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      ‘Persuasion’ Review: The Present Intrudes Into the Past

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      Dakota Johnson smirks her way through a Netflix adaptation of the rekindled romance in Jane Austen’s last novel, our critic writes.The great irony of this new, not-quite-modernized adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel, “Persuasion,” is that it communicates its tense relationship to its 19th-century source material in a repressed, passive-aggressive manner — an approach oddly suited to Austen’s trenchant view of society. The film doesn’t take the creative leap to transpose the beloved story in the present day. Instead, in curiously excruciating fashion, the director, screenwriters, and star imply their discomfort with Georgian-era social norms from within the novel’s period setting.Both the film and the novel begin in the early 1800s, as the story’s heroine, Anne Elliot (Dakota Johnson), visits her sister Mary (Mia McKenna-Bruce) in the English countryside, after their father squandered the family savings. Anne is an unmarried woman who is fortunate to be respected — or, at least, perceived as useful — by her blue-blooded relations. But in direct addresses to the camera, Anne admits that she is haunted by the memory of a love affair she was persuaded to end with an enterprising but fortuneless sailor, Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis).Now Anne is alone, and her regrets only grow when Wentworth returns to the country as a wealthy naval captain. He’s eager to find a wife, and if his sights are first set on Anne’s lively sister-in-law Louisa (Nia Towle), his attention always seems to wander back to Anne.For this story of rekindled romance, the film summons the handsome appointments expected for a big-budget period drama. There are extravagant mansions, brocaded costumes and magnificent vistas. But there is a crisis of contemporaneity at the heart of this pretty adaptation, and the trouble begins with its presentation of its heroine.Johnson, wearing smoky eye shadow and pink lipstick, displays the confident appeal of a celebrity sharing her secrets with the audience. Her smile reads as a smirk. The incongruous bravado of her performance is mirrored by the film’s script, written by Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow, which peppers lines from the novel with meme-ish truisms like, “Now we are worse than exes. We’re friends.”The contrast between the modernized dialogue and Austen’s period-appropriate language only makes both styles seem more mannered. The story’s heroine, its dialogue and even its themes of regret and loneliness seem to be swallowed up by the need to maintain an appearance of contemporary cheek.For fans of Austen’s novel, it’s hard to imagine the director Carrie Cracknell’s version providing a sense of ease or escapism. Instead, the unbearable tension between past and present serves as a disarmingly naked window into the anxieties of current Hollywood filmmaking. Better to have the whole movie be a skeptical, uncertain affair than to risk presenting a pre-feminist heroine who lacks confidence.PersuasionRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Abubakr Ali Gets a Boost From Whale-Watching and Eid Fashions

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      As the first Arab Muslim lead in a comic book adaptation, the Egyptian American actor lists the things guiding him as he steps into the spotlight.Growing up in Pasadena, the actor Abubakr Ali never thought he’d play many lead roles. Even after coming up through the acting program at New York University and then the Yale School of Drama — where he graduated alongside the playwright Jeremy O. Harris and “The Gilded Age” actress Louisa Jacobson, the daughter of Meryl Streep — he’d become used to a world in which an Egyptian-born Arab American like himself would be relegated to the margins.When a script for Billy Porter’s directorial debut, “Anything’s Possible,” landed on his lap, he was too busy to thoroughly read and understand his part, but submitted a self-taped audition video anyway. It was during callbacks that he realized he was up for the lead in a classic, John Hughes-style high school rom-com, which starts streaming July 22 on Amazon Prime Video. Ali stars opposite the actress Eva Reign, who is trans.“I had never in my life seen a script where someone like me, or from my background, is a lead, period,” he said on a video call from his apartment in Harlem. “Being used to this industry, I just assumed it was a random side character, because the reality is that ours are two bodies not normally seen in these roles.”He booked the gig, and two days into the film’s shoot last year got a call: He’d landed the title role in “Grendel,” an upcoming Netflix series, which will make him the first Arab Muslim lead in a comic book adaptation.After an early Saturday morning of Eid prayer and working out, the actor, 31, delved into 10 things guiding him through the suddenly watershed year.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Whale-watching This is the nerdiest, stupidest thing about me, but I just love water. Being around bodies of water perks me up, even if I’m just on a car ride and see one. Almost anytime I’m in Southern California, or come anywhere that has whales nearby, I’ll see if I can get on a boat to watch whales. There’s a humbling effect that you feel seeing these giant [expletive] just out in the world daily, doing their thing, moving around. It reminds you that there are things that are bigger than us, having an experience as beautiful as our own.2. Shopping for books (many of which he won’t read) I kind of browse like my immigrant mom does at Macy’s, but at the bookstore, where I just show up because I have nothing better to do. I walk around and see if the store’s employees have any recommendations, and walk away with, like, $100 worth of books, knowing full well I’m only going to read one of them. I’m very vibe-driven when it comes to picking out books. I wish I had a more sophisticated reason, but a good cover will do the job for me.3. The Rose Bowl’s Stadium Fitness program I grew up as an athlete, and my first job was teaching tennis. This was a business I knew through a family friend of mine I met while teaching and it’s a great space to just be outside, move your body and be social. It’s like Barry’s Bootcamp but chill; there’s a familial aspect that feels like home to me. There’s a 75-year-old couple I got to know through the program who become like my surrogate grandparents. It really is a space for everyone, which is beautiful.4. A picture of his family at his N.Y.U. graduation My dad passed away a few years ago, and he was probably the hardest-working and most generous person I know. Seeing this picture of my parents, sister and I reminds me to not forget where I came from. We came into this country with four of us sharing a one-bedroom for two, three years, so it always reminds me to work as hard as my dad did, and with the level of generosity that he had.5. Softness I had a professor at N.Y.U., Orlando Pabotoy, and I don’t think my career, or life, would be where they are were it not for him. He came up one day and said, “Abu, not this [clenching a fist], but this [extending the arm].” I fully recognize that it’s a privilege to be able to allow yourself to feel, but we live in such a jaded, hardened world that I like to remind myself to connect to a softness and openness.Billy [Porter] is very much an actor’s actor, and I was fortunate he trusted me with this character [in “Anything’s Possible”], and allowed me to make the stupid acting choices, to be a little dumb in the best way. The main thing I stuck to was the character’s sort-of lankiness. You don’t see that in most romantic leads, that softness.6. Sabry’s restaurant in Queens It’s this Egyptian seafood restaurant in Little Egypt, where I will very likely be going to tonight. It’s a great place, with amazing food, that reminds me of home a lot: You can order and kind of talk casually in Arabic with everyone; they’ll have a soccer game playing in the background. What I love about it is that it’s very much like Egypt, in its approach, where the waiters are chilling and you really have to tag someone down — and I say that with all the love in my heart. That’s how it is over there. You can get fire seafood and it’s unbelievably cheap. They have the fish sitting on ice, you pick the one you want, and walk out with a $40 bill. Which, for New York seafood, is wild.7. His Yale classmates There were so few of us, and I think something happened with my class where we were really keen on challenging everything around us and having conversations about how to move the industry and form forward. Every single one of them are people I will forever be grateful for, because they gave me a voice, in a way, in relation to my work. Before school, I’d always been kind of, “I’m an actor, I’m here to play a role the best way I can.” Working with them taught me to have something to say behind everything I do, to speak from where I am within my identity.8. Smuggling candy into the movies The candy you can actually stuff somewhere before going in. I’ll always get one of the more niche M & Ms, like caramel or peanut butter. I don’t mix them with the popcorn because they always get lost in there, so I’ll try to scoop them separately, but at the same time. The whole ordeal is genuinely disturbing to watch. If I ever have the money to do it, I would get one of those Coca-Cola Freestyles where you can pick a billion different options, and just go to town.9. “The Seagull” by Anton Chekhov I’ve always been a fan, but if ever I feel bad as an actor, I always look back to when we were doing a production [at Yale], and Meryl Streep was at one of the shows. She comes up to me after — I’ll never forget this — grabs my face, and goes, “Best Konstantin ever.” There’s a 99-percent chance that Meryl Streep was lying to me, or just being gracious, which I can still only be grateful for. But she once played it with Philip Seymour Hoffman in my role, and Louisa was now doing hers. So when she said that to me, I was like, “What the—.”10. Celebrating Eid I got up disastrously early, which is great; dressed nicely, which I rarely do; and went to prayer. I live in Harlem and there’s a large African Muslim population here. It was really beautiful seeing families with all the kids dressed up to the nines; just getting to see Muslims looking and dressing sexy, walking with pride on the streets. Growing up in Los Angeles, that wasn’t a thing you saw, except at prayer, so seeing that on the streets of New York is really joyful, and makes me stand two inches taller. More

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      ‘Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between’ Review: Break Cute?

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      In this adaptation of Jennifer E. Smith’s young adult novel, two high school seniors agree to split up in a year. Will they honor their pact?Early in the teenage-targeted romantic comedy “Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between” — based on Jennifer E. Smith’s young adult novel — a senior, Aidan (Jordan Fisher), performs a Ferris Bueller-like rendition of “Twist and Shout” at a house party to the amusement of a new classmate, Clare (Talia Ryder). Before the evening ends, the two have shared a kiss and make a pact to dissolve whatever relationship might follow in a year’s time. (Having seen the downside of her divorced parents’ high school romance, Clare insists and Aidan signs on.)The two met cute enough. But will they be able to break up as cutely? For those viewers aged out of the movie’s intended demographic, that quandary isn’t as compelling as the evidence of its lead actors’ talents, as well as that of the nimble actors who play their besties, Stella (Ayo Edebiri) and Scotty (Nico Hiraga).Fisher was the first Black actor to portray the anxiety-tormented protagonist of “Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway. Ryder shined in “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” about two friends who travel to New York for an abortion. “Hello,” directed by Michael Lewen, is decidedly lighter fare.In Clare and Aidan’s neatly circumscribed sphere, there is not much worldly or familial drama. Their parents are solidly loving, though neither kid wants to tread in their footsteps. When the couple embark on their exit date, their pact gets tested in surprising ways, and their love’s cracks finally start to show.In the movie’s early nod to the director John Hughes, “Hello, Goodbye and Everything In Between” set a high bar, one it has the talent but not the boldness to clear.Hello, Goodbye and Everything in BetweenNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      in Television

      In ‘Stranger Things,’ He Delivers Pizza and Stoned Comic Relief

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      Eduardo Franco, who joined the Netflix hit this season, has carved out a role as the show’s addled but reliably hilarious tension-release valve.The “Stranger Things” gang in Lenora Hills, Calif., is in danger — shots are being fired, and an agent is bleeding out. The camera switches abruptly to a view of an unknowing Argyle, played by Eduardo Franco, pulling up to the Byerses’ home as the catchy reggae hit “Pass the Dutchie” blares from his pizza delivery van.“Byers man, having a party and not inviting me, man?” he says. “That is so not cool.”As the group’s wheelman who “smokes smelly plants,” as Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) puts it, Argyle serves as comic relief in the show’s most horrifying season, his lighthearted energy offsetting the dark forces bedeviling the gang.“Argyle delivers pizzas and he dwells in the psychedelics sometimes,” Franco said in a recent video interview. “That’s the perfect combination: to always have hot and ready food, and a little tree.”As one of the most prominent cast additions in Season 4 — the final episodes arrive Friday on Netflix — Franco has carved out a role as the show’s addled but reliably hilarious tension-release valve. But Argyle transcends the stoner-pal stereotype and adds a little heart to the story as well, primarily in the form of his sweet friendship with Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) — though admittedly this often involves the duo being stoned out of their minds.Franco’s most prominent role before Argyle came in Olivia Wilde’s coming-of-age comedy “Booksmart,” as a 20-year-old high school senior named Theo who was recruited to code for Google. That performance led to his current gig — Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler in “Stranger Things,” saw Franco in the movie and suggested him for the role.Franco spoke from Biarritz, France, where he was visiting as part of a “Stranger Things” branding partnership with the surf culture label Quiksilver, which supplied much of Argyle’s wardrobe. In conversation, he was clearly more astute than his character but similarly funny and informal, indulging in f-bombs as freely as Argyle does his smelly plants.In the interview, Franco discussed his inspirations for the character and “marinating in the awkwardness” that comes with life as the show’s designated burnout. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.What was it about Argyle’s character that appealed to you?I loved that I could hopefully bring a breath of fresh air to the chaos that ensues in the show. It tends to get crazy, and I was hoping I could serve as “let’s laugh it off now, because I’ve been tense for the last 45 minutes.”Argyle provides reliable comic relief, but he transcends the stoner-pal stereotype.NetflixDid you take inspiration from any past cinematic potheads?Sean Penn in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” is always in the back of my mind. My initial approach was to just completely be blown out of my mind all the time — as the character, not Eduardo the actor! I wanted Argyle to be completely clueless: When someone says “Oh my god, Argyle, we gotta get out of here!” I’ll be like, “Huh?” But I know that for the sake of the energy and the adrenaline in the scenes, that wouldn’t always work.How old is the van you drive in the show?It was touchy, an 80-something. I was taught how to drive that van by this professional stunt driver — I’d never driven a stick shift before and it was the worst thing to learn on, because it was just so old. But he was always in the van with me when I was driving, hiding in the car just in case.Was there a scene that was particularly fun to film?The dinner table scene was my personal favorite. Eleven is bummed out. Mike is also concerned. Joyce and Murray [played by Winona Ryder and Brett Gelman] are lying about going to Alaska. And me and Jonathan are blown out of our minds.It was so fun sitting there, marinating in the awkwardness. When it was time for me and Charlie to do our lines, sometimes we would stall while everyone was waiting for us, and we’d be sitting there just eating slowly. It was hilarious, and it was awesome to be able to get Brett and Winona to laugh. I love going to work and making people laugh — the camera man, the crew, the people hauling things up and down all day. And everything felt so organic, sharing the screen with Charlie, Finn and everyone.What did Argyle’s relationship with Jonathan bring to the show’s dynamic?Jonathan is in pain. I think they became instant friends because Jonathan needed a set of ears, and Argyle happened to be right there. Argyle’s character is what we all wish we could be: completely judgment-free. He’s there to have a good time with his bud, and to listen to Jonathan and help him out, no matter what he says.Do you think Argyle is capable of handling whatever danger is coming his way?I can’t tell you anything, but geez, he’s out of his mind for sure. Poor guy.“I loved that I could hopefully bring a breath of fresh air to the chaos that ensues in the show,” Franco said.Ryan Lowry for The New York TimesHow has joining an enormous global phenomenon like “Stranger Things” changed your life?At the Season 4 premiere in New York, when we sat down to screen the first episode, I got mad emotional and started crying in my seat. I was glad it was dark and nobody could see anything. To be a part of something this massive was overwhelming, and I hope people can accept my character as a new guy in the show. I hope he does serve his purpose as a breath of fresh air from all the crazy madness.Have you started getting recognized in public?Yes! For an example, when I got to France last week, I was riding a bike down the street to grab some stuff from a market. My bike had no brakes, and as I’m pulling up, I put my feet down to try to stop, and there was this guy pointing and laughing. Then he double-takes and he was like, “You’re the guy from ‘Stranger Things’? What are you doing here, man?” I was like, “I came to get some chocolate croissants and an adapter to plug my phone charger in the wall.” It was so funny, but that’s just how massive this show is.A series like this generally provides a significant career boost. What kinds of things do you hope to work on in the future?I got a couple movies under my belt, but to be in a movie where people are going to the theater and I’m rockin’ people’s socks off is my dream. I don’t know if that era is already out the window, but I just recently watched “Top Gun,” and it was amazing. So I have hope.And I’d love to be a part of creating the projects, but I don’t know necessarily how to do all that yet. I’m trying to figure all this stuff out. I don’t know a [expletive] thing, but we’re all learning. More

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      Stream These 9 Movies and Shows Before They Leave Netflix in July

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      Subscribers in the United States will lose a classic ’90s rom-com among other delightful titles. Watch these while you can.One of the funniest sitcoms on Netflix makes its exit for U.S. subscribers at the end of July. If that’s not cause enough for distress, the streamer is also jettisoning a handful of delightful coming-of-age movies, a classic ’90s rom-com and one of the most influential movies of the 2010s. Watch them while you can. (Dates reflect the final day a title is available.)‘The Social Network’ (July 1)The screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and the director David Fincher seemed, at first, like an odd pairing — a shotgun marriage of florid dialogue to a moody, sensual visual style. But in collaborating on this 2010 fictionalized account of the rise of Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, they complemented each other: Fincher gives Sorkin’s words a distinct visual snap, and Sorkin gives him a script in which the dialogue is as sharp as the imagery. Sorkin picked up an Oscar and Fincher nabbed a nomination, as did the film’s star, Jesse Eisenberg, who finds the perfect note of know-it-all desperation as Zuckerberg.Stream it here.‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ (July 1)The writer Shirley Jackson, who died in 1965, is having a bit of an unexpected moment of late. In addition to this moody Netflix adaptation of her 1962 novel, her book “The Haunting of Hill House” was adapted for a mini-series on the streamer, and she’s the subject of the Hulu biopic “Shirley.” Taissa Farmiga and Alexandra Daddario star in “Castle” as the Blackwood sisters, who live (along with their infirm Uncle Julian) in solitude and mystery; their parents died years earlier, under cloudy circumstances, and they’re still the subject of talk in town. That chatter grows louder with the arrival of an enigmatic cousin, Charles (Sebastian Stan, wild and woolly), who shakes the precarious household to its core. Farmiga and Daddario exude both fragility and danger, while Crispin Glover underplays nicely (and surprisingly) as Uncle Julian.Stream it here.‘Django Unchained’ (July 23)The writer and director Quentin Tarantino and the actor Christoph Waltz pulled off a sly repeat of their “Inglourious Basterds” Oscar triumph, again nabbing the trophies for best original screenplay and best supporting actor for this 2012 spaghetti western riff. Jamie Foxx stars as the title character, a former slave in the pre-Civil War South who befriends a bounty hunter (Waltz) and learns the trade; Leonardo DiCaprio is gleefully villainous as a plantation owner who stands between Django and his wife (Kerry Washington). It’s Tarantino, so the violence and profanity are plentiful, but the set pieces are thrilling, the characterizations are vivid and the laughs stick in the throat.Stream it here.’30 Rock’: Seasons 1-7 (July 31)Tina Fey went from serving as head writer on “Saturday Night Live” to creating this series, in which she stars as … head writer of a late night NBC sketch show. Well, they say to write you know! But it wasn’t the inside jokes that made “30 Rock” one of the most rewatchable sitcoms of our time; it was its distinct mixture of finely tuned characters, quotable dialogue and rapid-fire pacing (on a sheer jokes-per-minute basis, it’s unbeatable). And as network television grows steadily sillier, “30 Rock” spoof shows like “MILF Island” and “God Cop” seem less like satire and more like prognostication.Stream it here.‘The Edge of Seventeen’ (July 31)Before she was garnering acclaim in the title role in “Dickinson” or working her way up the pop charts, Hailee Steinfeld starred in this bittersweet coming-of-age comedy from the writer and director Kelly Fremon Craig. Steinfeld stars as Nadine Franklin, a wise and witty but not terribly popular high school junior whose world turns upside down when her best friend (Haley Lu Richardson) hooks up with Nadine’s older brother (Blake Jenner). Craig’s perceptive, unflinching writing turns what could have been a predictable high school comedy into something a good deal more nuanced; she’s sympathetic to Nadine but is careful to make her a complex character, not always conventionally likable or admirable.Stream it here.‘Lean on Me’ (July 31)Morgan Freeman landed one of his first leading roles in this 1989 high school drama, starring as Joe Clark, a principal whose tactics for turning around a high-crime, low-achievement high school in Paterson, N.J., earned him the nickname “Crazy Joe.” The director, John G. Avildsen, was also behind “Rocky” and “The Karate Kid,” and he occasionally flattens the (still relevant) questions of effective educational reform into his go-to mode of rousing underdog story. But the film is full of powerful moments, most of them courtesy of Freeman’s tough-as-nails performance.Stream it here.‘Little Women’ (July 31)Every generation gets it own adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, it seems, and while Greta Gerwig’s recent version was tiptop, Gen Xers are still dedicated to this 1994 take from the Australian director Gillian Armstrong (“My Brilliant Career”), who maintains, and even sharpens, some of the rougher edges that earlier adaptations sanded down. Winona Ryder, in an Oscar-nominated turn, leads an ace ensemble that also includes Trini Alvarado, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst and Samantha Mathis as her sisters; Susan Sarandon as their mother; and Christian Bale, Gabriel Byrne and Eric Stoltz as the men in their lives.Stream it here.‘My Girl’ (July 31)Those who know Anna Chlumsky only from her wickedly funny (and deliciously foul-mouthed) work on “Veep” may be surprised by this, her debut film, a sweet coming-of-age drama set in the summer of 1972 and released when she was only 11 years old. She stars as Vada, whose father (Dan Aykroyd) runs the local funeral parlor, which has made little Vada (perhaps understandably) into a hypochondriac. Jamie Lee Curtis co-stars as a potential romantic interest for Vada’s dad, while Macaulay Culkin is heartbreaking as Vada’s summer pal (and first kiss).Stream it here.‘You’ve Got Mail’ (July 31)Five years after the spectacular commercial and critical success of “Sleepless in Seattle,” Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan and the writer-director Nora Ephron teamed up for another contemporary riff on a classic Hollywood romantic comedy. They came up with “You’ve Got Mail,” which updates “The Shop Around the Corner” for the internet age, with Hanks and Ryan in an online romance, unaware that they’re professional enemies in real life. Ephron assembles a stacked supporting cast — Dave Chappelle, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Jean Stapleton and Steve Zahn all turn up — but it’s once again Hanks and Ryan’s show, as they light up the screen with their sunny movie-star charisma and impeccable love-hate chemistry.Stream it here.ALSO LEAVING: “Home Again” (July 7); “Radium Girls” (July 15); “Chicago Med”: Seasons 1-5 (July 21); “21,” “Forrest Gump,” “Love Actually,” “Poms” (July 31). More

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      Immersed in ‘Stranger Things,’ Then Strolling to Beckett

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      Our writer checked out two very different experiences in New York. In Netflix’s TV re-creation, you fight Demogorgons. In “Cascando,” you walk off your existential angst.Before the pizza parlor, before the arcade games, before the ice cream shop and the merch kiosks (so many merch kiosks!) and the photo op with a fiberglass-and-silicone Demogorgon, “Stranger Things: The Experience,” at the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, puts on a show.Netflix, which has created other immersive entertainments based on its “Bridgerton” and “Money Heist” properties, co-produced this 45-minute experience with Fever. Based on the teen-horror pastiche “Stranger Things,” it plunks participants, many of them dressed in 1980s finery, into tens of thousands of square feet of Hawkins, Ind. Some rooms have an unfinished feel (did the budget not include ceilings?); others suggest a theme-park-quality buildout. The most fully realized ones are nestled inside Hawkins’s cheery state-of-the-art lab. Ostensibly, ticket holders have signed up for a sleep study. An interdimensional rift soon complicates study protocols. Will these test subjects survive? Of course. They have tote bags to buy afterward.“Stranger Things: The Experience” is a piece of fan service that adopts the vocabulary of immersive theater. While legible, barely, for those unfamiliar with the series, this story has been built for devotees, allowing them to enter into the fictional world. Enterprises like this used to be lower-budget affairs of the do-it-yourself variety, the province of live-action role-players and tabletop gamers. Now for about $58 — less for gutsy under-17s, more if you book on a weekend — Netflix and its partners will do the doing for you.“We look at live experiences as providing fans another way to see themselves more in the stories they love,” Greg Lombardo, the head of live experiences at Netflix, told me in an interview a couple of days after my visit.This show, which runs for about 45 minutes, chugs along like a reasonably well-oiled machine. What eldritch fluids comprise that oil? Best not ask. The cast members who circulate are trained improvisers, skilled at eliciting responses, practiced at batting those responses back. At one point I was harangued by a journalist character — sweaty, anxious, overconfident. Ow.The Upside-Down World of ‘Stranger Things’After a three-year wait, Netflix’s sci-fi series returns with a fourth season.Season 4 Guide: As in seasons past, this go-round is full of nods and Easter eggs to 1970s and ’80s pop culture. Here are the major highlights.Review: “Stranger Things” has gone from lovingly echoing 1980s touchstones to industriously copying itself, our critic writes of the show’s fourth installment.The Duffer Brothers: The “Stranger Things” creators seem to share a brain. But they could never lock themselves in a writing cabin together.David Harbour: While “Stranger Things” was on hiatus, the actor tackled a string of strangely compelling deadbeat characters.While immersive, “The Experience” doesn’t really depend on you. The Demogorgons will eventually explode, whether or not you deploy your extrasensory powers. Which is a letdown. Because there is a fantasy that many of us entertain about the art we love — that we might matter to the art as much as it matters to us. Still, the teenagers and young adults in the room gasped and screamed and unleashed their psychic abilities with apparent delight.“We’re trying to give fans a chance to be the hero of their stories,” Lombardo said. This is pushing it. Eleven, the psychokinetic phenom played by Millie Bobby Brown, who appears via hologram, is the real hero here. The motivating factors of “The Experience” owe less to art than to marketing, and its ultimate goal suggests a branding ouroboros: devotion to the show encourages consumption of the experience, consumption of the experience urges re-engagement with the show.After “The Experience,” with the rift safely sealed, you can consume without the distractions of a plot — which is when “Stranger Things: The Experience” achieves its final and ideal form. There is pizza to be eaten and ice cream to be licked and cocktails to be drunk. Bertolt Brecht used to rail against the culinary theater, a theater that delivered only emotion and sensation, rather than intellectual engagement. Brecht probably never had a drink with a stroopwafel as garnish. I didn’t buy a tote bag, but I did play through the “Stranger Things”-branded pinball game. I think I did pretty well.“Cascando,” an adaptation of a Beckett radio play, comes courtesy of Pan Pan Theater. Upon arrival each ticket holder is outfitted in a black-hooded robe and handed a pair of headphones.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesTo wander the streets of Manhattan dressed as a high-fashion druid, a goth garden gnome, is fun of a kind.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesNo amusement genius has yet made a Samuel Beckett pinball machine — I imagine a gloomy palette, defective flippers and a high-score list that reads GODOT GODOT GODOT. But those eager for a Beckett brand extension can instead arrive at New York University’s Skirball Center for “Cascando,” an adaptation of a Beckett radio play from the early 1960s. It comes courtesy of Pan Pan Theater, an Irish company with an insouciant approach to the classics.Originally created in conjunction with the composer Marcel Mihalovici, “Cascando” is intended as a passive audio experience. But this “Cascando,” directed by Gavin Quinn and designed by Aedin Cosgrove, adds a participatory element.Upon arrival each ticket holder is outfitted in a black-hooded robe and handed a pair of headphones. Loosed onto La Guardia Place, a quiet street adjacent to Washington Square Park in Manhattan, participants begin a single-file walk around and through the neighboring blocks. As they stroll, they listen to the text, prerecorded here by Andrew Bennett and Daniel Reardon.To wander the Village dressed as a high-fashion druid, a goth garden gnome, is fun of a kind. But there are no stops along the way, no interactions, no activations. The choreography — a sharp turn here and there — is minimal. At one point, I wondered, with almost breathless excitement, if we would sit. We did not sit.While it makes sense to encounter Beckett’s text via headphones — there are references throughout to a story existing only in someone’s head — the alone-together walk doesn’t illuminate or galvanize the text, which is, like so much of Beckett’s work, heavy on repetition and ellipses. On the rainy sidewalk, meaning slid away.In another city, at another moment, a show like “Cascando” might at least have ornamented the street life. But New York’s typical street life is already a variety of theater, druids or no. As we re-entered the park, I saw a clump of skateboarders look us up and down. We had become part of their story, I thought for a moment, part of their experience. Then they shrugged and returned to their conversation. Just another Wednesday in the Village, bro.Stranger Things: The ExperienceThrough Aug. 21 at Duggal Greenhouse, Brooklyn; strangerthings-experience.com. Running time: 45 minutes for the show, then mingling.CascandoThrough July 3 at N.Y.U. Skirball, Manhattan; nyuskirball.org. Running time: 30 minutes. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Halftime’ Review: Let’s Get Loud

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      In the Netflix documentary about Jennifer Lopez’s life and career by the director Amanda Micheli, the political moments are brief, and then it’s back to rehearsal.A film about Jennifer Lopez and her performance at the Super Bowl in 2020 was bound to generate headlines, but the Netflix documentary “Halftime” makes sure it happens. The multihyphenate’s accomplishments can stand on their own without, for instance, a single publicity baiting remark from her boyfriend, the actor Ben Affleck.His cameo is only a small part of the brand management at play here as the director Amanda Micheli does her best to effectively tell a full-bodied story that reaches beyond what it seems Lopez wants you to know.A political moment — like when Lopez calls President Trump an expletive for his remarks connecting Mexican immigrants and crime — is only a political moment for so long, and then it’s back to rehearsal or the makeup chair. Complex topics like being a woman in a male-dominated movie industry and Hollywood double standards are explored briefly; more often, Lopez comments on fan-service subjects like the tabloids and that iconic Versace dress from the 2000 Grammys.The most captivating arc is how and why Lopez became so outspoken during the Trump era. She says that worrying about her children’s futures, and “living in a United States she didn’t recognize,” galvanized her. But even those scenes build tediously to what should feel like a more triumphant ending, when she shares why she couldn’t, in good conscience, agree to take the Super Bowl halftime stage without standing against anti-immigration measures. By the end, Lopez wins her fight with the National Football League to include children in cages as a human rights statement.In “Halftime,” she is seen in top J. Lo form, an empowering Hollywood icon with an inspirational story to share. Is that reason enough to watch this scattershot portrait? It depends on if she had your love to begin with.HalftimeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      in Television

      For Norm Macdonald and Bo Burnham, No Audience Is No Problem

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      Filmed during lockdown, a new Netflix special from Norm Macdonald and outtakes from Bo Burnham’s “Inside” suggest that crowd laughter can be limiting.If a comic tells a joke in the forest, did it really kill?There’s a school of thought, one I have long been sympathetic to, that believes that stand-up without a live audience isn’t stand-up at all. Just listen to the debrief among famous comedians that, oddly, follows right after Norm Macdonald’s “Nothing Special,” his posthumous set recorded in his home during lockdown in 2020 and released this week on Netflix.Dave Chappelle compares comedy without an audience to a swim meet without water. David Letterman keeps returning to the point that without an audience, Macdonald didn’t have his “partner,” and something was missing. The closest to a dissent comes from Conan O’Brien, who makes the point that Macdonald always seemed like he could do comedy by himself, saying that when Macdonald appeared on his talk show, the host felt irrelevant.Macdonald is perhaps uniquely positioned to serve as an example of the shortcomings of the audience. His standards could be higher than the crowd’s. There are stories of him deciding to do jokes on “Saturday Night Live” that he knew were funny even if they died in rehearsal.This final special, a raw and moving production, is a gift to fans. It’s a pleasure to hear one last time his faux-folksy locutions (“It doesn’t make no sense”) and the way his jokes could twist (“I have opinions that everyone holds, like, I don’t know, yellow is the best color”) or move full steam ahead. After years of therapy, he says, he discovered why he has a fear of flying. “It’s the crashing and the dying,” he says, his wide eyes twinkling.Judged by aesthetic slickness and tight jokes, this hour isn’t nearly as successful as his last one, from 2017, “Hitler’s Dog, Gossip & Trickery.” But it’s mesmerizing in different ways. There’s something uncanny about letting the jokes stand on their own, the quiet awkwardness and messy intrusions (a dog barks, a cellphone goes off) offering a reminder that something bigger than showbiz is happening here, a glimpse of a man facing the end, giving his last jokes everything he’s got.Norm Macdonald made Netflix’s “Nothing Special” in his home during lockdown in 2020; he died last year.NetflixMacdonald, who died of cancer last year and is quoted in a scroll at the start of the special saying he filmed it before a medical procedure because he “didn’t want to leave anything on the table in case things went south,” becomes unusually earnest about his mother, expressing what she means to him. In what seems like a tangent, he points out that she didn’t speak with irony and couldn’t tell a good story but she “knew how to love.” As he gazes off, his face inches away from the screen, you might wonder if this is heartfelt or part of a joke (hint: could be both) before the punchline lands. There’s a cleverness as well as a poignancy here that I don’t think could be replicated if an audience were there.Live entertainment is of course singular, and the lockdown only emphasized my appreciation for it. But despite what you might have heard, audiences are often wrong. (Think of the famous comic you hate the most and I promise you they have delighted the crowd.) The audience has an underexamined impact on the aesthetic of specials. Comics spend so much time thanking and praising the people in the seats that it’s worth at least considering an opposing view.Here goes: The audience in specials is fundamentally manipulative, a bullying intrusion on the relationship between artist and observer at home. It can operate like peer pressure. And just as it adds to the excitement of stand-up, the steady, familiar sound of laughter, the most beloved cliché in all of comedy, can also be limiting. When Macdonald talks about his fear of dying and finding a different God than he expected, no sound distracts from the poignancy, and you find yourself looking closer at his face, studying it for clues, hints that may or may not be there.The pandemic forced so many comics to learn about performing to screens. Most didn’t like it, but some had considerable success. And a comic working by himself, Bo Burnham, made “Inside,” the most acclaimed special last year and one of the finest works of art about that period.As it happens, Burnham, who has been relatively quiet for the past year, released over an hour of outtakes from “Inside” the same week that Macdonald’s special premiered.Burnham and Macdonald are from different generations and have clashing styles, one theatrical and flamboyantly satirical, the other deadpan and folksy. But they share a love of language and a bone-deep ironic sensibility. And in these specials, both haunted by death, they show that removing the audience can access emotions a traditional special cannot.Burnham tapped into the pandemic zeitgeist while mounting a musical comedy that portrayed his own unraveling mind. The lockdown became a metaphor for larger trends of the internet age, and “Inside” became a hit not only on Netflix but also on social media, among young audiences who will delight in and study this fertile new release, free on YouTube.Burnham includes many cut songs and satirical sketches as well as alternative versions of familiar bits. It doesn’t play like a director’s cut, but it’s also more than a series of odds and ends not ready for prime time. If anything, it’s instructive to see how some of the bits are funnier than what is in the original special.In one outtake, Burnham performs a parody of a Joe Rogan podcast.YoutubeAmong the darlings that Burnham killed was a scathing, spot on parody of a Joe Rogan podcast, with Burnham on split screen playing two different guys. It captures an essential incoherence of so many thin-skinned comics when they complain about offended audiences: The podcasters insist they are just telling inconsequential jokes a second before describing comics as philosophers.An even more hilarious spoof comes later when multiple versions of Burnham, one representing the writer of “Inside,” the other the director and on and on, appear in a grid onscreen to be interviewed by a glib internet journalist. When they’re asked why there isn’t more diversity, they all freeze and then one Burnham pipes up to flamboyantly offer gratitude for the question. Burnham is gifted at mocking the performative liberal sanctimony of the moment as well as corporate attempts to exploit it, such as his very realistic YouTube ads that pop up below. One reads, “It’s mental health awareness decade at Kohl’s,” followed by the promise: “All laceless shoes 60 percent off.”He has a song at the end of these outtakes that is a clever riff on the chicken crossing the road joke. It could have been a closer to the special, but he cut it. Instead, we see him panicking at the sight of an audience.Performing to no one doesn’t fit most comedy, but it has its advantages. Burnham and Macdonald created a more direct relationship with the viewer, one with more intimacy than can be generated by a close-up.Burnham wanted to capture the uneasy mood of the early pandemic as viscerally as possible. And he clearly succeeded. When my 13-year-old daughter saw “Inside,” her first reaction was: “Is he OK?”It’s not something you would ask about a comedian who just received a round of applause. More