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☆ ‘Orlando, My Political Biography’ Review: A Collective Approach to Joy
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Along the way, Preciado draws attention to the construction of identity and that of the movie itself, fusing form and subject. Preciado’s most provocative conceit is that he shares the role of Orlando with 20 other trans and nonbinary individuals of different ages, hues and shapes. Like her Orlando, his travels widely (if on a shoestring budget), undergoes metamorphoses and weaves through the centuries. By sharing the role of Orlando, Preciado shifts the story from the individual to the collective, taking it out of the private realm and into the public sphere. “I wouldn’t exactly say that either,” Orlando says with a Mona Lisa smile.

Persons: Woolf, ”, Christine Jorgensen, Orlando, Amir Baylly, Liz Christin, Dr, “, she’s, ” Orlando, Mona Lisa Organizations: Orlando Locations: Orlando

☆ ‘The Killer’ Review: He’s a Deadly Bore
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

In Hobbesian terms, life in a Fincher film tends to be solitary and poor, nasty and brutish, if not necessarily short. That’s the case again in his most recent movie, “The Killer,” about a nameless hit man — played by Michael Fassbender — a chatty loner first seen waiting for a victim to show up. In time, the mark appears, the Killer shoots but misses, and spends the remainder of the story trying to clean up the mess. “The Killer” is based on a French comic book with the same title written by Alexis Nolent (who goes by Matz) and illustrated by Luc Jacamon. What makes him ostensibly interesting isn’t his job or body count; what’s intriguing, at least before your eyes finally glaze over, is that he’s dull.

Persons: David Fincher can’t, Fincher, ”, Edmund Kemper, “ Mindhunter ”, “, —, Michael Fassbender —, Alexis Nolent, Matz, Luc Jacamon, Christ Organizations: Netflix

☆ Martin Scorsese’s New Film
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-22 | by ( Desiree Ibekwe | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The average blockbuster now runs thirty minutes more than films did in the 1990s, a recent Economist survey found. Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated new film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is in theaters this weekend. In this case, though, fretting over the run-time might belie the thoughtfulness of Scorsese’s creation. The film, adapted from a best-selling nonfiction book by David Grann, is about the murders of members of the Osage Nation, a Native American tribe in Oklahoma, in the 1920s. Both the book and movie tell a story of violence, and of the ensuing investigation by an F.B.I.

Persons: It’s, Martin Scorsese’s, David Grann, Manohla Dargis, J, Edgar Hoover, Scorsese Organizations: Osage Locations: American, Oklahoma

☆ ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Review: An Unsettling Masterpiece
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-19 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

There’s a scene in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” when the screen fills with men toiling in what looks like a lake of fire. Inky silhouettes in a red-orange void, they look like Boschian imps, but these are ordinary men in a hell of human making. This may seem like strange territory for Scorsese, with his New York wiseguys and street corners. Throughout, Scorsese has also reminded you that there are many ways to tell stories, including about evil. Some were shot, others were blown up, while still others died from an enigmatic wasting illness, though were likely poisoned.

Persons: Martin Scorsese’s, It’s, Scorsese, —, Christ ”, ”, Eric Roth, Ernest Burkhart, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ernest Locations: York, Roman, Tibet, “, Hollywood, Oklahoma, United States, Fairfax, Okla

Horror, Hysteria and a SpinningHeadReconsidering‘The Exorcist’ at 50Essays by Jason Zinoman , Manohla Dargis and Erik PiepenburgCould a movie about a girl possessed by the devil really have caused audience members to faint and lose their lunch at theaters? The vehement reaction to “The Exorcist” when it premiered in late 1973 helped create a special place for it in pop culture, as evidenced by the media frenzy at the time. We asked three of our critics for new perspectives on the film: what it accomplished then and what it represents to us now.

Persons: Jason Zinoman, Manohla Dargis, Erik Piepenburg

☆ ‘The Equalizer 3’ Review: Brood, Kill, Sip a Cup of Tea, Repeat
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-31 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

As one does in Italy, Robert McCall likes to sit in a little cafe, watching the world pass by. McCall — an enigmatic avenger played by Denzel Washington — likes tea, but he’s fine with the coffee that a beautiful server brings him with a smile. This is the third and apparently last “Equalizer” movie that Washington will make. Maybe he’s grown tired of the franchise’s same-old ultraviolence or perhaps he’s bored with the predictable predictability of it all, even if this installment is as reliably watchable if ethically challenged as the previous ones. Whatever the case, little has changed since the first “Equalizer” (2014).

Persons: Robert McCall, McCall, Denzel Washington, Nero d’Avola Organizations: Denzel Locations: Italy, Washington, Amalfi, Sicily

☆ Opinion | Margot Robbie’s Sly Interpretation of the Feminine Ideal
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-19 | by ( Jessica Grose | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In particular, I continue to marvel at the performance of Margot Robbie, who played the titular heroine — Stereotypical Barbie — and who I think isn’t getting enough credit for holding the movie together. She must journey to the real world, leaving an army of other Barbies behind, to get back to a state of unquestioning bliss. She grudgingly takes Ken (a perfectly doltish Ryan Gosling) with her, and in the real world he discovers the concept of patriarchy. A movie called “Barbie,” and Barbie didn’t always feel like the main character. I also kept thinking about Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie.

Persons: Barbie, Barbie ”, Margot Robbie, Barbie —, Ken, Ryan Gosling, Manohla Dargis, Ken’s, Robbie, Weird Barbie, Kate McKinnon, — didn’t, Allan, Michael Cera, Barbie didn’t, — Organizations: House Locations: America

☆ ‘Haunted Mansion’ Review: A Disney Ride to Nowhere Fun
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

That’s pretty much all there is to say about “Haunted Mansion,” a live-action branding opportunity from Disney “inspired by” its theme-park attraction of the same name. “Haunted Mansion” is unlikely to do the same. (A 2021 Halloween special, “Muppet Haunted Mansion,” is streaming on Disney+.) The first film, “The Haunted Mansion” (2003), starring Eddie Murphy, was widely panned but made millions. I hope that Disney paid Simien truckloads of money to direct “Haunted Mansion,” and that he had more fun making it than I had watching it.

Persons: ”, Eddie Murphy, Elvis Mitchell, Mario, “ Barbie ”, Justin Simien, “, Simien, it’s Organizations: Disney, Pirates, New York Times, ‘, Mario Bros, Netflix Locations: Disneyland, Anaheim , Calif, ’, Orleans, ”

☆ ‘Oppenheimer’ Review: A Man for Our Time
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s staggering film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb,” condenses a titanic shift in consciousness into three haunted hours. The movie is based on “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” the authoritative 2005 biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The atomic bomb and what it wrought define Oppenheimer’s legacy and also shape this film. “Oppenheimer” is a great achievement in formal and conceptual terms, and fully absorbing, but Nolan’s filmmaking is, crucially, in service to the history that it relates. The story tracks Oppenheimer — played with feverish intensity by Cillian Murphy — across decades, starting in the 1920s with him as a young adult and continuing until his hair grays.

Persons: “ Oppenheimer, ” Christopher Nolan’s, Robert Oppenheimer, J, Kai Bird, Martin J, Sherwin ., Nolan, Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer —, Cillian Murphy —, Jean Tatlock, Florence Pugh, boozer, Kitty Harrison, Emily Blunt Organizations: Manhattan Engineer District, Manhattan Locations: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Los Alamos, New Mexico, Pacific

☆ ‘Barbie’ Review: Out of the Box and On the Road
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

That’s a question that swirls through Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” a live-action, you-go-girl fantasia about the world’s most famous doll. The movie opens with a prelude that parodies the “dawn of man” sequence in “2001: A Space Odyssey” (with girls, not ape-men), and then shifts to Barbie Land, a kaleidoscopic wonderland. There, Gerwig sets the scene and tone with Barbie (Margot Robbie) — who calls herself stereotypical Barbie — soon floating out of her Dreamhouse, as if she were being lifted by a giant invisible hand. Written by Gerwig and her partner, Noah Baumbach, the movie introduces Barbie on yet another perfect day in Barbie Land, in which dolls played by humans exist in what resembles a toyland gated community. There, framed by a painted mountain range, Barbie and a diverse group of other Barbies rule, living in homes with few exterior walls.

Persons: Greta Gerwig’s “ Barbie, ”, fantasia, Barbie, George Bernard Shaw’s, Lerner, Loewe, “ Barbie, Gerwig, Margot Robbie, —, Barbie —, Noah Baumbach, Eero Saarinen Organizations: Mattel Locations: Barbie

☆ ‘Afire’ Review: His Flaws Are Petty, Pathetic and Funny
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The German filmmaker Christian Petzold’s spiky and at times mordantly funny “Afire” is a tonic for moviegoers tired of nice, squishable, likable, relatable dull and dull characters. Yet while the writer is boorish, he’s never insipid; he’s pleasurably bad company. One of the most reliably interesting and surprising filmmakers working today, Petzold makes sharp, visually intelligent, psychologically sophisticated movies. There, the men will be alone while Leon waits for his publisher and Felix readies an art-school portfolio. When they arrive, though, they find that the mother has invited a third, a stranger to the men named Nadja (Paula Beer).

Persons: Christian, —, he’s, He’s, Barbara ”, Petzold, Éric Rohmer, Leon, Thomas Schubert, Felix, Langston Uibel, Felix readies, Nadja, Paula Beer Locations: Sandwich, Hollywood, United States, East Germany, Baltic

☆ ‘Earth Mama’ Review: A Mother Dreams Inside a Brutal System
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Leaf eases you into the movie, which centers on Gia (a lovely Tia Nomore), a pregnant single mother in recovery with two kids in foster care. In tight, precise scenes, Leaf sketches in Gia’s life, its uncertain horizons and crushing limitations. Mostly, Gia struggles to get her kids back, a time-consuming process that involves a reunification program in which she’s constantly monitored. The program’s demands mean that she can’t work more hours, but because she can’t work more, she’s behind in child-support payments, which in turn earns her a scolding from her case worker. If the system seems rigged for Gia to fail, it’s because, Leaf suggests, it is.

Persons: ”, I’ve, Tia Nomore, Gia, she’s, Jody Lee Lipes, Miss Carmen, Erika Alexander, Bokeem Woodbine, Kamaya Jones, Sharon Duncan, Brewster, Keta Price Locations: Gia, Bay

☆ ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’ Review: Still Running
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I don’t know if anyone has ever clocked whether Tom Cruise is faster than a speeding bullet. He racks up more miles in “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” the seventh entry in a 27-year-old franchise that repeatedly affirms a movie truism. That is, there are few sights more cinematic than a human being outracing danger and even death onscreen — it’s the ultimate wish fulfillment! Once again, he plays Ethan Hunt, the leader of a hush-hush American spy agency, the Impossible Mission Force. The whole thing is complicated, as these stories tend to be, with stakes as catastrophic as recent news headlines have trumpeted.

Persons: Tom Cruise, —, Ethan Hunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, handymen, Simon Pegg, Ving, Ethan, ”, that’s, Hunt, Harley Quinn, Rome —, Wade Eastwood, Grace, Hayley Atwell Organizations: Mission Force Locations: “, Paris, Rome

☆ The Best Films of 2023, So Far
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As the summer may bring a little extra time to catch up on movies, our critics have selected a handful of options worth your time. All are available in theaters or on demand. ‘Asteroid City’In theatersThe story: Wes Anderson’s latest follows the staging of a play about the goings-on in a small desert town in the 1950s. But that play is actually shown as if it were a movie, one featuring Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hanks and many more. Manohla Dargis’s take: “Written by Anderson, the film is about desire and death, small mysteries and cosmic unknowns and the stories that we make of all the stuff called life.

Persons: Wes Anderson’s, Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hanks, Anderson, —, ”

☆ ‘The Passengers of the Night’ Review: A Woman’s Second Act
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

When the Radio France sign pops up in “The Passengers of the Night,” you know it won’t be long before the movie’s most vivid character lands a job there. Given her instrument’s breathy intimacy and how delicately it brushes the ear, though, whispering can certainly feel more accurate. Élisabeth is a mess when the story opens, so that voice gets a workout. Mostly, she does this by re-entering the world — she finds a job and then another, meets one lover and then a second — a trajectory that involves rejection but also approval. The director Mikhaël Hers’s approach in “Passengers” is at once precise and elliptical.

Persons: Élisabeth, —, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Élisabeth unmoored, It’s, Mikhaël, François Mitterrand Organizations: Radio Locations: Radio France, Paris

☆ ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ Review: Turning Back the Clock
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

As a longtime big Hollywood star and hitmaker, Ford had already achieved an immortality of a kind. It’s pretty clear from his newest venture, the overstuffed if not entirely charmless “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” that while Indy may not in fact be immortal, the brain trust overseeing this installment wishes he were. They haven’t simply brought the character back for another go, they have also given him a digital face-lift. That said, the altered Indy is cognitively dissonant; I kept wondering what they’d done to — or perhaps with — Ford. “Raiders” was created by Spielberg’s pal, George Lucas, who saw it as a homage to the serials that he’d loved as a kid.

Persons: Steven Spielberg, ”, Harrison Ford’s, Dr, Henry Walton Jones Jr, Spielberg, Ford, “ Indiana Jones, “, Indiana Jones, — Ford, Spielberg’s, George Lucas, Lucas, Humphrey Bogart Organizations: “ Raiders, Indy, Hollywood, Raiders Locations: Kingdom, “, Sierra Madre

☆ ‘Asteroid City’ Review: Our Town and Country
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“Asteroid City,” the latest from Wes Anderson, is filled with the assiduous visuals, mythic faces and charming curiosities that you expect from this singular filmmaker. It’s partly set in 1955 in a fictional Southwest town, a lonely four corners with a diner, gas station and motor inn. Palm trees and cactuses stipple the town, and reddish buttes rise in the distance. It opens in black-and-white on an unnamed television host (Bryan Cranston, severe and mustachioed) in a studio. It looks like a film, a meticulous, detailed, visually balanced wide-screen Wes Anderson one.

Persons: Wes Anderson, Anderson, Bryan Cranston, that’s, Edward Norton, Thornton Wilder’s, John Deere, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda, Tom Hanks, Adrien Brody Organizations: Tilda Swinton Locations: Southwest, Asteroid

☆ ‘The Flash’ Review: Electric Company
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The Flash, the latest DC Comics superhero to get his very own big show, isn’t the outfit’s usual brooding heavyweight. a billionaire), but an electrified nerd who joined the super-ranks by accident, not by birthright or by design. He’s really, really fast on his feet, you bet. That’s a relief, particularly given how the movie tries to clobber you into submission. If the bludgeoning feels more inescapable these days, it’s partly because the major studios now bank so heavily on superhero movies.

Persons: He’s, It’s, Barry Allen, Ezra Miller, Ron Livingston, Maribel, liveliness, Miller, ”, Gardner Fox, Harry Lampert, Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino Organizations: DC Comics

☆ ‘Dalíland’ Review: Landscape With Vipers
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

One of the best things about “Dalíland,” Mary Harron’s amused and amusing fictional look at the singular Salvador Dalí, is that it isn’t a cradle-to-grave exhumation. An anodyne pretty boy, James serves as a proxy for the viewer, a wide-eyed tourist in a seductively foreign land. James isn’t all that interesting, either, and there’s too much of him in the movie. This isn’t Briney’s fault; he’s pleasant to look at, and he manages his transition from tourist to accidental Dalí-wood guide well enough. The relationship provides tension and mystery that the well-matched Kingsley and Sukowa complicate with gargoyle masks and shocks of vulnerability.

Persons: “, Mary Harron’s, Salvador Dalí, Dalí’s, James, Christopher Briney, who’s, Ben Kingsley, Barbara Sukowa, Dalí ’, Captain Moore, Rupert Graves, Alice Cooper, Mark McKenna, Amanda Lear, Suki Waterhouse, James isn’t, grubbing, Kingsley Locations: York, Regis, New York

☆ ‘The Idol’ Creators: ‘This Is Not Going to Be for Everybody’
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-03 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

the Weeknd) and Lily-Rose Depp, walked into the Lumière Theater at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of the first two episodes of their show, “The Idol,” to a standing ovation. Created by Levinson, Tesfaye and Reza Fahim, “The Idol,” which premieres on Sunday, was already a heat-seeking target by the time it played at Cannes. Levinson, Tesfaye and other “Idol” collaborators have vigorously defended the show and its creators. “The process on the set was unbelievably creative,” Azaria said at a news conference a day after the Cannes premiere, as Adams nodded along. “I’ve been on many, many a dysfunctional set, believe me,” Azaria continued.

Persons: Sam Levinson, Abel Tesfaye, Lily, Rose Depp, ”, “, Jocelyn, Depp, —, Hank Azaria, Troye Sivan, Jane Adams, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Eli Roth — Jocelyn, Tedros, Levinson, Tesfaye, Reza Fahim, Amy Seimetz, trumpeted Levinson, ” Azaria, Adams, “ I’ve Organizations: Cannes Film, Cannes, Idol, HBO, YouTube Locations: Los Angeles, Hollywood

☆ ‘Past Lives’ Review: Longing for a Future
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“Past Lives” is a wistful what-if story about two people, the children they were and the adults they become. The movie follows them through the years and across assorted reunions, separations and continents as well as milestones momentous and ordinary. “Past Lives” centers on Nora (played as an adult by a terrific and subtle Greta Lee) and a boy named Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), though mostly it’s about her. They’re charming — they’re children — and close. Hae Sung comforts her because he’s a nice boy; he will become a nice man, but by then she will be long gone.

Persons: Nora, Greta Lee, Hae Sung, Teo Yoo, —, “, ” Nora, ”, He’s, Celine Song, Jacques Rivette’s, Julie Go Organizations: Korean Locations: Seoul, American, Canada, Nora’s

☆ ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ Wins the Palme d’Or
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The 76th Cannes Film Festival ended Saturday with the Palme d’Or awarded to “Anatomy of a Fall.” Directed by Justine Triet, this intellectual thriller centers on a woman who is brought to trial after the mysterious death of her husband. Written by Triet and Arthur Harari, the film was an early favorite with critics. Triet is the third woman to have won the Palme; Julia Ducournau won in 2021 for “Titane,” and Jane Campion took the prize in 1993 for “The Piano.”The Palme was presented to Triet by Jane Fonda, who noted the “historic” number of women — seven — who had films competing for the top honor. The strong main competition, with a jury led by the director Ruben Ostlund, effectively announced that the festival had returned to full strength after several unsteady pandemic years. An icy exploration of the banality of evil — the family eats, relaxes and sleeps to the constant sounds of screams, shouts and gunfire — the movie sharply divided the critics here.

☆ A Vigilant Steve McQueen, a Misguided Maïwenn and Other Cannes Scenes
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Presumably Johnny Depp, a heat-seeking target for the armies of paparazzi amassed here, helps explain the movie’s presence. The king is played by a powdered and bewigged Depp, who looks suitably indolent, though perhaps because he’s underused. The king is mainly there to look gaga at Jeanne, which he does a great deal, though it’s a tough call whether Louis lavishes as much attention on Jeanne as Maïwenn does. Among all the close-ups of Jeanne giggling, Maïwenn folds in some palace intrigue and the briefest nod at the terror to come. There’s some comfort that “Jeanne” isn’t contending for the Palme d’Or, which would be an embarrassment, but is being presented out of competition.

☆ ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ Premieres at Cannes: First Reaction
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Thursday, Harrison Ford stood before a rapturous crowd at the Cannes Film Festival and reminded us that Tom Cruise isn’t the last movie star. That history was on display in a snappy, coherently edited homage that got the evening started. In the late 1960s, Demy had wanted to cast the then-unknown Ford in “Model Shop” but couldn’t convince the studio to hire him. Demy settled for another actor, but he and Varda remained friends with Ford. Rather anticlimactically, Frémaux also presented Ford an honorary Palme d’Or.

☆ ‘Master Gardener’ Review: Paul Schrader’s Solitary Man
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Part of the kick of “Master Gardener” is that the writer-director Paul Schrader manages to pull off this improbable movie. As has been the case in many of Schrader’s stories, this one centers on a man who’s of this world and apart. That character — “God’s lonely man,” as he’s called in “Taxi Driver,” which Schrader wrote — has appeared repeatedly in his filmography. That lonely man is here again, risen once more in “Master Gardener,” but now named Narvel Roth and played like a clenched fist by Joel Edgerton. In all three movies, a solitary, soul-weary man in crisis — who’s invariably seen alone in a room writing in a journal he shares in voice-over — undergoes a kind of transfiguration.

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