife’s legacy and memory to be one of enormous respect. I didn’t want to mishandle it,” he said. “And I have a mission to tell the truth about that time and everything that came from it.”There are parts of Teague’s original essay that made it directly onto the screen: the doctor’s words when he revealed Nicole’s diagnosis (“It’s everywhere. Like somebody dipped a paintbrush in cancer and flicked it around her abdomen”), the friendship between Teague and Faucheux, and Nicole’s dying wishes (jumping in a downtown fountain with all her family and friends, becoming the grand marshal in her town’s Mardi Gras parade). “What her life lacked in length, it made up for in height,” Teague wrote in Esquire.The more visceral parts that, in part, made the essay so memorable were omitted: specifically Teague’s role in the grotesque art of wound-packing and the physical horrors that accompanied it.“There are things that I can write about in print, and people can absorb and find to be honest,” he said. “Yet, if you see it onscreen, people are going to throw up their popcorn and run from the theater.”Yet, despite his carefully calibrated work, success in Hollywood is never a guarantee.The 2019 Toronto Film Festival accepted the film and gave it a coveted opening-weekend slot.Seated inside the Princess of Wales Theater, Teague was a flurry of nerves, held together only by sheer will and the help of a friend and fellow journalist, Tom Junod, who was also the subject of a Hollywood movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” about his unlikely relationship with Fred Rogers.“It surprised me how emotional I felt watching it,” Teague recalled. “But what really took me aback was how emotional the audience was. There were a lot of people feeling a lot of things. So I felt like I had done right by Nicole.”The actress Kristen Stewart was seated behind him, and hearing her sniffle was additional affirmation everything was going to be OK. There were audible sobs from the audience, a standing ovation and a trip to the stage, where the cast answered an earnest flurry of questions. “There was nothing but love from that audience,” Teague said.Johnson, Violet McGraw and Jason Segel as the Teagues’ friend, Dane Faucheux.Credit…Claire Folger/Gravitas VenturesBut when he returned to his hotel room later that night, early reviews from the trade publications landed like a gut punch. The Hollywood Reporter called it “out of touch with the very emotions it desperately tries to evoke.” Variety took issue with turning his “devastating essay” into an “inspirational group hug.” In that review, the critic Peter Debruge commended the actors’ performances but wrote, “So much of the unpleasantness has been scrubbed from the picture, until what remains is precisely the kind of dishonest, sanitized no-help-to-anyone TV-movie version of death that inspired Teague to set the record straight in the first place.”Today Teague still bristles at this criticism. Despite spending years in newsrooms and understanding the role of critics, this particular critique rings as unfair.“I had just come from a room full of people who had never read the essay, didn’t know anything about the essay and just took the movie on its own terms and found it to be very moving,” he said. “So to have my own story used to beat up my own story was really painful.”Cowperthwaite felt the wrath too, saying the early reviews “just took the wind out of me.” But the director, who has made four films including the BAFTA-nominated documentary “Blackfish,” has had more experience handling criticism. “It’s just one of the suck-it-up truths behind our industry,” she said. “It never doesn’t hurt, but I think the longer you are in this creative world you learn to metabolize the pain more quickly.”For Teague, the critiques felt unfair, but more important he was worried about the effect they would have on the fate of the film. Movies like “The Friend” enter festivals with the hopes of securing a hefty distribution deal, and the early trade reviews carry outsize import when studios and streamers are determining what to buy. Would the film find a home with initial critical response so tepid?“I was in a panic because I didn’t know what was going to happen to this thing that is so precious to me,” Teague said. “Are we sunk? Are people going to get a chance to see it?”Reviews did improve. In Vanity Fair, Katey Rich wrote that the film “finds a more thoughtful way through the sort of story that often feels rote onscreen, regardless of how devastating it can be in real life.” Its Rotten Tomatoes score is now hovering around 80 percent fresh. And the producer-financier Teddy Schwarzman said the film left the festival with four offers, though an official deal wasn’t announced until January.Delayed because of the pandemic, the film, now titled “Our Friend,” will now debut Friday in theaters and on demand.Teague is using the experience as a growth opportunity in his career as a journalist. “The glare of public criticism has helped me be more aware of how frightening and helpless a story subject can feel,” he said in a follow-up email. “It’s easy to forget that, even for a writer who prizes empathy. Sometimes even a brief story — or a hastily written review — can break someone’s heart for a long, long time.”Yet, he hasn’t given up on Hollywood, either. The writer recently returned to the screenwriting game and adapted his 2003 GQ article about the over-the-top war games in North Carolina into a mini-series called “Pineland” that is now being shopped around.“It’s not a gentle industry,” he said. “But it has nothing on journalism — my first love — for hard knocks.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Salt of Tears’ Review: More Than Just a Cad’s Progress

      by

      #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 Salt of Tears’ Review: More Than Just a Cad’s ProgressIn Philippe Garrel’s film, a young Frenchman juggles three women, hoping to be destroyed by love. He gets his wish, but not in a way he imagined.Souheila Yacoub and Logann Antuofermo in “The Salt of Tears.”Credit…Distrib FilmsJan. 20, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETThe Salt of TearsNYT Critic’s PickDirected by Philippe GarrelDrama1h 40mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.At age 72, the French filmmaker Philippe Garrel is still making movies about young lovers. Early adulthood is a fecund field for Garrel because, it can be suspected, he feels a strong affinity for its unruly emotions. His characters have a rage to live, and to love, that’s often countered by a romanticization of death.His new feature, “The Salt of Tears,” is at first glance not too much different from most of his other 21st-century pictures, such as “La Jalousie,” nor from movies going back to the beginning of the once avant-garde director’s narrative work, like “L’Enfant Secret” (1979). It’s in black and white, for one thing. However, its widescreen frame isn’t customary in Garrel’s work — but proves apt for this story. Renato Berta’s cinematography lends an expansiveness to its ordinary settings, both urban and semirural.[embedded content]Luc, played by the newcomer Logann Antuofermo, is visiting Paris to apply to a woodworking school; a bit of a country mouse, he quizzes a young woman, Djemila (Oulaya Amamra), at a bus stop for directions and latches on to her, asking for a date. A tentative romance begins, along with sexual negotiations.Once Luc returns to his provincial town, a run-in with a former teen love, Geneviève (Louise Chevillotte), heats up right away. Luc, avid in pursuit, proves craven in commitment. He continues to woo Djemila from afar. He seems to be achieving an all-too-common male “adulthood”: that is, one of deceit and self-serving, interrupted by twinges of conscience that do nothing but flatter his idea of himself.When Geneviève tells Luc she’s pregnant, his reaction is petulant: “You can’t do this to me.” Once he’s back in Paris, it’s satisfying to see a girl he follows into a cafe say, “Back off or I’ll call the police.”Garrel’s movies often feel unstuck in time. In this picture, at a dance club, the characters ecstatically gyrate in a funny, stylized way to a song by the 1970s French band Téléphone. But sharp touches here, like the young woman telling Luc off and the disruption of a multiracial double date by bigots, show the filmmaker’s grasp of the contemporary world.“The Salt of Tears” is quite a bit more than a cad’s progress. There are fleeting shadows of Flaubert in this tale, which Garrel crafted in collaboration with two venerable screenwriters, Jean-Claude Carrière and Arlette Langmann. “He asked himself if he had known love,” the movie’s dispassionate narrator notes at one point; Luc concludes that he has not, because he has yet to be destroyed by the emotion.A romance with a third woman, the free-spirited Betsy (Souheila Yacoub), grinds Luc down a bit, particularly after she invites an old boyfriend of hers to live with them in Luc’s shoe-box apartment. But Luc’s true comeuppance comes from a wholly different relationship, and Garrel’s buildup to it is particularly cunning. The director’s spare style allows him to get maximum emotional impact using relatively conventional effects; when he presents a rare close-up, it not only makes itself felt in the moment, but also sets up the film’s devastating finale.The Salt of TearsNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch on Film Forum.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Barbara Shelley, Leading Lady of Horror Films, Dies at 88

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesU.S. Travel BanVaccine InformationTimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThose We’ve LostBarbara Shelley, Leading Lady of Horror Films, Dies at 88Sometimes the victim, sometimes the monster, she was a frequent presence in scary movies in the 1950s and ’60s. She died of underlying conditions following a bout with the coronavirus.Barbara Shelley was an elegant queen of camp in a succession of British horror movies. She appeared with Christopher Lee in the 1966 film “Dracula: Prince of Darkness.”Credit…20th Century-Fox/Everett CollectionJan. 19, 2021Updated 5:16 p.m. ETThis obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.Sometimes Barbara Shelley was the victim. By the end of the movie “Blood of the Vampire” (1958), the Victorian character that she played — her brocade bodice properly ripped — was in chains in a mad scientist’s basement laboratory.She was at Christopher Lee’s mercy in “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” (1966), although before the end she had fangs of her own. (In fact, she accidentally swallowed one of them while filming her death scene, which she considered one of her finest moments.)Sometimes she was an innocent bystander. In “The Village of the Damned” (1960), she was impregnated by mysterious extraterrestrial rays and had a son — a beautiful, emotion-free blond child whose glowing eyes could kill.Sometimes she was the monster, although in “Cat Girl” (1957) it wasn’t her fault that a centuries-old family curse turned her into a man-eating leopard.Ms. Shelley, the elegant queen of camp in British horror films for a decade, died on Jan. 4 in London. She was 88.Her agent, Thomas Bowington, said in a statement that she had spent two weeks in December in a hospital, where she contracted Covid-19. It was successfully treated, but after going home she died of what he described as “underlying issues.”Barbara Teresa Kowin was born on Feb. 13, 1932, in Harrow, England, a part of Greater London. After appearing in a high school production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Gondoliers,” she decided to become an actress and began modeling to overcome her shyness.Her movie debut was a bit part in “Man in Hiding” (1953), a crime drama. She enjoyed a 1955 vacation in Italy so much that she stayed two years and made films there. When Italians had trouble pronouncing Kowin, she renamed herself Shelley.Making “Cat Girl” back home in England led to her calling as a leading lady of horror. Most of her best-known pictures were for Hammer Films, the London studio responsible for horror classics including “The Mummy” and “The Curse of Frankenstein.”But often there were no monsters onscreen. She played almost a hundred other roles in movies and on television. She was Mrs. Gardiner, the Bennet sisters’ wise aunt, in a 1980 mini-series version of “Pride and Prejudice.” She appeared on “Doctor Who,” “The Saint,” “The Avengers” and “Eastenders.”She made guest appearances on midcentury American series, including “Route 66” and “Bachelor Father.” And she had a stage career as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1970s. Her final screen role was in “Uncle Silas” (1989), a mini-series with Peter O’Toole.But the horror movies — her last was “Quatermass and the Pit” (1967), about a five-million-year-old artifact — were her legacy.“They built me a fan base, and I’m very touched that people will come and ask for my autograph,” Ms. Shelley told Express magazine in 2009. “All the other things I did, nobody remembers.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      Movies to Stream for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

      by

      #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 storyMovies to Stream for Martin Luther King Jr. DaySeven recent films help commemorate King’s legacy in fighting for racial justice.Martin Luther King Jr. is featured in the documentary “MLK/FBI.”Credit…IFC FilmsJan. 17, 2021With each year since it was designated as a holiday in 1983, Martin Luther King Jr. Day has carried new yet immovable significance. It did so the year following Rodney King’s 1991 assault. It did so in the years following the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. And now, following the past year’s deaths of Representative John Lewis and the Rev. C.T. Vivian, the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, the arrival of the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, the November presidential election and this month’s storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, the holiday carries that much more meaning. In our government, in our elections, and in our law enforcement the signs of racism still lurk.Rather than enumerate already venerated civil rights films like Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” and Agnès Varda’s “Black Panthers,” unquestionably important works, this list compiles streaming titles from this year and last that not only speak to King’s racial justice legacy, but also to the continued and immediate struggle for voting rights and equal treatment under the law.‘Time’Stream it on Amazon.Fox Rich in a scene from “Time,” directed by Garrett Bradley.Credit…Amazon StudiosFor 18 years Fox Rich, a modern-day abolitionist, filmed thousands of home videos for her imprisoned husband Rob. Because of her involvement (as the getaway driver) in a robbery conducted by her husband and his cousin in 1997, Rich served three and a half years while the court sentenced Rob to 60 years in prison. Garrett Bradley’s affecting black-and-white film documents the moments Rob lost with his six children and his dedicated wife. In an 81-minute span, a delicate edit of those heartfelt video messages chronicling missed birthday parties, impassioned speeches and letters of love, Bradley explores not only how the prison industrial complex defrauds Black citizens of much more than time, but also how one woman remained undaunted in her mission to free her husband.‘One Night in Miami’Stream it on Amazon.Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcom X in “One Night in Miami.”Credit…Patti Perret/Amazon StudiosRegina King’s feature, adapted from Kemp Powers’s play of the same name, and loosely based on a true event, concerns four of the more prominent Black cultural figures of the 1960s — Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) — meeting in a Miami hotel room after Clay’s 1964 victory over Sonny Liston. Each actor delivers enjoyable one-liners that come off as genuine. And the dialogue they speak regarding the pathways for racial justice is as heartfelt as it is powerful. In her direction, King makes us wish for a second night.‘MLK/FBI’Watch it on demand.With the many films and historical texts on King, we know that his life was well-documented. But Sam Pollard’s “MLK/FBI” shows that it was much more traced than some may have imagined. From 1963 to King’s death, in a bid to destabilize the civil rights movement, the F.B.I. recorded thousands of hours of audio surveillance on the activist. This provocative film provides more than King’s soaring speeches. It investigates the meaning behind being a moral leader. Rumors about King having multiple affairs are raised and the questionable tactics of F.B.I. counterintelligence are examined. “MLK/FBI” is a complicated portrayal of a deified hero. Yet in the thorniness of King’s personal history the humanity of the man is redefined.‘Mangrove’Stream it on Amazon.Shaun Parkes as Frank Crichlow and Letitia Wright as Altheia Jones-LeCointe in “Mangrove,” part of the director Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology.Credit…Des Willie/Amazon Prime VideoWhile you should watch all of Steve McQueen’s five-film British anthology “Small Axe,” the civil rights narrative of “Mangrove” is particularly resonant. Concerning the Mangrove Nine, a group of West Indian protesters put on trial in 1970 for inciting a riot, McQueen crafts a courtroom battle that spotlights the racism that exposed extralegal cracks in the British justice system. Powerhouse performances from Letitia Wright as the British Black Panther member Altheia Jones-LeCointe, and Shaun Parkes as the restaurant owner Frank Crichlow, propel a film that centers the unyielding fight for self-determination.‘John Lewis: Good Trouble’Stream it on HBO Max.John Lewis, the subject of “Good Trouble.”Credit…Magnolia PicturesRepresentative John Lewis’s ethos “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble,” inspires the title of Dawn Porter’s documentary about the civil rights icon. The film covers Lewis’s major accomplishments — being the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington; leading the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.; and being elected to Congress — while conveying his lifelong dedication to nonviolent resistance. And few stagings hit with greater force than Lewis watching, in astonishment, the footage from his activist life. Sentimental yet undaunted, Porter’s documentary is an essential tribute to Lewis and his struggle.‘Da 5 Bloods’Stream it on Netflix.Spike Lee narrates a sequence from his Netflix feature.CreditCredit…David Lee/NetflixSpike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” and George Floyd’s death are inextricably linked. The film about four Black war veterans returning to Vietnam to recover the remains of Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick Boseman), their fallen commander, and the C.I.A. gold they left buried, was released in the throes of protests following Floyd’s killing. Through a searing soliloquy, Paul (Delroy Lindo), the drama’s tragic lead who never recovered from losing Norman, lends voice to the generation of Black men forced into watching their friends die in a thankless war, only to return home to find civil rights leaders killed as well. “Da 5 Bloods” concludes with a Black Lives Matter chant, and it’s Paul’s belief that his Black life does matter that is the film’s heartbeat.‘All In: The Fight for Democracy’Stream it on Amazon.Stacey Abrams working a phone bank in a scene from “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” a documentary about combating voter suppression.Credit…Amazon StudiosThe woman of the hour remains Stacey Abrams. The Democratic candidate for Georgia governor played an instrumental role not only in Joe Biden’s presidential win in that state, but also in Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff’s Senate victories. Abrams’s campaigning, however, began long before the 2020 election. In this frank documentary, the directors Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés demonstrate how Abrams laid the groundwork to fight decades of voter disenfranchisement in Georgia, and how those efforts reverberated beyond the state.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 63 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Six Great Movies About Presidents

      by

      #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 storySix Great Movies About PresidentsIf you’re looking for some escapism, these films are a good reminder that democracy works.Daniel Day-Lewis took an Oscar-winning turn as President Abraham Lincoln in the 2012 film “Lincoln.”Credit…DreamWorks Pictures and 20th Century FoxJan. 16, 2021When a new president is inaugurated, it’s traditionally an occasion for pageantry and pomp, showcasing the splendor of Washington and reminding the country and the world of the United States’ democratic promise: that power ultimately rests in the will of the people. As we head into these ceremonies next week, it’s a good time to let these movies remind us that the mechanisms of American politics and the institution of the presidency — at their best and worst — have endured for centuries.These six entertaining films are about real and fictional presidents, and are set against the backdrop and complicated culture of our nation’s capital.‘Lincoln’The director Steven Spielberg and the screenwriter Tony Kushner take an unusual approach to telling the story of one of America’s most beloved presidents, focusing mostly on the first months of Abraham Lincoln’s second term, when he cajoled a reluctant Congress into passing a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. Daniel Day-Lewis gives an Oscar-winning performance as Lincoln, capturing the man’s gentle good humor and shrewd — sometimes ruthless — political instincts. The “Lincoln” creative team make the figures from history books look and feel like real people, with complex personalities and motives.Watch it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘Thirteen Days’The title of this film refers to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet deployment of nuclear weapons not far from the Florida coast pitted John F. Kennedy and his inner circle against both the Russians and their own Joint Chiefs of Staff. The outcome of this story is well-known. (Spoiler alert: The missiles were removed and a potential catastrophe was averted.) But the director Roger Donaldson and the screenwriter David Self still successfully dramatize the tension and paranoia brewing when Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood), his brother Robert (Steven Culp) and his adviser Kenneth O’Donnell (Kevin Costner) scrambled to out-negotiate their rivals.Watch it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘Seven Days in May’The characters in this jittery 1964 thriller are fictional, but the situation — particularly of late — feels all too real. Kirk Douglas plays a Marine colonel who suspects that a hawkish Air Force general (Burt Lancaster) is organizing a coup against a pacifist president (Frederic March). The director John Frankenheimer (who two years earlier made the similarly pulse-pounding “The Manchurian Candidate”) and the screenwriter Rod Serling adapt a novel by Charles W. Bailey II and Fletcher Knebel into an offbeat war movie, where the soldiers fight in boardrooms instead of battlefields, attacking using clandestine meetings and phone calls.Watch it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘All the President’s Men’Richard Nixon is at the center of this newspaper drama, even though he mostly stays offscreen. Based on Carl Bernstein’s and Bob Woodward’s account of how they investigated the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post, this film conveys the day-to-day business of gossip, leaks and social networking in the nation’s capital. But it’s also a rousing story about how citizens and journalists can serve as a check on the executive branch, whenever presidents and their staff start imperiously ignoring or bulldozing over federal laws.Watch it on HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘Dave’One big appeal of movies about presidents is the chance to see how the leader of the free world lives. In this 1993 comedy “Dave,” Kevin Kline plays an ordinary guy who looks just like the president. When the White House staff asks him to pose as POTUS while the real one recovers from a stroke, Dave soon finds himself embroiled in a plot involving scandal, chicanery and romance. What makes this picture so delightful is Kline’s endearingly upbeat performance as someone who genuinely enjoys the privileges of the presidency — from the perks of the White House to the power to improve people’s lives.Watch it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]‘The American President’The screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has a knack for creating charismatic and inspiring politicians, as seen in his hit TV series, “The West Wing.” In this 1995 romantic drama, Michael Douglas plays the title character, a Bill Clinton-like centrist Democrat prone to push for popular legislation rather than taking controversial stands. Sorkin’s story (directed by Rob Reiner) is mostly about the widowed president’s love affair with an environmental lobbyist played by Annette Bening. But the movie also imagines an idealized Washington, where the right speech at the right time can change minds and perhaps save a nation.Watch it on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube[Read The New York Times review.]AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      Pixar’s ‘Soul’ Has a Black Hero. In Denmark, a White Actor Dubs the Voice.

      by

      #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 storyPixar’s ‘Soul’ Has a Black Hero. In Denmark, a White Actor Dubs the Voice.The casting has fueled a debate about structural racism and fanned anger about stereotyping and prejudice in European-language voice-overs, even when films have main characters of color.Jamie Foxx is the voice of the main character in “Soul,” Joe Gardner. In some dubbed versions for European release, white actors have taken that role.Credit…Disney/PixarJan. 16, 2021, 6:09 a.m. ETCOPENHAGEN — Like most of their counterparts around the world, Danish film critics initially greeted “Soul,” Pixar’s first animated feature to focus on Black characters and African-American culture, with rapture, hailing its sensitive, joyful portrayal of a jazz musician on a quest to live a meaningful life.The film was described as “a miracle,” by one reviewer in Denmark, “beautiful and life-giving” by another.What the Danish press did not initially focus on, by and large, was the characters’ race. But that changed after the movie’s release on Dec. 25, when realization spread that the Danish-language version had been dubbed primarily by white actors. This is also the case in many other European-language versions of “Soul.”While in most countries, the film’s voice-over casting has barely registered with the public, in Portugal, more than 17,000 have signed a petition calling on Pixar to remake the local edition with actors of color. “This movie is not just another movie, and representation matters,” the petition states.Joe Gardner, the main character in “Soul,” is Pixar’s first Black protagonist. and the studio took steps to accurately represent African-American culture, hiring Kemp Powers as a co-director and installing a “cultural trust” to safeguard the story’s authenticity. The actor Jamie Foxx, who voices Joe in the English-language original, told The New York Times, “To be the first Black lead in a Pixar film feels like a blessing.”In the Danish version, Joe is voiced by Nikolaj Lie Kaas, who is white. When the national newspaper Berlingske interviewed scholars and activists who expressed their disappointment about this and suggested that the casting was an example of structural racism, a fiery controversy erupted, prompting Lie Kaas to issue a statement about why he had accepted the role.Nikolaj Lie Kaas, a Danish actor, voices Joe Gardiner’s part in the Danish version of “Soul.”Credit…Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images“My position with regards to any job is very simple,” he wrote on Facebook. “Let the man or woman who can perform the work in the best possible way get the job.”Asta Selloane Sekamane, one of the activists who criticized the casting in the Berlingske article, said in an interview that no one can claim there wasn’t enough Black talent to fill the main roles, because actors of color were hired to voice some of the minor parts. “It can’t be the constant excuse, this idea that we can’t find people who live up to our standards,” she added. “That’s an invisible bar that ties qualification to whiteness.”Mira Skadegard, a professor at Aalborg University in Denmark who researches discrimination and inequality, said the resistance to accusations of structural racism was unsurprising. “In Denmark, we have a long history of denial when it comes to racism, and a deep investment in the ideal of equality,” she said.“We don’t really understand this as a critique of institutions and structures; we see it as a critique of who we are,” she added.In Denmark and Portugal, dubbing is generally reserved for animation and for children’s programs. But in other European countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, most mainstream films from abroad are dubbed, and the practice is seen as an art in its own right — one that rests on the practitioners’ ability to make themselves unobtrusive.“The best dubbing should pass by completely undetected,” said Juan Logar, a leading Spanish dubbing director and voice actor.“My job is to find the voice that best matches the original,” said Logar. “Black, white, Asian, it doesn’t matter.”Charles Rettinghaus, a German dubbing artist, expressed a similar sentiment. In his 40-year career, he has been the voice of actors including Jean-Claude Van Damme and Javier Bardem, but he said he felt a special connection with Jamie Foxx, whom he has covered in more than 20 films, including the German version of “Soul.”Although he is white, Rettinghaus said he had not felt pressured to step away from any Black roles, adding that the same opportunities should apply to actors of all races. “It doesn’t matter if you are Black, you should be and are allowed to dub anything,” he said. “Why shouldn’t you play a white actor or an Indian or an Asian?”Kaze Uzumaki, a Black colleague of Rettinghaus, said it was more complicated than that. Uzumaki dubs the character of Paul in “Soul” and has lent his voice to the German versions of dozens of other American films and television series. Almost without exception, his roles were originally played by actors of color.“At first, I really didn’t like it,” he said. “But I figured I was more comfortable with me speaking the role than a lot of other white colleagues who don’t have a good knowledge of the English language, and can’t really tell what a Black person sounds like.”The German actor Kaze Uzumaki voices the role of Paul in the German version of “Soul.”Credit…Kaze UzumakiUzumaki said that he had dubbed doctors of color in hospital shows, only to be told by the director that he sounded “too educated.”“They don’t even realize that they’re being racist,” Uzumaki said. “But every time a director says something like, ‘No, you sound too polished; you know how they talk, right?’ I feel like I’ve been hit with a stick in the face.”The discrimination is often double-edged. Ivo Chundro, a Dutch actor of color who dubbed the part of Paul in “Soul” for distribution in the Netherlands, said, “Directors will only cast white actors for white parts, and tell actors of color, ‘No, your voice isn’t white enough.’”Some directors say that demographics limit who they select. “In Spain, we don’t have a second generation of immigrants yet,” said Logar. “Except for a few very young kids, there aren’t a lot of Black actors who were born here and speak Spanish without an accent.”Actors of color like Chundro and Uzumaki contend that those directors simply aren’t looking hard enough. But there are signs that things are starting to change. In 2007, a dubbing director in France told the actress Yasmine Modestine that, because she was mixed race, her voice wasn’t right for a part. Based on her complaint, the French equal opportunities commission investigated the dubbing industry as a whole and found a culture of prejudice and stereotyping.Fily Keita, right, dubs the voices of many famous actresses — both Black and white — for their movies’ French releases.Credit…Yan Coadou/Thibaut MicheSince then, the opportunities for voice actors of color have expanded there. Fily Keita, who voiced Lupita Nyong’o in the French-language version of “Black Panther,” said that she didn’t feel held back as a Black actor working in the industry. She has also lent her voice to roles played originally by white actresses, such as Amanda Seyfried and Jamie-Lynn Sigler.“I love dubbing precisely because it’s a space of freedom,” she said. “Where you’re not limited by your physical appearance.”Chundro, the Dutch actor, said that the Black Lives Matter movement was starting to shift the conversation around race and representation in the Netherlands. He cited a demonstration in Amsterdam in June as helping open eyes to enduring racism.“I used to have a lot of discussions about racism where people just didn’t get it,” Chundro said. But the protest “was like a bandage being ripped off a wound, and since then, it’s been much easier to talk about,” he added.With that greater awareness has come more opportunities, he said. “There’s more work out there, and I’m getting cast a lot more.”Sekamane, the Danish activist, also credited the movement with changing attitudes. “I’m 30 years old, and my whole life I’ve been told racism is in my head,” she said. “It’s only in the last year, thanks to Black Lives Matter, that the conversation has started to change.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 75 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      What to Watch: ’80s Romantic Comedies

      by

      What to Watch: ’80s Romantic ComediesDavid RenardThe Times Culture desk ��Columbia Pictures‘When Harry Met Sally …’ (1989)From the Met Museum to Central Park to, ahem, Katz’s Deli, Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan hit the New York City highlights in Rob Reiner’s comedy.Where to watch More