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      A French Hit on Netflix Changes Its Language and Streaming Service

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      “Call My Agent!,” set at a Parisian talent agency, was a cult favorite during the pandemic. But the English-language adaptation will be on Sundance Now and AMC+.Four bumbling talent agents at risk of losing their business because of poor financial planning. A secret daughter interested in a career in the entertainment industry. Cameos by famous actors playing themselves. One spoiled dog. This is the formula that made the French show “Call My Agent!,” about a Parisian talent agency, into a global hit once it began appearing on Netflix in 2016.On Friday, the British version of the show, titled “Ten Percent” and set at a London talent agency, will debut. But instead of airing on Netflix, the eight-episode series will premiere on Sundance Now and AMC+ in the United States, and Amazon U.K. in Britain, Canada and six other English-speaking territories.Basing an English-language TV show on a popular hit from another country is a tried-and-true convention in the U.S. entertainment industry. Think “Homeland” and “Euphoria” — or even “The Office,” which began life with Ricky Gervais in England before being adapted into the long-running American version starring Steve Carell.“Ten Percent” was conceived in much the same way. David Davoli, who heads the television division for Bron Studios, negotiated, along with London’s Headline Pictures, for the English rights to “Call My Agent!” in 2017, after the show debuted on Netflix but before it truly caught on with English-speaking audiences. According to Mr. Davoli, it was already doing “bonkers numbers on French television,” where it debuted in 2015. Yet it was before “the dawn of international television where people were more comfortable ingesting foreign language stuff,” he said.What makes “Ten Percent” unique is that usually the English-language version is adapted from a show not widely seen in the United States. Not so with “Call My Agent!,” which became a cult favorite with American audiences during the pandemic. The show has run for four seasons on Netflix — with talk of a possible fifth to come — and inspired a film and adaptations in India and Turkey. Its star, Camille Cottin, could be seen in the films “House of Gucci” and “Stillwater” last year.“Call My Agent!” became available on Netflix in 2016.Christophe Brachet/NetflixNetflix won’t give details on the show’s viewership numbers, but the company’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos referred to the series in his January earnings call as proof that Netflix’s investment in international programming was paying off. It, along with “Money Heist” and “Squid Game,” proved to streaming companies that if a show is good enough, subtitles and cultural specificity are not a deterrent for viewers. And if that’s the case, why spend money on an English-language version? The Race to Rule Streaming TVA New Era: Companies like Netflix, HBO, Hulu and Amazon ushered out the age of “prestige TV” and ushered in an age of anything goes.Netflix’s Woes: The streaming star lost subscribers for the first time in a decade as competitors are continuing to expand.A Warning Sign?: Netflix’s sudden problems may be an indication that other streaming services are heading toward an unstable future.Commercials: Streaming executives are having a change of heart about ads and offering lower-priced versions in exchange for commercials.In contrast, “Ten Percent” will appear on a much smaller platform, one with nine million subscribers, just 12 percent of Netflix’s 74.6 million subscribers in the United States and Canada. (It stars Jack Davenport as the de facto head of the agency and will feature cameos from well-known British actors including Helena Bonham Carter, Dominic West and David Oyelowo.)Netflix had the opportunity to buy “Ten Percent,” as did every other streaming service in the United States, but passed. It declined to comment on its decision. Instead, Sundance Now came up with an attractive offer and licensed the show.“We’re very happy to be there,” Mr. Davoli said of his relationship with AMC Networks, which owns Sundance Now. “I like being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. I think we’re going to get way more attention there. Marketing is half the battle, and on some of the bigger streamers they’re up on Friday and gone on Monday.”AMC Networks, which owns a handful of niche streaming options including AMC+, Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now and AllBlk, will also air the show weekly on its BBC America channel, two days after the episodes become available through streaming.“We jumped at the chance to make Sundance Now the U.S. home of the British remake,” said Shannon Cooper, vice president of programming for Sundance Now. “This is such a fun watch, whether you’ve seen the original or not.”This is a rocky moment for streaming, with Netflix’s stock plummeting after last week’s announcement that it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of the year and expected to lose two million beyond that in the second. Despite the deluge of content arriving weekly on the various services, consumers are happy to end a subscription if the latest offerings aren’t striking their fancy.Helena Bonham Carter, right, is one of the celebrities playing a version of themselves in “Ten Percent.” Lydia Leonard is one of the show’s stars.Rob Youngson/Sundance NowAccording to a recent survey by Deloitte, 37 percent of consumers in the United States added or canceled a streaming subscription in the last six months, a churn figure that has been consistent since 2020. The primary reasons they cited were price concerns and lack of new content. The return of a favorite show, according to Deloitte’s survey, is a key reason customers would subscribe to a service, or resubscribe to one they recently abandoned. That’s why a show like “Ten Percent,” which has the potential to lure viewers who enjoyed “Call My Agent!,” is an attractive purchase for an upstart streaming service.“It’s an appealing proposition for any of these distributors,” said Dan Erlij, partner at United Talent Agency and co-head of the television literary department. “There’s so much stuff that’s constantly premiering. How do you make sure that people are aware of it? Bus ads and billboards only take you so far. And it’s expensive. So if you know that there’s a word of mouth built in already, I think that can be really helpful.”The executive producer of “Ten Percent” is John Morton, best known for his comedy “W1A,” which satirizes the BBC. In a recent interview, he said he was cognizant of the high stakes he was facing when he took the job of adapting the beloved series. Attracted to the show’s “warm heart” and its ability to connect its audience to its fallible main characters, Mr. Morton said, he was intimidated by the idea of “starting again with something that’s already so good.”His strategy was to go back and rewatch the first season of “Call My Agent!” in its entirety but then never refer to it again. As of the interview, he had yet to finish the third season and hadn’t watched the fourth.The ultimate goal was to take the essence of “Call My Agent!” and make it specifically British, capturing the diversity of London, from its architecture to its people.“London is chaotic — architecturally, logistically, creatively — and that throws up wonderful things and also terrible things,” Mr. Morton said, adding that, as in “Call My Agent!,” the talent agency has a rooftop. But rather than looking out over a pristine Parisian night sky, this roof “looks out over a certain sort of unconnected chimneys.”The cast of the British version is also more diverse, with the secret daughter from the original now played by the British actress Hiftu Quasem, who is of Bengali descent, and the bumbling agent, Dan, portrayed by Prasanna Puwanarajah, a British actor of Sri Lankan descent. Yet the archetypes from the original prevail. For example, Ms. Cottin’s character, a hard-charging lesbian agent, is now played by Lydia Leonard, and her character’s frenetic love life is also complicated by her career ambitions.Mr. Davoli — who since becoming the head of Bron TV has sold three other co-productions to streaming companies, including “The Defeated” to Netflix and “Kin” to AMC — admits that the market for format deals has become more challenged in recent years.“The thing that’s most important that I’ve learned over the last four years is the quality bar cannot be messed with,” he said. “The only way to protect the investment is to ensure that you’re creatively making content that can sell into the U.S., because our audiences are so sophisticated now. They won’t stick around for stuff that’s not rising above a certain bar.” More

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      Do You Skip Intro?

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      Elyssa Dudley and Listen and follow Still ProcessingApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherWesley worries the “skip intro” button is killing the TV theme song. When we skip, we’re denying “the possibility of having this connection with a show that becomes bigger and more meaningful than the show itself.”He takes his concern to his friend Hanif Abdurraqib, a poet, music critic and MacArthur “genius grant” winner. Together, they explore their childhood memories of “Good Times,” “The Wonder Years” and “The Jeffersons.” Then, producer Hans Buetow unearths a rendition of a theme song that blows their minds — and they vow never to hit “skip intro” on it.Can you help us identify this choir?On today’s episode, Wesley and Hanif are played this video of a choir singing the “Good Times” theme song. Now, we need your help: Can you identify the choir?We have confirmed that the singers are backstage at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif., but who are they? We’d love to find out and get in touch with them.If you have any ideas or information about the choir, please email us at stillprocessing@nytimes.com.Theme songs as beautiful wallpaperHanif shares a story about how a photographer visiting his home was struck by the blue wallpaper in his front entryway. Before the pandemic, Hanif would travel more frequently, so coming home and crossing his entryway was “a real beautiful experience,” he says. But now, he’s so consumed by errands — setting down groceries, making sure his dog doesn’t run out — that he’d forgotten about his wallpaper.“The theme song acts as almost the wallpaper,” Hanif says. “When I do notice it, if it’s something that I can pause and notice and I enjoy it, I’m thrilled. But otherwise, it’s kind of like a border between me and something that I have to do, or something that I feel like I am driven to do. But it is nice to notice it when it comes along if it’s wonderful enough.”Hosted by: Jenna Wortham and Wesley MorrisProduced by: Elyssa Dudley and Hans BuetowEdited by: Sara Sarasohn and Sasha WeissEngineered by: Marion LozanoExecutive Producer, Shows: Wendy DorrAssistant Managing Editor: Sam Dolnick More

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      Frank Langella Fired From Netflix Show After Misconduct Investigation

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      The actor was removed from his leading role in the mini-series “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The production plans to reshoot the scenes in which he had appeared.The actor Frank Langella was fired from his leading role in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” a Netflix mini-series based on Edgar Allan Poe works, after a misconduct investigation.His firing was reported by Deadline. Netflix declined to comment, but a person familiar with the matter, who was granted anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the investigation, confirmed the account on Thursday.Langella was removed from the series, which is in the middle of production, after officials determined that the actor had been involved in unacceptable conduct on set, Deadline reported. The production plans to recast Langella’s role as Roderick, the reclusive patriarch of the Usher family, and reshoot the scenes in which he had already appeared. The series also stars Carla Gugino, Mary McDonnell and Mark Hamill, among others.A spokeswoman for Langella and the show’s creator, Mike Flanagan, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Langella, 84, known for his performances both onscreen and onstage, shot to fame in the title role of the 1979 film “Dracula” after starring in a Broadway production as the count. He also played President Nixon in both the stage and screen versions of “Frost/Nixon,” earning an Oscar nomination as well as a Tony Award for best actor in a play in 2007. Recently, Langella appeared as the judge in the Netflix film “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” More

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      Japanese TV Show “Old Enough!” Features Toddlers Running Errands

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      “Old Enough!,” a Japanese show that has been on the air for decades, recently came to Netflix. It features toddlers running errands without adult supervision.TOKYO — Three-year-old Yuka steps off the curb into a crosswalk that bisects a four-lane street. “Even though the light’s green,” a narrator says in a voice-over, “she still looks out for cars!”So begins a typical scene in “Old Enough!,” a Japanese reality show that began streaming on Netflix in late March. It is new to American viewers but has been running in Japan for more than three decades.The show’s popularity in Japan is a reflection of the country’s high level of public safety, as well as a parenting culture that sees toddlers’ independence as a key marker of their development.“It’s a typical way of raising children in Japan and symbolic of our cultural approach, which can be surprising for people from other countries,” said Toshiyuki Shiomi, an expert on child development and a professor emeritus at Shiraume Gakuen University in Tokyo.Short and sweet“Old Enough!” has been running on Nippon TV, initially as part of another show, since 1991. It was inspired by “Miki’s First Errand,” a 1977 children’s book by Yoriko Tsutsui that tells the story of a mother who sends her 5-year-old daughter out to buy milk for a younger sibling.The edited “Old Enough!” episodes that appear on Netflix are short (around 15 minutes or less) and upbeat. They track toddlers as young as 2 as they attempt to run errands in public for the first time, with a studio audience laughing in the background. Safety spotters and camera crews hide offscreen, with mixed results; they often stumble into the frame.As the children navigate crosswalks and busy public places full of adults, a narrator describes their incremental progress in breathless tones, like a commentator calling a baseball game in the ninth inning. And the toddlers strike up conversations with the strangers they meet along the way.Yuka, a 3-year-old girl in the Japanese city of Akashi, goes shopping by herself on the show.Netflix/Nippon TV“Mom said, instead of her, I would go to the shops today,” 3-year-old Yuka tells a shopkeeper in the coastal city of Akashi as she buys udon noodles for a family meal.“Really?” the shopkeeper replies. “Aren’t you a clever thing?”The errands inevitably go awry. Yuka briefly forgets to buy tempura, for instance, and another 3-year-old forgets what she has been asked to do because she is too busy talking to herself. In other episodes, children drop their cargo (live fish, in one case) or refuse to leave home in the first place.When 2-year-old Ao’s father, a sushi chef, asks him to take some soy-sauce-stained chef’s whites to a nearby laundromat, he won’t budge.“I can’t do it,” Ao tells his father, standing outside the family home and holding the soiled linens in a plastic bag.Eventually, Ao’s mother cajoles him into going, partly by bribing him with a snack. “It’s painful, isn’t it?” the father says to her as the boy ambles down the road alone. “It breaks my heart.”“You’re too soft on him,” she replies.A rite of passageProfessor Shiomi said that parents in Japan tried to instill a particular kind of self-sufficiency in their children. “In Japanese culture, independence doesn’t mean arguing with others or expressing oneself,” he said. “It means adapting yourself to the group while managing daily tasks, such as cooking, doing errands and greeting others.”In Japanese schools, it is common for children to clean classrooms, he noted. And at home, parents give even young children pocket money for their expenses and expect them to help prepare meals and do other chores.In a well-known example of this culture, Princess Aiko, a member of Japan’s royal family, would walk alone to elementary school in the early 2000s. (She was always under surveillance by the Imperial Household police.)The errands that toddlers run on the show inevitably go awry.Netflix/Nippon TVIn the Tokyo area, Wagakoto, a production company, films short documentaries of toddlers running errands, for a fee that starts at about $120. Jun Niitsuma, the company’s founder, said that the service was inspired by “Old Enough!” and “Miki’s First Errand,” and that clients paid for it because they wanted a record of how independent their toddlers had become.“It’s a rite of passage” for both children and their parents, Mr. Niitsuma said. “These errands have been a very symbolic mission for decades.”Room for debateBefore Netflix acquired “Old Enough!,” it had been adapted for audiences in Britain, China, Italy, Singapore and Vietnam.“‘Old Enough!’ is a reminder that unique storytelling can break down cultural and language barriers, and connect entertainment fans globally,” said Kaata Sakamoto, the vice president for Japan content at Netflix.The show does have some critics in Japan. Their main arguments seem to be that the toddlers’ errands essentially amount to coercion, or that the show could prompt parents to put their children in harm’s way.The toddlers on the show strike up conversations with strangers they meet along the way.Netflix/Nippon TVViolent crimes are rare in Japan. Still, some academics contend that common safety metrics paint a misleading portrait of public safety. They point to recent studies by the Ministry of Justice indicating that the incidence of crime in Japan, particularly sexual crimes, tends to be higher than what residents report to local police departments.“It’s a terrible show!” said Nobuo Komiya, a criminologist at Rissho University in Tokyo who has advised municipalities across Japan on public safety.“This TV station has been airing this program for years, and it’s been so popular,” he added. “But Japan is full of danger in reality. This myth of safety is manufactured by the media.”Even supporters acknowledge that “Old Enough!” was created for an older era in which different social norms governed toddlers’ behavior.Today, there is increasing debate in Japan about whether forcing young children to do chores is good for their development, as was once widely assumed, Professor Shiomi said. And parents no longer take public safety for granted.“I myself sent my 3- or 4-year-old for an errand to a vegetable shop,” he said. “She was able to get there but couldn’t remember the way back because she didn’t have a clear image of the route. So the shop owner brought her home.”Hisako Ueno More

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      ‘Metal Lords’ Review: Shred of the Class

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      Teenage boys battling angst and bullies form a heavy metal band in this genuine Netflix movie.In the charming coming-of-age movie “Metal Lords,” misfit teenage musicians form a band. Not just any band — a heavy metal band. These are kids who lag in gym class and get shoved into lockers, but in the privacy of their makeshift practice space, they sure know how to solo, riff and headbang.The movie (on Netflix) opens on a basement band practice. Posters of Motörhead, Black Sabbath and Slipknot line the walls, and a stack of amps is ready for use. In the middle of it all is our hero, Kevin (Jaeden Martell), who takes his cues — musical, social and otherwise — from his bestie, Hunter (Adrian Greensmith). Kevin’s on drums while Hunter assumes lead vocals, guitar and fantasies of stardom.Don’t you dare confuse them with a pop group. These boys are hardcore. Just take their band name: It starts with “skull” and ends with a word too obscene to use in their local Battle of the Bands. A metal fanatic and rabble-rouser, Hunter is hellbent on winning the music contest; Kevin is more intrigued by parties with the popular crowd and by his budding romance with a mercurial cellist named Emily (Isis Hainsworth, a magnetic newcomer).Written by D.B. Weiss (“Game of Thrones”) and directed by Peter Sollett (“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist”) — and with Tom Morello of the rock band Rage Against the Machine as executive music producer — the movie shows a keen awareness of how nerdy, shy or bullied children are drawn to metal music for its brute power and the high caliber of expertise it demands. Conventional but genuine, “Metal Lords” comprehends the riot of adolescent emotions and the many ways teenagers manage them.Metal LordsRated R for teen rage against the machine. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Stream These 10 Titles Before They Leave Netflix This Month

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      U.S. subscribers are losing a bunch of titles in April. Here are the best of the bunch.Oscar season is over (finally), but this month’s slate of movies leaving Netflix in the United States is full of winners and nominees past and present, as well as a handful of cult items and action epics. Toss these titles — nine movies and one favorite ’90s TV show — into your list before they’re gone. (Dates reflect the final day a title is available.)‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ (April 4)Although his most recent feature, the Oscar-winning “The Favourite,” was decidedly more audience friendly, the Greek writer and director Yorgos Lanthimos has carved out a niche as one of the more provocative (sometimes mercilessly so) filmmakers of his time. After his first English language film, the pitch-black comedy “The Lobster,” he reunited with Colin Farrell for this heavy slab of psychological horror about a heart surgeon whose strange friendship with a twisted teenage boy (Barry Keoghan) prompts a series of horrifying events. Lanthimos masterfully creates a feeling of creeping dread and uncomfortable uncertainty, much of it thanks to Keoghan, who harnesses a truly disturbing screen presence; like Farrell, he is in “The Batman,” and moviegoers who thought that was a bleak picture may find this one too hard to swallow.Stream it here.‘The Florida Project’ (April 5)Sean Baker is one of our most adventurous and emotionally curious filmmakers, his work dropping in on highly specific subcultures and scenes without feeling distanced or anthropological. In this 2017 comedy-drama, he settles in to “The Magic Castle,” a budget motel located near Walt Disney World, its clientele a mix of hoodwinked tourists and struggling long-timers like Halley (Bria Vinaite) and her six-year-old daughter, Moonee (Brooklynn Prince). Baker carefully situates his contrast of haves and have-nots; Disney World is only a short walk away, but the lives enjoyed by its patrons seem impossibly out of reach. Willem Dafoe picked up a well-deserved Oscar nomination for his work as the motel’s good-natured manager.Stream it here.‘Miss Sloane’ (April 18)The newly minted Oscar winner Jessica Chastain stars in this political thriller from John Madden (the “Shakespeare in Love” director, not the other one) as a tough-as-nails D.C. lobbyist who finds herself in the sights of the powerful gun lobby. Chastain made a specialty of these sturdy, sharp women who get the job done — the character is not far removed from her roles in “Zero Dark Thirty,” “A Most Violent Year,” and “Molly’s Game” — but she finds the shadings and contours that make the character unique while Jonathan Perera’s smart screenplay feels like an authentic peek at how the sausage is made in Washington.Stream it here.‘The Artist’ (April 25)Oscar loves movies about the movies, and this 2011 comedy from the writer and director Michel Hazanavicius (which won five prizes, including best picture) isn’t just a film about the industry: It is steeped in stylistic and narrative influences from throughout film history. Hazanavicius tells his story of the bumpy transition from silent to sound cinema by dramatizing that transition, recalling the inside-Hollywood angle of “Singin’ in the Rain”; the secondary story, about a fading star’s romance with a rising talent, evokes the many remakes of “A Star is Born.” Yet “The Artist” isn’t just a game of “spot the homage.” The filmmaking is clever and the performances are inspired, particularly those of the best actor winner Jean Dujardin, of the best supporting actress nominee Bérénice Bejo and of John Goodman, cast perfectly as a cigar-chomping studio head.Stream it here.‘Dawson’s Creek’: Seasons 1-6 (April 30)Fresh off the success of his script for the original “Scream,” the screenwriter Kevin Williamson got the greenlight from the nascent WB network to create this long-running drama, chronicling the lives of loves of a group of teens in the fictional hamlet of Capeside, Mass. Williamson’s winkingly self-aware style doesn’t go down quite as smoothly here as it does in the “Scream” films, but it offers its own trashy pleasures, its scripts rife with romances and hookups and unrequited crushes. And the show is now noteworthy for its keen casting eye: Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson, James Van Der Beek and Michelle Williams make up the core ensemble, with Scott Foley, Jane Lynch, Busy Philipps and Seth Rogen among the recurring cast.Stream it here.‘Léon: The Professional’ (April 30)Natalie Portman made her film debut in this 1994 action picture from the French writer and director Luc Besson (“La Femme Nikita”), playing a young woman whose family is executed by corrupt D.E.A. agents. She talks her enigmatic neighbor (Jean Reno) into providing not only refuge but also training; he is a contract killer, and she wants revenge. Besson stages a series of spectacular set pieces, each more ingenious than the last, culminating in a barn burner in which Leon seems to take on the entire New York Police Department. Portman is already a movie star, and Reno is quietly effective — an excellent counterpoint to Gary Oldman, who chews scenery by the fistful as the most unhinged of the bad guys.Stream it here.‘Snakes on a Plane’ (April 30)This 2006 action film from David R. Ellis was one of the first films that was, in effect, rewritten by the internet. Based solely on its title and the presence of Samuel L. Jackson, the movie became something of a viral sensation before its release, prompting its filmmakers to reshoot scenes and rework the tone to mirror more closely the goofy B-movie its “fans” had come to expect. The result is a bit of a mess, particularly in its laborious first act. But once the snakes start to attack at the 30-minute mark, it’s goofy, gory fun, a spirited riff on ’70s disaster movies, with an abundance of gruesome but funny shock effects and an admirably game performance from the unflappable Jackson.Stream it here.‘Snatch’ (April 30)The director Guy Ritchie made a big splash on the indie circuit with his low-budget, high-energy crime comedy “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” in 1999; this successor was also a kind of bigger-budget remake, pursuing similar situations and aesthetics but with more resources and bigger names. Chief among the big name actors is Brad Pitt, who appears under a mop of messy hair and barks most of his dialogue in an indecipherable dialect — hinting at the character-actor work he pursued, as a sideline, as he approached middle age. “Snatch” is fast, funny and flashy; it is style over substance, sure, but what style.Stream it here.‘Stripes’ (April 30)Three years before achieving total cultural ubiquity with “Ghostbusters,” Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and the director Ivan Reitman teamed up for this uproariously funny service comedy. Murray and Ramis (who was also one of the writers) play slacker pals who, more out of boredom than patriotic duty, enlist in the U.S. Army, where they do their best to turn the disciplined, humorless environment of basic training into a nonstop party. It’s like Abbott & Costello’s “Buck Privates” crossed with “Animal House,” and it’s exactly as fun as that sounds. Warren Oates is a superb foil as their drill sergeant, while John Candy, Joe Flaherty, John Larroquette, Judge Reinhold, P.J. Soles, Dave Thomas and Sean Young turn up in memorable supporting roles.Stream it here.‘The Town’ (April 30)Ben Affleck followed the triumph of his feature directorial debut, “Gone Baby Gone,” with this taut and gripping crime picture, adapted from the Chuck Hogan novel “Prince of Thieves.” Affleck co-wrote, directed and stars as Doug MacRay, the ringleader of a group of tough Boston thieves who hatch a plot to steal millions in cash from Fenway Park — a heist complicated by shifting allegiances, a tenacious F.B.I. agent (Jon Hamm) and Doug’s blossoming romance with a potential witness (Rebecca Hall). Affleck’s sure hand with actors — Chris Cooper, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite and Jeremy Renner round out the ensemble — and his firm sense of time and place give the film a confidence that more than makes up for the familiarity of its storytelling.Stream it here.Also leaving: ‘August: Osage County’ (April 26); ‘Moneyball,’ ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’ ‘Superman Returns’ (April 30). More

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      ‘Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood’ Review: OK, Boomer

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      Richard Linklater’s new animated film tells the story of the moon landing with some tongue-in-cheek revisionism.There are some people out there who insist that the moon landing never happened. As far as I know, the director Richard Linklater is not among them, but his new movie whimsically proposes its own revisionist account of what NASA was up to in the summer of 1969. Before Neil Armstrong took his giant leap, it seems, a Texas fourth grader named Stan stepped out of the landing module and onto the lunar surface.Stan’s story is narrated by his grown-up self (voiced by Jack Black). It isn’t really a full-blown conspiracy theory, but more what Tom Sawyer might have called a stretcher — the kind of yarn it might be fun to pretend to believe. The full title of the film, which debuts on Netflix this week, is “Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood,” and Stan’s astronaut fabulations are bright threads in a cozy fabric of baby-boomer nostalgia.Plenty of kids dreamed of going to the moon back then. Stan’s imaginary adventures are filtered through animation techniques that are both dreamlike and precise, so that they blend seamlessly into his meticulously rendered suburban reality. (The head of animation is Tommy Pallotta, whose previous collaborations with Linklater include “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly.”) And that’s what the movie is really about: remembering what it was like to be a young American in the ’60s. Black’s voice-over has a wry, can-you-believe-it quality, as if Stan were a dad (or even, at this point, a grandpa) regaling the youngsters with stories about the old days. Or maybe boring them stiff, if they’ve heard this stuff before.But cut the old guy a little slack. “Apollo 10½” may not be working with the freshest material — “The Wonder Years” popped wheelies and played kickball on similar generational turf — but it’s a lively and charming stroll down memory lane all the same. The movie’s strongest appeal might well be to viewers of Stan’s generation, who are likely to appreciate its meticulous sense of detail and its tolerant, easygoing spirit.Stan is the youngest of six children, a “Brady Bunch” configuration of three boys and three girls who live with their parents on the outskirts of Houston. Dad works for NASA — in shipping and receiving — and is a mildly grouchy, slightly eccentric, mostly benevolent patriarch. Mom is harried, sarcastic and efficient, running the household like a bustling small business.Things sure were different back then. There was a lot more cigarette smoking, and a general disregard for the safety of children, who were piled into the backs of pickup trucks, paddled frequently at school, and free to ride bikes without helmets through clouds of DDT. There were fights about who controlled the television and the hi-fi, and plenty of good stuff to watch and listen to even without cable or Spotify: “The Beverly Hillbillies” and the Monkees, to name just two.Of course there was also the Vietnam War, racial conflict and political assassinations. “Apollo 10½” pays some attention to all that, but also notes that, to a 9-year-old boy in the Houston suburbs, the wider world could seem very far away. Unlike the moon, which was suddenly, miraculously in reach.Linklater captures the drama and suspense surrounding the Apollo 11 mission, and also the way it was folded into the patterns of daily life. This isn’t the first time he has used animation layered over live performances, and this digital rotoscoping technique is especially attuned to nuances of gesture and facial expression. The way Stan’s father leans forward while he’s watching the news, the side-eye glances that pass between Stan and his siblings, the weary stoicism of their mother’s posture — it’s all beautifully subtle, and more cinematic than cartoonish.And “Apollo 10½” is more a modest memoir than a whiz-bang space epic. Its view of the past is doggedly rose-colored, with social and emotional rough edges smoothed away by the passage of time and the filmmaker’s genial temperament. The moon landing itself is epochal, transformative, and also just another thing that happened in one boy’s eventful, ordinary life: a small step after all.Apollo 10½: A Space Age ChildhoodRated PG-13. Smoking and other dubious period-appropriate behavior. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters and on Netflix. More

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      Streaming Has Won the Hollywood Debate. Is Best Picture Next?

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      A few years ago, the entertainment industry was arguing over whether movies on streaming services even counted as a film. Now, one is poised to win the Oscars’ top prize.Three years ago, Hollywood was engaged in a knock-down, drag-out fight over the future of cinema — what, exactly, constitutes a film — with the Oscars as the boxing ring.Netflix and other streaming insurgents insisted that the delivery route was irrelevant, that a film could be primarily viewed on an iPhone and still be a film. Theaters? Ticket sales? It didn’t matter.The Hollywood establishment, or at least most of it, was incensed: Big screens, they argued, are part of the very definition of cinema. “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie,” Steven Spielberg told a reporter at a European press junket at the time. “You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar.”And now?Unless the predictions are wrong and something unexpected awaits inside those gold leaf-embossed envelopes at the 94th Academy Awards on Sunday, a streaming service film — in a first — will win the Oscar for best picture. “CODA,” a dramedy from Apple TV+ about the only hearing member of a deaf family, is favored to receive the prize, having already won top honors at the predictive Producers Guild Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Writers Guild Awards.A Netflix film, “The Power of the Dog,” could nudge past “CODA” to win the best picture trophy, awards handicappers say. But most are not predicting a win for nominees from traditional studios, including “Belfast” and “West Side Story.” Apple TV+ and Netflix have both campaigned aggressively, with Apple spending an estimated $20 million to $25 million to promote “CODA” and Netflix’s push for “The Power of the Dog” costing even more.“CODA,” which stars Troy Kostur and Marlee Matlin, has already won top honors from the Screen Actors Guild.Apple TV+For an industry in turmoil, with tech giants like Apple and Amazon upending entertainment-industry business practices and threatening Hollywood power hierarchies, the welcoming of a streaming service into the best picture club would amount to a seismic moment. Television and film have been merging for years, but lines of demarcation remain, with the Oscars as one. (Last year’s winner, “Nomadland,” from Searchlight Pictures, a traditional studio, was mostly seen on Hulu, but only because a lot of theaters were closed; it played in roughly 1,200 theaters in the United States and had an exclusive IMAX run.)Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.The Hosts: Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes plan to keep the show moving and make it funny, though they will acknowledge the war in Ukraine.‘Seen That Before?’: Four of the best picture nominees this year are remakes or reboots of earlier films.Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage. Hollywood Legend: Danny Glover will receive an honorary Oscar for his activism. He spoke to The Times about his life in movies and social justice.Return to the Playground: For his Oscar-nominated short film “When We Were Bullies,” Jay Rosenblatt tracked down his fifth-grade classmates.Among this year’s best picture nominees, “I think there’s a lot of the academy that might not even know what is a streaming movie and what isn’t a streaming movie,” said the producer Jason Blum, whose Oscar-nominated films have included “Get Out,” “Whiplash” and “BlacKkKlansman.”The digital forces that have reshaped music and television have been chipping away at cinema for a long time. “If ‘CODA’ and Apple win, which seems pretty likely, it will be in part because of Netflix, which has been banging on the academy door for years, and fighting the good fight — or the bad fight, depending on who you ask — to get streaming movies considered,” Mr. Blum said.The pandemic accelerated the disruption. Traditional studios like Paramount, Universal, Sony, Warner Bros. and Disney rerouted dozens of theatrical films to streaming services or released them simultaneously in theaters and online. For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, citing the coronavirus threat, allowed films to skip a theatrical release entirely and still be eligible for Oscars. The academy had previously required at least a perfunctory theatrical release of at least a week in Los Angeles.This is about more than Hollywood egotism. The worry is that, as streaming services proliferate — more than 300 now operate in the United States, according to the consulting firm Parks Associates — theaters could become exclusively the land of superheroes, sequels and remakes. The venerable Warner Bros. has slashed annual theatrical output by almost half and built a direct-to-streaming film assembly line. Last week, Amazon boosted its Prime Video service by acquiring Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the old-line studio behind “Licorice Pizza,” which is nominated for three Academy Awards, including best picture.In a year when Hollywood largely failed to jump-start theatrical moviegoing, streaming services solidified their hold on viewers. Global ticket sales totaled $21.3 billion in 2021, down from $42.3 billion in 2019, according to the Motion Picture Association. (Theaters were closed for much of 2020.) Some theater companies have gone out of business, others have merged; the world’s biggest theater chain, AMC Entertainment, racked up $6 billion in losses over the past two years and its stock has dropped 66 percent since June. At the same time, the number of subscriptions to online video services around the world grew to 1.3 billion, up from 864 million in 2019, the group said.One film that struggled at the box office was Mr. Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” which received an exclusive run in theaters (per his wishes) of about three months. It collected about $75 million worldwide (against a production budget of $100 million and global marketing costs of roughly $50 million). “West Side Story” is now available on not one but two streaming services, Disney+ and HBO Max, where it has almost assuredly been viewed more widely than in theaters. But the film was never able to recover — among Oscar voters — from being branded a box office misfire. It received seven nominations, and is poised to win in one category, for Ariana DeBose as best supporting actress.Mr. Spielberg’s also-ran presence in the current Oscar race makes the ascendance of streaming contenders all the more striking: a lion in the fight to keep the Academy Awards focused on theatrical films is pushed aside. However unlikely, it is possible that “West Side Story” could come from behind and win the best picture trophy. So could Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” for that matter. Such an outcome would be a bit like 2019, when academy voters, turned off by an over-the-top campaign by Netflix to push “Roma” to best picture glory, instead gave the prize to “Green Book,” a traditional film from Universal Pictures.“The Power of the Dog,” from Netflix, is seen as another strong contender for best picture.Kirsty Griffin/NetflixIn 2019, the Oscars-centered clash between Old Hollywood and New was so heated, particularly on Twitter, that the Justice Department sent an unusual letter to the academy warning that changes to its eligibility rules could raise antitrust concerns. At the time, there was a push inside the 10,000-member academy to come up with a reasonable way to ensure that only films with robust theatrical releases were eligible for Oscars.Flickers of resistance remain.“There are many great companies that are streamers that like to loosely throw around the word ‘cinema’ without supporting it as cinema,” said Tom Quinn, chief executive of Neon, the indie studio behind “Parasite,” which won the 2021 Oscar for best picture, and “The Worst Person in the World,” a screenplay and international film nominee this year. He was referring to the tendency by the majority of the streaming companies to limit a film’s theatrical release, opting instead to release it on their apps.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More