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      What We Learned From ‘Harry & Meghan,’ Part Two

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      The second collection of episodes of the couple’s Netflix docuseries landed on Thursday. It dives deep into mental health and royal drama.LONDON — The second and final installment of “Harry and Meghan,” the highly anticipated Netflix docuseries, was released on Thursday, capping a week in which the couple’s personal lives were once again catapulted into the spotlight.The first three episodes of the series, released last week, dove into the makings of the couple’s relationship, their ongoing battle with the news media, the details of Meghan’s challenging family connections and more. Three more episodes were released Thursday.Love them, hate them or simply can’t live without them, people tuned in. The first set of episodes earned a staggering 81.5 million viewing hours, the most of any documentary in a premiere week, Netflix said on Tuesday. More than 28 million households had seen a part of the first collection of episodes in the first four days, the streaming platform added.Episode four picks up at Harry and Meghan’s wedding in May 2018 and quickly tackles a number of matters, including Meghan’s connection to Queen Elizabeth II, the barrage of negative headlines she faced and her mental health challenges.If you don’t have time to watch, or if you enjoy spoilers, here are the main takeaways from the latest episodes.The wedding was a family affair, although it was an international spectacle.The fourth episode kicked off by reliving the couple’s star-studded wedding in May 2018. Although thousands of people were on the street hoping to catch a glimpse of the couple, and perhaps billions more were watching on television, the couple described it as a family affair, with numerous personal touches that seemed to make all the difference.Harry chose the song (Handel’s “Eternal Source of Light Divine”) that Meghan walked down the aisle to. “It was so beautiful,” she said. It was also revealed that Charles, Harry’s father, who was the Prince of Wales at the time and is now king, helped choose the orchestra for the ceremony.More on the British Royal FamilyBoston Visit: Prince William and Princess Catherine of Wales recently made a whirlwind visit to Boston. Swaths of the city were unimpressed.Aide Resigns: A Buckingham Palace staff member quit after a British-born Black guest said the aide pressed her on where she was from.‘The Crown’: Months ago, the new season of the Netflix drama was shaping up as another public-relations headache for Prince Charles. But then he became king.Training Nannies: Where did the royals find Prince George’s nanny? At Norland College, where students learn how to shield strollers from paparazzi and fend off potential kidnappers.Because Megan’s father, Thomas Markle, did not attend the ceremony, she asked Charles to walk her down the aisle. “Harry’s dad is very charming,” Meghan said. “I said to him like, ‘I’ve lost my dad in this.’ So him as my father-in-law was really important to me.”Meghan’s connection to the queen seemed to be strong, normal even.The episode dwells on Meghan’s first official royal engagement with the queen, about a month after the wedding. She and the queen took the royal train to Cheshire, England.“I treated her as my husband’s grandma,” Meghan said, remembering her private time with the queen. “When we got into the car in between engagements, she had a blanket,” Meghan said, and that the queen placed the blanket also over her knees. “I recognize and respect and see that you’re the queen, but in this moment I’m so grateful that there’s a grandmother figure, cause that feels like family,” Meghan said.The constant and negative tabloid headlines had a dramatic effect on Meghan.The fourth episode also underscored the mental health challenges and suicidal thoughts Meghan had, in part because of negative headlines shortly after they wed and during much of her pregnancy.“All of this will stop if I’m not here and that was the scariest thing about it — it was such clear thinking,” Meghan said.Doria Ragland, Meghan’s mother, recalled an emotional conversation in which Meghan expressed suicidal thoughts. “That’s not an easy one for a mom to hear,” she said, wiping away tears. “And I can’t protect her. H can’t protect her.”Harry said he was devastated by the toll the negative press coverage took on his wife and said he didn’t deal with it well.“I had been trained to worry more about what are people going to think,” Harry said. “And looking back at it now, I hate myself for it. What she needed from me was so much more than I was able to give.”The couple’s war with the media reaches a fever pitch.The fifth episode begins with the couple’s continued war with the news media and efforts to dodge paparazzi photographers while spending Christmas 2019 away from the royal family.The headlines about Meghan appeared to be incessant, pushing the couple to a breaking point. “I realized that I wasn’t just being thrown to the wolves,” Meghan said. “I was being fed to the wolves.”The couple described creating a plan that they hoped would bring them both safety and peace of mind. “The toll was visible, the emotional toll that it was having on both of us, but especially my wife,” Harry said. “We’re going to have to change this for our own sake.”They described plans to relocate to New Zealand or South Africa before they ultimately settled on Canada. They later moved to California.Harry said his grandmother, the queen, was aware that he and Meghan were having difficulties with their public roles and made plans to discuss it in early January 2020 when he returned briefly to Britain. However, that plan was thwarted, they said.“I remember looking at H and going, my gosh, this is when a family and family business are in direct conflict because they’re blocking you from seeing the queen, but really what they’re doing is blocking a grandson from seeing his grandmother,” Meghan said.Strained family ties take center stage.In a family meeting to discuss the couple’s decision to reduce their roles as working members of the royal family, Harry said he was presented with several options but quickly realized no agreement would be reached.“It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that simply weren’t true and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in,” Harry said.Harry described that meeting as hard and said that it finished without a solid action plan.“The saddest part of it was this wedge created between myself and my brother so that he’s now on the institution side,” Harry said, acknowledging Prince William’s perspective.The couple announced in January 2020 that they were stepping back from their royal duties. The decision sent shock waves around the world and drew headlines that seemed to blame Meghan for the split.“How predictable that the woman is to be blamed for the decision of a couple. In fact it was my decision,” Harry said.The queen later said she was “supportive” of the couple’s decision.This story is being updated. Check back for more. More

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      Adam Sandler to Receive Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

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      The comedian will receive the Kennedy Center’s annual comedy honor at a ceremony in March.Adam Sandler has had a busy 2022: He starred as a basketball scout in a critically acclaimed performance in the Netflix sports drama “Hustle”; he won an honorary Gotham Award, giving a speech that brought the house down; and undertook his first nationwide arena tour in three years. Now, he’ll be able to start off 2023 with at least one sure thing: a comedy prize.The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced on Tuesday that it will recognize the 56-year-old comedian’s satire and activism when it presents him with its 24th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, given to luminaries who have “had an impact on American society” in ways similar to Twain, at a ceremony on March 19.In his 30-year career, Sandler, who is known for his loopy, lewd sense of humor and amiable charm, has served as a comedian, actor, writer, producer and musician, starring in films like “The Waterboy” (1998), “Grown Ups” (2010) and “Hotel Transylvania” (2012). After getting his start telling jokes in comedy clubs, he shot to fame as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live,” then went on to release blockbuster albums and make critically panned comedies. Though he’s also racked up critically acclaimed star turns in the Safdie brothers’ 2019 dark comedy “Uncut Gems” and “Hustle,” among others.Deborah F. Rutter, the president of the Kennedy Center, said in a statement that Sandler had “created characters that have made us laugh, cry and cry from laughing.”Previous winners of the Mark Twain Prize include Jon Stewart, Bill Murray, Dave Chappelle, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Carol Burnett and Ellen DeGeneres. The award has been presented annually since 1998, excepting the pandemic years 2020 and 2021. More

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      ‘Harry & Meghan’: What People Are Saying About the Netflix Series

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      Critics on both sides of the Atlantic found common ground in negative reviews of the first three episodes of the series.These days in Britain, very little unites the right and left. “Harry & Meghan,” the intimate Netflix series released Thursday, is quickly shaping up to be the exception.The first three episodes of the docuseries, directed by Liz Garbus and produced in conjunction with the production company of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, were quickly skewered by a bipartisan group of critics, from The Sun to The Guardian. Although “skewered” may not actually capture the harshness of some of the commentary.Piers Morgan, who has been vociferously critical of the couple in the past, wastes no time laying into the series in his scathing review in The Sun, a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch:Who are the world’s biggest victims right now? You might think it’s the poor people of Ukraine as they’re bombed, shot and raped by Putin’s invading barbarians. Or those whose lives have been ruined by the Covid pandemic that continues to cause widespread death and long-term illness. Or the millions battling crippling financial hardship in a devastating cost-of-living crisis that has swept the globe.But no. The world’s biggest victims are in fact Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, a pair of incredibly rich, stupendously privileged, horribly entitled narcissists.If you don’t believe me, just ask them!Later in his review, Morgan cautions viewers they may need a “sick bucket.” He was not the only one to evoke gastrointestinal distress. The headline for Lucy Mangan’s review in the left-leaning Guardian exclaims that the first three episodes were “so sickening I almost brought up my breakfast.”More on the British Royal FamilyBoston Visit: Prince William and Princess Catherine of Wales recently made a whirlwind visit to Boston. Swaths of the city were unimpressed.Aide Resigns: A Buckingham Palace staff member quit after a British-born Black guest said the aide pressed her on where she was from.‘The Crown’: Months ago, the new season of the Netflix drama was shaping up as another public-relations headache for Prince Charles. But then he became king.Training Nannies: Where did the royals find Prince George’s nanny? At Norland College, where students learn how to shield strollers from paparazzi and fend off potential kidnappers.Mangan does point out that the series so far has plenty of sweet moments — particularly of Prince Harry and Meghan “being charming and funny together” — but she ultimately finds the finished product wanting:But in the end — what are we left with? Exactly the same story we always knew, told in the way we would expect to hear it from the people who are telling it. Those who don’t care won’t watch. Those who do care — which is to say are voyeuristically invested in the real-life soap opera — will still read into it anything they want to and doubtless confirm all their previous ideas. There is plenty here to start another round of tabloid frenzy, particularly in Harry’s mention of members of the royal family who consider the pressure placed on anyone “marrying in” a rite of passage and resist allowing anyone else to avoid what their own spouses went through, and who bow to internal pressure to choose a wife who “fits the mould.” Which is to say — it is hard to see who, beyond the media, the villains of the piece, will really gain from this?The Independent, a more centrist player in British media, was less savage, but not exactly admiring, calling the series both “self-aggrandizing” and “wildly entertaining.” In her review, Jessie Thompson finds the couple, at times endearing and sympathetic, and the points about racism in Britain eloquently made.But while she writes that she respects their “right to share this stuff on their own terms,” she finds the protestations of love over the top (“We believe you! You are in love! There’s no need to show us any more of your WhatsApps!”) and their inability to talk like normal people when interviewed frustrating.She also wonders at moments in the series “if the couple are naïve or disingenuous”:Did Meghan really think it was “a joke” that she had to curtsy to the Queen of England? It might be an outdated request, but it surely can’t have been an unexpected one. “Like, what’s a walkabout?” she says of her first public appearance. They also seem to have a weird pathological need to document every aspect of their lives.The Financial Times, the more sober-minded and business-focused newspaper, finds the first three episodes of the much-hyped series something of a let down. As Henry Mance writes:Does this “Netflix Global Event” match up to, say, Diana, Princess of Wales on “Panorama,” Prince Andrew on “Newsnight” or even Harry and Meghan’s own conversation with Oprah Winfrey, in which they alleged a member of the royal family speculated about their baby’s skin colour? Bluntly, no. There have been explosive royal TV shows, but so far this is not one of them. Harry and Meghan do not drop bombs; at most, they point plaintively at existing craters. They have also bought into the successful Netflix formula: never say in one hour what you can stretch out over several. This is a show that makes you grateful that the streaming platform has the option to watch at 1.25x speed.In the United States, the reviews registered a similar sense of disappointment.As Stephanie Bunbury writes for Deadline:Three hours into Netflix doc series “Harry & Meghan” and still no tell-all truths from the darkest corners of the House of Windsor. Anyone who had expected the curtain to be lifted on the deep-state machinations of The Firm to protect the brand will be feeling shortchanged by Volume I which dropped today.Daniel D’Addario echoes that sentiment for Variety, lamenting the series’s unwillingness to push past the familiar: “As with the most recent, painfully dull season of “The Crown,” there seems a sort of narrative stuckness, an inability or lack of desire to find the next thing to say that we haven’t yet heard.”But he still holds out hope that the final episodes, which will be released on Dec. 15, will move beyond “the story of their courtship, wedding, and family feuds”:What they want to do now that they’ve overcome adversity may well lie ahead in the next batch of episodes, but speaking in their own voice about issues other than their personal experience would have represented a good start. But perhaps that’s not the remit, on a show for which the pair are engaged with a major streaming corporation to dish the dirt once more. Pity them, too — even after breaking free of Buckingham Palace, they’re still someone’s subjects. More

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      Netflix’s Harry and Meghan Documentary Series to Be ‘Personal and Raw’

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      The documentary series is the most high-profile project from Story Syndicate, a company run by the filmmaker Liz Garbus and her husband, Dan Cogan.Liz Garbus was skeptical.The documentarian behind films like “Becoming Cousteau” and “What Happened, Miss Simone?” was not an avid royal watcher. She knew the broad strokes of the decision by Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, to leave the British royal family. She had seen their interview with Oprah Winfrey. But she assumed that the stiff upper lip emblematic of elite British society would not make for a compelling documentary — too guarded, too interested in hagiography, too much of an all-around royal pain.Then she saw the footage.Encouraged by friends to document their dramatic decision to “step back” as senior members of the British royal family and assert their financial independence, Harry and Meghan shot more than 15 hours of personal video in the early months of 2020 as they finalized their plans to exit Buckingham Palace for good. Then they shared it all with Ms. Garbus and her husband, the producer Dan Cogan.Suddenly Ms. Garbus found herself watching Harry in the Windsor Suite at Heathrow Airport, addressing the camera directly. The video is dated March 11, and Harry has just finished his final two weeks of royal engagements and is headed to Vancouver to meet Meghan.“You’re right there with Harry in the Windsor Suite processing the fact that he’s leaving the royal family for the first time in his life,” Ms. Garbus said. “Then there was another clip with Meghan at home, alone, fresh out of the shower, her hair in a towel, no makeup, processing on her end what their life might actually be like.“It’s very personal and raw and powerful, and it made me appreciate the incredible weight that went into their decision,” she said. “It also affirmed the choice I had made about wanting to unravel how this historic break came to be.”When pressed as to whether Harry and Meghan had final approval over the series, Ms. Garbus responded: “It was a collaboration. You can keep asking me, but that’s what I’ll say.”Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesOn Thursday, selections from those personal archives were made available to the world when Netflix released the first three hourlong episodes of “Harry and Meghan,” a six-part documentary series. (The final three episodes are scheduled to debut on the streaming service on Dec. 15.)Given the rabid, often polarizing opinions that seem to arise whenever Harry and Meghan are mentioned, the series will almost assuredly result in social media memes, tabloid gossip and — Netflix hopes, given that it signed a very rich deal with the couple in 2020 — a global streaming event.“You don’t always expect folks at their level of celebrity to speak with emotional honesty and intensity about things that are upsetting to them or complex in their lives,” Mr. Cogan said. “They were willing to do that, and that was so refreshing to us as storytellers.”More on the British Royal FamilyBoston Visit: Prince William and Princess Catherine of Wales recently made a whirlwind visit to Boston. Swaths of the city were unimpressed.Aide Resigns: A Buckingham Palace staff member quit after a British-born Black guest said the aide pressed her on where she was from.‘The Crown’: Months ago, the new season of the Netflix drama was shaping up as another public-relations headache for Prince Charles. But then he became king.Training Nannies: Where did the royals find Prince George’s nanny? At Norland College, where students learn how to shield strollers from paparazzi and fend off potential kidnappers.Their story is also being framed within “the history of British colonialism and race and its relationship to the monarchy,” Mr. Cogan added. In other words, issues that are sure to make the monarchy stammer.In the series, Ms. Garbus puts the couple’s personal archive into context, interspersing the self-shot video diaries with formal interviews and archival footage of the royal family. Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, is heavily featured, as are Harry’s boarding school buddies, Meghan’s security team in Canada, her college friends and co-stars from the TV show “Suits.”Filming began in November 2021 and ended in July, months before the death of Queen Elizabeth II. When asked if Harry and Meghan had control over the final product, Ms. Garbus said it was a collaboration. When pressed as to whether the couple had final approval over the series, she responded: “It was a collaboration. You can keep asking me, but that’s what I’ll say.”The project is something of a culmination of the issues Ms. Garbus has chronicled for the past two decades. Whether it’s social justice seen through the lens of the prison system (“The Farm: Angola, USA” and “Girlhood”) or uncovering the troubled personal stories of famous yet enigmatic figures — Bobby Fischer, Marilyn Monroe and Nina Simone — mental health and righting systemic wrongs are topics she returns to time and again. (Ms. Garbus also directed a documentary series about The New York Times called “The Fourth Estate.”)In the case of Harry and Meghan, Ms. Garbus said that the story was already in place when she became involved, a first for a filmmaker who prefers to determine how best to approach her subjects. The documentarian Garrett Bradley was previously attached to the project, but the two sides parted ways because Ms. Bradley’s vérité style did not mesh with the couple’s interests. Representatives for Ms. Bradley declined to comment.Ms. Garbus said that Harry and Meghan were interested in telling their love story within the historical context of the British monarchy. Ms. Garbus wanted to expand on that and explore how their personal pasts affected their present.“I’m always really interested in psychology and how someone’s childhood determines their future and what impact they will have on the world,” she said. “In this story with both of them, I was able to look at that.”Some have questioned why Harry and Meghan chose to make a documentary, suggesting that the couple’s decision to give up their royal duties meant they wanted to lead a more private life. In a statement to The New York Times, the couple’s global press secretary, Ashley Hansen, disputes this narrative. “Their statement announcing their decision to step back mentions nothing of privacy and reiterates their desire to continue their roles and public duties,” she said. “Any suggestion otherwise speaks to a key point of this series. They are choosing to share their story, on their terms, and yet the tabloid media has created an entirely untrue narrative that permeates press coverage and public opinion. The facts are right in front of them.”Harry and Meghan shot more than 15 hours of personal video in the early months of 2020 as they finalized their plans to exit Buckingham Palace for good.NetflixThe series also speaks to the expanded ambitions of Ms. Garbus and Mr. Cogan. The duo formed their production company, Story Syndicate, three years ago, combining Ms. Garbus’s directing background with Mr. Cogan’s production and financial expertise. (He previously ran the documentary finance company Impact Partners.) The aim was to serve the streaming companies’ insatiable appetite for documentary projects by overseeing the work of a host of up-and-coming filmmakers. The company now has 37 full-time employees and it works with some 200 freelancers, enabling it to produce projects at a steady pace.Last month, the documentary “I Am Vanessa Guillen,” about a U.S. Army soldier killed at Fort Hood, became available on Netflix. In February, “Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence” from the director Zachary Heinzerling will debut on Hulu. And Story Syndicate just announced that it will produce a project about Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed on the set of the Alec Baldwin film “Rust,” with Rachel Mason directing and with the cooperation of Ms. Hutchins’s widower, Matthew.“We have built a machine to create handmade work,” said Mr. Cogan, adding that though entertainment companies have been tightening their belts recently because of the overall economy, documentaries remain a very strong business. “There’s so much noise in the world and so much content, we want to break through by doing the most elevated, the most intense, the most extraordinary work.”For Mr. Heinzerling, that meant aiding him in his efforts to turn his voluminous research and access to the survivors of a cult into a suspenseful, three-episode series.“We started at this place of how do we create something that the survivors can stand behind that really cuts against that salacious, true crime material that a lot of people are attracted to right now,” Mr. Heinzerling said. “Story Syndicate was integral in focusing the project and really helping me find a narrative thread that would be clear enough so that we could translate the story in a way that would be what I wanted and also interesting for a wider audience.”Even with a number of films and series in production, the Harry and Megan series remains by far Story Syndicate’s marquee project. The teaser alone has amassed some 40.8 million impressions since its release last week.That kind of scale is not something the filmmakers had imagined when they began working in the field.“When we both started in this, it was like joining a priesthood,” Mr. Cogan said. “You decided to become a documentary storyteller because you really believed in it, and you knew you were going to lead a certain kind of life and that was totally satisfying because that’s what you wanted to do.“But the world has changed around us, and now a whole world of people can make a living in nonfiction storytelling.” More

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      ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’ Review: Puppets and Power

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      This quirky classic has been made all the stranger by the decision to turn it into an ill-conceived metaphor about fascism.“Shoot the puppet!”By the time a Fascist hard-liner barks this death threat in “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” a stop-motion animated version of the children’s classic, you might be wondering if its impish little marionette is going to escape in one piece. At that point, Pinocchio has been threatened by scoundrels, run over by a car, lost body parts to fire and targeted by none other than Benito Mussolini. “These puppets, I do not like,” Il Duce says in a cartoonish accent right before ordering a henchman to take out Pinocchio. It’s a scary world, after all.Written by Carlo Lorenzini under the pen name Carlo Collodi, “The Adventures of Pinocchio” was published in serial form beginning in 1881 and turned into a children’s book two years later. Surreal and violent, it opens with an enchanted piece of wood that ends up in the hands of a poor woodcutter, Geppetto. He intends to make a marionette so that he can “earn a piece of bread and a glass of wine.” Instead, he creates Pinocchio, a disobedient puppet who yearns to be a boy, runs away and is jailed, almost hanged and, after being transformed into a donkey, nearly skinned. He also kills a talking cricket with a hammer.The movies seem to be going through a curious mini-Pinocchio revival: a live-action version of the story from the Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone (with Roberto Benigni as Geppetto) opened in 2020; and Robert Zemeckis’s reimagining of the tale, which combines live action and animation (with Tom Hanks playing Geppetto), arrived in September. Certainly it’s easy to see why del Toro, a contemporary fabulist given to baroque and lovingly rendered nightmarish visions, was attracted to Collodi’s novel. It’s an odd and quirky fantasy — and far grimmer and more unsettling than Disney’s sublimely animated 1940 film suggests.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Gotham Awards: At the first official show of the season “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won big.Governors Awards: Stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Brendan Fraser worked a room full of academy voters at the event, which is considered a barometer of film industry enthusiasm.An Indie Hit’s Campaign: How do you make “Everything Everywhere All at Once” an Oscar contender? Throw a party for tastemakers.Jennifer Lawrence:  The Oscar winner may win more accolades with her performance in “Causeway,” but she’s focused on living a nonstar life.As weird as the story is, it’s been made all the stranger by the decision to turn it into a metaphor about fascism, a conceit that is as politically incoherent as it is unfortunately timed. (Del Toro directed it with Mark Gustafson and shares script credit with Patrick McHale.) The movie was, of course, finished before this year’s Italian general election, which brought to power a party whose roots trace back to the ruins of Italian Fascism. Even so, the real world casts a creepy shadow over the movie, which never explains the horrors of that period and instead largely uses Fascism’s murderous ideology as ornamentation.The movie opens in the midst of World War I shortly before a plane — it’s unclear from which country — drops a bomb on Geppetto’s young (human) son, Carlo (voiced by Gregory Mann, who also plays Pinocchio). Fast forward to the 1930s, and Geppetto is still in mourning when he carves Pinocchio, who magically comes to life. Before long, the puppet is up to his familiar mischief, making his acquaintance with a loquacious, charm-free cricket (Ewan McGregor) and meeting the locals, some of whom — including a priest and a rampaging Mussolini toady — raise their arms in Fascist salute. They’re all puppets, get it?The movie’s visuals, including its character design, were inspired by the lightly phantasmal, jauntily sinister illustrations that the artist Gris Grimly created for a 2003 edition of the Collodi book. Instead of the soft, rounded limbs and inviting, humanoid face of Disney’s Pinocchio, the character here is unequivocally wooden, with arms and legs that evoke pickup sticks and a pointy nose and spherical head that look like a carrot stuck in a pumpkin. The meticulous animation has stop-motion’s characteristic haptic quality, so much so you can almost feel the character’s rough and smooth surfaces, the burl of his form as well as the grain.In its ominous tone, its dangerous close calls and multiple deaths, this interpretation of “Pinocchio” cleaves closer to Collodi’s original tale than Disney’s does, although like that earlier film, it tends to tip the scales toward sentimentality, particularly in its conception of Geppetto. (It also adds some tuneless songs, a mistake.) Pinocchio is still an agent of chaos who, by not behaving like a good child ostensibly should, brings grief and even danger to himself and to Geppetto. Yet, in the end, nothing makes Pinocchio more wholly, recognizably human than his disobedience and repeated mistakes, something this movie grasps.Pinocchio is caught between the inhuman and the human for most of his episodic adventures, which is crucial to his singular mix of charm and menace. That helps explain the durable appeal of Collodi’s story, and it also makes del Toro and company’s decision to set the tale in Fascist Italy all the more baffling and disappointing. It’s evident that the filmmakers wanted to create a different, tougher and putatively more serious Pinocchio than the Disney version that has been lodged in the popular imagination for decades. But the movie’s decontextualized and disturbingly ill-considered use of Fascism is reductive and finally grotesque.Guillermo del Toro’s PinocchioRated PG for death, child peril and fascism. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Stream These 13 Movies Before They Leave Netflix This Month

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      The end of the year brings the end of many licensing agreements for streaming services, so load up your queues now.The end of the year brings the end of many licensing agreements for streaming services, and this month is no exception. We’ll see the departure of a mix of Oscar winners, comedy franchises, indie dramas and action extravaganzas from Netflix in the U.S. So load up your queues now, lest you miss your last chance at these gems. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘Fast Color’ (Dec. 10)The ubiquity and (especially as of late) mediocrity of the mainstream superhero movie is particularly galling when reflecting on the commercial indifference with which Julia Hart’s superhero story was received in 2018. Then again, Hart’s wise and wonderful screenplay (co-written with her husband, Jordan Horowitz, who also produces) doesn’t simply deploy the familiar beats and conflicts; this is a character-driven indie drama that just so happens to concern characters with superhuman powers, and that grapples with the real-world implications of their abilities. Lorraine Toussaint is mighty as the patriarch of the family at the story’s center; Gugu Mbatha-Raw is quietly excellent as her troubled daughter.Stream it here.‘The Danish Girl’ (Dec. 15)Tom Hooper’s adaptation of the novel by David Ebershoff was unsurprisingly controversial upon its 2015 release, dealing, as it does, with the true story of the Danish painter Lili Elbe, one of the first people known to have undergone sexual reassignment surgery. But Hooper’s adaptation was criticized for its historical inaccuracies and approach to the material, as well as for centering the narrative on Gerda Wegener, Elbe’s cisgender partner. Those claims are valid, but the film is still worth seeing, primarily for the achievements of its actors. Eddie Redmayne resists the urge to overplay as Elbe, while Alicia Vikander is extraordinary as Wegener; she won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for the role and deserved it.Stream it here.‘A Little Princess’ (Dec. 31)When the director Alfonso Cuarón landed the high-profile assignment of taking over the “Harry Potter” film franchise for its third entry, “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” eyebrows raised across Hollywood — after all, at that point he was best known for helming the NC-17 erotic road trip drama “Y Tu Mamá También.” But the “Potter” gig made complete sense to those who’d seen his 1995 adaptation of this classic children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Taking understandable liberties with the source material, he weaves a tapestry of magic and pathos out of the story of Sara Crewe, who finds her life of privilege turned upside down when her father sends her to a girls’ boarding school.Stream it here.‘Blood Diamond’ (Dec. 31)Quick quiz: Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for the Oscar for best actor for “The Departed” (2006), right? Wrong. He was nominated that year, but it was for a different film: Edward Zwick’s sharp-edged action-drama, set during the Sierra Leone Civil War, starring DiCaprio as a smuggler and mercenary whose initial interest in the conflict is purely monetary. That changes, however, as he joins forces with a fisherman (Djimon Hounsou, also nominated for an Oscar) whose discovery of a giant diamond has put him in the sights of a local warlord. The narrative is predictable, sure. But DiCaprio, Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly, another co-star, are acting up a storm, and Zwick shows his usual adeptness at staging big action sequences.Stream it here.‘Blow’ (Dec. 31)It would be easy to dismiss this 2001 crime drama as “Goodfellas” Lite — it’s based on the true story of a cocaine kingpin, telling the thrilling story of his rise and fall in a jittery, hyperkinetic style, and features a stellar ensemble cast. But as Scorsese cosplay goes, it’s lively and entertaining. The director, the late Ted Demme (“The Ref”), knows when to turn up the heat and when to let it simmer; the screenplay (by the veteran scribes David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes) is detail-oriented and fascinating; and Johnny Depp turns in one of his best performances as George Jung, who made a fortune running drugs for Pablo Escobar. Ray Liotta even turns up as George’s father, an explicit “Goodfellas” shout-out that plays like a blessing on the project.Stream it here.‘Blue Jasmine’ (Dec. 31)Woody Allen’s last great movie, this 2013 comedy-drama won Cate Blanchett an Oscar for best actress, and Andrew Dice Clay the best reviews of his career as a bitter and estranged family member. Blanchett stars as Jasmine, once a rich socialite in New York City, whose husband (Alec Baldwin) fell from grace in a Bernie Madoff-style scandal; she finds herself living in San Francisco with her sister (the wonderful Sally Hawkins) and her working-class boyfriend (Bobby Cannavale, borderline feral). The echoes of “A Streetcar Named Desire” are unmistakable, and undoubtedly intentional; as he did with his Ingmar Bergman riffs, Allen is not just quoting an iconic work but putting his story and characters in conversation with it, and the results are both thoughtful and thrilling.Stream it here.‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (Dec. 31)True to form, Stanley Kubrick’s final film — unveiled four months after his death in 1999 — confounded audiences and critics upon its release, only to grow in reputation and estimation in the ensuing years. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, then still real-life spouses, star as a wealthy Manhattan couple who find their seemingly idyllic marriage rocked by her confessions of desire for a passing stranger. Blind with jealousy, he journeys into the New York night, searching for an illicit affair but stumbling upon something far more insidious. Moody, odd and darkly funny, it boasts one of the greatest closing lines in all of cinema.Stream it here.‘Men in Black’ I / II / 3 (Dec. 31)Barry Sonnenfeld’s original 1997 “Men in Black” remains one of the great popcorn movies — a witty, briskly-paced treat that manages to both send up big-budget, effects-heavy extravaganzas, and simultaneously work as one. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are a pitch-perfect matchup of wisecracking cool and stone-faced professionalism, an oddball buddy movie pairing for the books. Their 2002 follow-up can’t match the laughs or energy of the original, but it’s still a hoot, with Rosario Dawson a welcome addition to the cast. And the final installment, released a decade later, draws on a time-travel plot that primarily serves as a showcase for Josh Brolin’s flawless impression of his “No Country For Old Men” co-star Jones. But it’s such a delicious piece of mimicry, you don’t really mind.Stream “Men in Black” here, “Men in Black II” here and “Men in Black 3” here.‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’ / ‘European Vacation’ (Dec. 31)Chevy Chase was floundering badly in the movies — his early films, after leaving “Saturday Night Live” only one year into its run, included such undistinguished efforts as “Modern Problems,” “Under the Rainbow” and “Oh! Heavenly Dog” — when he finally landed his ideal film role. Working from a screenplay by the up-and-coming screenwriter John Hughes (with uncredited contributions by Chase and the director Harold Ramis), the actor was terrific as Clark Griswold, a Chicago suburb-dweller who only wants the perfect cross-country vacation for himself and his family. The film was so successful that Chase (and co-star Beverly D’Angelo) came back three years later to escort his brood across Europe, with similarly silly results.Stream “Vacation” here and “European Vacation” here.‘Point Break’ (Dec. 31)Kathryn Bigelow was still an all-but-unknown genre filmmaker, and Keanu Reeves was still best known for playing Ted in the “Bill & Ted” movies, when they teamed up with Patrick Swayze — then hot off his starring role in the surprise hit “Ghost” — for this tense action drama. The screenplay by W. Peter Iliff (with uncredited rewrites by Bigelow and her then-husband, James Cameron) wasn’t the freshest of stuff, even in 1991: an FBI agent (Reeves) goes undercover in a group of surfer bank robbers and finds himself in too deep with the group’s charismatic leader (Swayze). But Bigelow’s energetic direction keeps things moving at such a hearty clip, the familiarity barely matters; her action beats are furiously paced, her female gaze gives welcome dimension to the testosterone-heavy proceedings and the central dynamic is wonderfully thorny.Stream it here.ALSO LEAVING: “A Clockwork Orange,” “Casino Royale,” “Chocolat,” “I Love You, Man,” “Police Academy,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (all Dec. 31). More

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      ‘Sr.’ Review: The Downeys, Father and Son, Compare Notes

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      This documentary highlights Robert Downey Sr.’s charisma and curiosity even when it shows him in decline.In the films he directed in the late 1960s, Robert Downey Sr. credited himself as “A Prince.” It was a private joke typical of the antic artist. As he told Johnny Carson (he was one of a very few “underground filmmakers” to get booked on “The Tonight Show”), “I’m too young to be a king.”The man was not, as it happens, consistently courtly. But his son, Robert Downey Jr., the movie star, notes in this picture that his dad was “a very charismatic guy who had different ideas and curiosity.”“Sr.,” a documentary directed by Chris Smith, with Robert Downey Jr. providing a strong production hand and onscreen presence, highlights that charisma and curiosity even when it shows the older Downey in decline. (He died in 2021 of complications from Parkinson’s.) The focus here is divided between the father-son relationship and the father’s groundbreaking work. The elder Downey’s absurdist films, including the furious satire “Putney Swope,” are the connective tissue between underground movies and the Marx Brothers.Downey‌ was a permissive parent in bohemian ’60s mode, and also a cocaine enthusiast in his post-“Swope” years. Downey Jr. had his own harrowing period of addiction that included a stint in prison. “We would be remiss not to discuss its effect on me,” Downey‌‌ Jr.‌‌ says of his dad’s cocaine years. “I would sure love to miss that discussion,” Downey‌‌ Sr. replies dryly. But the details of how the father cleaned up, became a caregiver to his terminally ill second wife and tried to help his son are terribly moving.Downey Jr. speaks of this movie as an exercise in trying to understand his father. But by the end of this short but satisfying exploration, the viewer realizes that he gets him better than he even knows. “He is connected to some sort of creative deity,” Downey Jr. says. It’s an apt summation.Sr.Rated R for language, themes, raw humor. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Israeli Filmmaker’s Critique of ‘The Kashmir Files’ Draws Fierce Backlash

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      The filmmaker, Nadav Lapid, criticized “The Kashmir Files,” a Hindi-language film that depicts a violent chapter in the restive region of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.NEW DELHI — A prominent Israeli filmmaker who sharply criticized a popular but contentious Indian film at a government-sponsored film festival faced a police complaint on Tuesday as Israeli diplomats scrambled to apologize.The filmmaker, Nadav Lapid, used his closing remarks at the festival, which was in the Indian state of Goa, to criticize “The Kashmir Files,” a Hindi-language feature film depicting a violent chapter in the restive region of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir during which members of the Kashmiri Pandit community were persecuted, attacked and killed.The violence and subsequent exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, a Hindu minority in the Muslim-majority region, occurred during a militant insurgency against Indian rule in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The film, a blockbuster hit that includes graphic scenes of violence, has been heavily promoted by India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, as a moving reflection of a sordid chapter in Kashmir’s history.State governments controlled by the B.J.P. gave their full endorsement of the film. Government workers were given time off to see the movie, and got tax breaks on tickets. The party paid for movie tickets for party workers, and later organized screenings.Some film critics and opposition politicians, however, found the film dangerously and unnecessarily provocative. The film supports a B.J.P. narrative of Hindu persecution to emphasize subjugation, a theme that is often repeated in political speeches and in efforts by top government officials to rewrite India’s history, playing up violence committed by Muslims against Hindus.The filmmaker, Mr. Lapid, issued his critique on Monday in remarks at the International Film Festival in India, where he was the festival’s jury head.“That felt to us like a propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival,” Mr. Lapid said.“I feel totally comfortable to share openly these feelings here with you onstage,” he added, “since the spirit that we felt in the festival can surely accept also a critical discussion, which is essential for art and for life.”Nadav Lapid during the 74th Cannes Film Festival in France in 2021.Eric Gaillard/ReutersThe backlash to his remarks — from Indian politicians, Bollywood actors, Israeli diplomats and members of the public — was swift and severe.A Hindu lawyer in Goa filed a police complaint against Mr. Lapid early Tuesday, citing a criminal law that prohibits speech that deliberately offends religious sentiments.Israel’s ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, condemned Mr. Lapid’s comments on Twitter as “presumptuous and insensitive.”“You should be ashamed,” he added of Mr. Lapid, complaining that the filmmaker’s speech had made the work of Israeli diplomats in the country more difficult.There was no immediate response to messages sent to Mr. Lapid for comment. But earlier during the festival, he told an entertainment trade publication in Goa that he was participating in the festival not as an ambassador for Israel, but as an artist who travels the world seeking out different cultures.“If I wanted to represent Israel, I would have gotten into diplomacy,” he said in the interview.Israel’s consul general, Kobbi Shoshani, told a local TV news network that he didn’t agree with Mr. Lapid’s assessment of the film, and that his speech was a “big mistake.”The veteran Bollywood actor Anupam Kher, who starred in “The Kashmir Files,” also called Mr. Lapid’s comments “shameful,” drawing a comparison between the Jewish Holocaust and the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits.“It’s shameful for him to make a statement like this,” Mr. Kher said on Twitter. “Jews have suffered Holocaust and he comes from that community.”Mr. Lapid’s comments underlined India’s growing polarization under B.J.P. rule. While members of the main opposition Congress party said “hate was eventually called out,” members of the B.J.P. asserted that the “truth” about Kashmiri Pandits “will triumph.”On social media, some Indian writers and members of the political opposition defended Mr. Lapid’s right to critique the film on its merits.In India, the response to “The Kashmir Files,” which was released in March, has been deeply divided along political and sectarian lines. Nonetheless, it is a commercial success. Despite having no song-and-dance numbers — a staple feature of Bollywood movies — the film was an instant hit, grossing more than $43 million in worldwide sales. It cost about $2 million to make.The festival featured more than 280 films from 80 countries. Anurag Thakur, India’s information and broadcasting minister, singled out the Netflix series “Fauda,” from Israel, for praise. The series is a hit in India, and its fourth season premiered at the festival.Mr. Thakur also spoke, in Hebrew and English, of the two countries’ growing ties.“We have conflict in the neighborhood,” he said. “At the same time, we have thousands of years of history.”“India will be the content hub of the world in the near future,” Mr. Thakur added. “This is the right time to collaborate and reach out and make films around those stories which are not told to the world. India is the place and Israel is the right partner.”Mr. Lapid’s comments also no doubt embarrassed the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which organized the festival, and has paid special heed to India’s increasingly close relationship with Israel. The government found itself in the awkward position Tuesday of trying to distance itself from a head juror whom its festival committee had selected and given a platform.“His attempt to politicize the I.F.F.I. platform, which celebrates diversity in filmmaking by way of stories, narratives and interpretations by filmmakers, is unacceptable and condemnable,” Kanchan Gupta, a government spokesman, said of Mr. Lapid, and referring to the International Film Festival of India, the event’s official name.“Mr. Lapid is welcome to his personal views but the I.F.F.I. platform is not meant for airing those views,” he added. More