movie

What’s the one thing from your childhood that your mom threw away that haunts you to this day?

Ben Stiller has one, a souvenir from what today would be called a riot but back in the 1970s registered as perfectly normal behavior.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope newsletter and the guy still holding out hope that those baseball cards are going to turn up in a box someday.

In this week’s newsletter, let’s look at what our Envelope cover star Ben Stiller misses.

Cover story: Ben Stiller has no time to waste

(Shayan Asgharnia / For The Times)

For this week’s cover story, Stiller and I talked a lot about his love for the New York Knicks, a passion kindled early and one that became an “addiction” this year as the team tried to win its first NBA championship since 1973. His dad, Jerry Stiller, took him to lot of games as a kid. Two of Jerry’s friends, Stanley Asofsky and Carnegie Deli co-owner Fred Klein, had season tickets, and they knew all the players and refs and would introduce them to Ben.

Jerry also took his son to baseball games, both the Yankees and the Mets. The Yankees were Ben’s favorite — though his commitment to them was nowhere near his love for the Knicks — and when they won the American League championship series in 1978, Stiller ran out onto the field with his friend Jonathan Harris, as one did in New York. (Or, really, anywhere else … but especially New York.) He even scooped up a chunk of the right-field turf and took it home with him on the D train.

“I had it in my room for two years,” Stiller says.

“And then,” I guessed, “your mom threw it away.”

“My mom threw it away,” Stiller affirms. To be fair to Anne Meara, the sod was old and crumbling and probably had bugs in it. And yet …

“It was a prized possession,” Stiller says. “I had it on a piece of tinfoil on a shelf. Maybe if I had been really lucky and had picked up a base, my mom wouldn’t have made me get rid of that.”

Stiller told me he wouldn’t be directing any episodes of “Severance’s” upcoming third season to free him up to make a feature film, a World War II survival story about a downed airman in occupied France who becomes involved with the French Resistance. Stiller has spent most of this year helping prep the third season and wants to be clear that the show is “a real priority.” But after a long break, he’s ready to return to feature filmmaking.

“Severance” star Adam Scott understands, though he finds it hard to imagine the set without Stiller. Scott remembers exactly what he told Stiller when they were shooting the jaw-dropping, mood-shifting Season 2 finale.

“I was just like, ‘Dude, this is our ‘Temple of Doom,’” Scott told me, referencing the second “Indiana Jones” movie. “And I was in absolute paradise the entire time, not just because ‘Temple of Doom’ is my favorite movie, but because we were getting to do it all. There’s the marching band. There’s a fight scene. There’s the running in the hall. We had the big scene where Mark talks to Outie.”

“And when we finished it, we were all so tired,” Scott continues. “But I could see how happy Ben was. It was such a showcase for him.”

And now, he’ll be returning to making movies — the one thing as a kid he always wanted to do.

Well, that and snag third base at Yankee Stadium.

Read more coverage of ‘Severance’

Which critics group will be the first to give Amy Madigan a prize for “Weapons”?

Might she be the standout of the summer, the one most deserving an award, other than the person who updated this billboard near LAX?

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. A forecast for a cosmic future in these parts? Hope, indeed, comes in many forms.

Madigan’s diabolical turn deserves a champion

Julia Garner and Josh Brolin in “Weapons.”

(Quantrell Colbert / Warner Bros. Pictures)

I’m going to tread lightly when it comes to spoilers for Zach Cregger’s horror movie “Weapons,” currently the No. 1 movie at the box office.

But I’m also of the mind that you should see “Weapons” knowing as little as possible about it. So anything I write could be considered a spoiler, though I should also note that I’m someone who never watches movie trailers and will go so far as to close my eyes and cover my ears in a theater to avoid them. Sometimes I think the only reason I’m still writing about movies is that the job allows me to see films in advance and not have them ruined. I love flying blind.

You probably know that “Weapons” follows what happens in an American town after 17 children disappear one night, all of them simultaneously running out the front doors of their homes, arms outstretched, at precisely 2:17 a.m. Cregger unravels the mystery from multiple, often overlapping points of view, calling to mind Paul Thomas Anderson’s audacious epic “Magnolia,” right down to the presence of a clumsy, mustachioed cop.

Well into the movie, we meet Madigan’s Aunt Gladys in a principal’s office at the school that the missing kids attended. All of the children were in the same class. Gladys says she is the aunt of the one child from the class who didn’t run off into night. There’s some understandable curiosity and concern over this boy, Alex (Cary Christopher, another standout in a very good year for child actors), and Gladys is here to reassure everyone that Alex — and his parents — are doing just fine.

Gladys is perhaps not the most reliable messenger. She is wearing a bright-red wig and multiple layers of makeup, a presentation that suggests she has spent a lifetime watching Bette Davis in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” Something is off, and, hoo boy, are we about to find out what that something is.

Madigan is excellent, disarming and adept at concealing, to a point, the hidden core of good ol’ Aunt Gladys. Again, I’m treading lightly. If you’ve seen it, as I’m sure many of you have, you know just how delightfully insane her work in the movie is.

Critics groups love to reward the delightfully insane. They also love to champion genres, like horror, that tend to be marginalized at the Oscars.

So I’d expect some group — perhaps New York, maybe L.A. — could be eager to plant a flag for Madigan as a much-deserved, out-of-the-box supporting actress choice. She’s 74, has enjoyed a fine career on stage and screen and, along with her husband, Ed Harris, made a principled stand (or sit) at the 1999 Academy Awards, refusing to applaud when Elia Kazan took the stage to receive an honorary Oscar.

It’s easy to get swept up in the success of “Weapons” and the countless stories sifting through its ending and themes. Once the film leaves theaters and the fall festival awards contenders start dropping, Madigan will need a champion or two to put her back into the conversation.

History might be on her side, though: Davis earned a lead actress Oscar nomination for “Baby Jane.” And Ruth Gordon won the supporting actress Oscar for “Rosemary’s Baby” for the same kind of deliciously diabolical turn that Madigan gives in “Weapons.”

Plus, you know Aunt Gladys was taking notes on Gordon’s cosmetic routine in “Rosemary’s Baby.”

I’ll be back in your inbox Monday. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Read more of our summer movies coverage

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

This week, The Times published a series of articles looking at possible different futures for Los Angeles. Greg Braxton wrote two pieces, including one about Hollywood’s long-standing fascination with depicting the destruction of the city, including “Escape From L.A.” to “Blade Runner,” “This Is the End” and many more.

Anthony Edwards in the movie “Miracle Mile.”

(Hemdale Film Corp.)

Braxton noted, “In ‘Los Angeles Plays Itself,’ [Thom Andersen’s] 2003 documentary chronicling the portrayal of the city through cinema history, Andersen aims his own wrecking ball. The film’s narrator quotes the late Mike Davis, a noted historian and urbanist, when he says that Hollywood ‘takes a special pleasure in destroying Los Angeles — a guilty pleasure shared by most of its audience.’”

He also specifically examined “Miracle Mile,” Steve De Jarnatt’s 1988 apocalyptic romantic adventure drama featuring the stretch of Wilshire Boulevard from La Brea to Fairfax.

Robert Altman’s centennial

Director Robert Altman speaks at the Cannes Film Festival in 1977.

(Levy / Associated Press)

The UCLA Film and Television Archive is in the midst of “Robert Altman’s America: A Centennial Review,” a look at the monumental filmmaker’s wildly unpredictable body of work to mark 100 years since his birth. The designated home of Altman’s personal print collection, the archive will show many of the films in 35mm.

Writing when Altman was to receive an honorary Oscar (an occasion that turned out to be just a few months before his death in 2006), Peter Rainer called him “perhaps the most American of directors. But his Americanness is of a special sort and doesn’t really connect up to any tradition except his own.”

Comparing Altman to such filmmakers as John Ford, John Huston, Frank Capra, Sam Peckinpah, Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges, Rainer added, “Altman, who has ranged as widely as any of these directors across the American panorama, is a more mysterious and allusive artist. He is renowned for the buzzing expansiveness of his stories, the crisscrossed plots and people, but what strikes home most of all in this sprawl is a terrible sense of aloneness. … If being an American means being rooted to the land, to a tradition, a community, then it also means being forever in fear of dispossession. Altman understands this better than any other filmmaker. It’s what gives even his rowdiest comic escapades their bite of woe.”

The series began last week with “Nashville,” a movie that celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and which this column has recently discussed. This Saturday there will be a fantastic double-bill of 1977’s “3 Women” starring Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek with 1982’s “Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” starring Sandy Dennis, Karen Black and Cher.

Shelley Duvall in Robert Altman’s “3 Women.”

(20th Century Fox Film Corp. / Photofest)

Other pairings include “M*A*S*H” and “Brewster McCloud,” “The Long Goodbye” and “California Split,” “Thieves Like Us” and “Kansas City,” plus “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” and “Popeye.” The series concludes with separate screenings of “The Player” and “Short Cuts,” which reestablished Altman’s vitality in the 1990s.

As Times critic Charles Champlin once wrote, “When Altman’s movies are good, they are very, very good, and when they are bad they are infuriating because there is something so arrogantly self-destructive about them.”

In a 2000 interview with Susan King for a retrospective at LACMA that included a 25th anniversary screening of “Nashville,” the often-irascible Altman had this to say about his career.

“There isn’t any filmmaker who ever lived who has had a better shake than I did,” he said. “I have never been out of work and the only thing I haven’t made are these big, popular films. I have never wanted to and I never will. I would fail at it. I would be late for work.”

‘Close Encounters’ in 70mm

Melinda Dillon and Cary Guffey in the 1977 movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

(Columbia Pictures)

The American Cinematheque is premiering a newly-created 70mm print of the director’s cut of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The film will play at the Egyptian on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then at the Aero on Aug. 29 and Aug. 31.

“Close Encounters” was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Spielberg’s first for directing. It won for Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematography as well as a special achievement award for its special effects.

The story, of course, revolves around a series of sightings of UFOs around the world that leads to a spacecraft being studied in Wyoming and interactions with extraterrestrial beings. The cast includes Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban and François Truffaut.

In his original review of the film, Charles Champlin wrote, “The special effects conceived by Spielberg and executed by Douglas Trumbull and a staff that seems to number in the hundreds are dazzling and wondrous. That’s not surprising: The surprise is that ‘Close Encounters’ is so well leavened with humor. … ‘Close Encounters’ stays light on its legs, mystical and reverential but not solemn. It is a warm celebration, positive and pleasurable. The humor is folksy and slapstick rather than cerebral, as if to confirm that our encounter is with a populist vehicle.”

Points of interest

Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina and ‘Vivre sa vie’ in 35mm

Anna Karina in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Vivre sa vie.”

(Janus Films)

Anyone looking to prepare for the upcoming release of Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” and a snapshot of Paris at the moment of the French New Wave, might well want to check out Sunday’s 35mm screening of Godard’s 1962 “Vivre sa vie” at the Los Feliz Theatre.

Starring Anna Karina, then in the midst of a tempestuous marriage to Godard, the film features what may be her greatest performance as Nana, an aspiring actress who finds herself drawn into the world of prostitution. The film stretches from the manic joy of her dancing around a pool table to the quiet devastation of seeing her tear-stained face as she watches a movie. There’s also an utterly heart-wrenching conclusion.

In an appreciation of Karina after her death in 2019 at age 79, Justin Chang wrote, “We often speak admiringly of a performer’s screen presence or charisma. Karina possessed something more: flinty intelligence and deadpan wit, dark feline eyes that could project playfulness and melancholy without her saying a word. She incarnated both a matter-of-fact toughness and an expressive glamour worthy of a silent screen star.”

‘Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues’

Barbara Hershey in 1972’s “Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues.”

(Warner Bros.)

The Aero Theatre will have a rare screening of 1972’s “Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues” in 35mm on Sunday afternoon. Director Paul Williams and actors Barbara Hershey and John Lithgow will be on hand for a Q&A moderated by screenwriter Larry Karaszewski, who recently declared it “the best 1970s movie you’ve never heard of.”

Adapted from a novel by brothers Michael Crichton and Douglas Crichton (credited as “Michael Douglas”), the story involves a Harvard student (Robert F. Lyons) who takes a job from his best friend (Lithgow, in his film debut) delivering marijuana across the country. Along the way he meets a woman (Hershey) and after she gets busted by a corrupt cop (Charles Durning), he tries to set things straight.

‘Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion’ and ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’

Lisa Kudrow, left, and Mira Sorvino in “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.”

(Mark Fellman / Touchstone Pictures)

On Saturday and Sunday, the New Beverly Cinema will have a double-bill of two comedies from 1997: David Mirkin’s “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” and George Armitage’s “Grosse Pointe Blank.”

With a screenplay by Robin Schiff adapting her own play, “Romy and Michele” is about two friends (Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino) who concoct a plan to impress everyone at their 10-year high school reunion by lying about how successful they are. The film also features clothes by “Clueless” costume designer Mona May.

In his original review, Jack Matthews wrote, “The dead-pan performances of Sorvino and Kudrow, who played Michelle in the original play, are perfect. Romy and Michelle are cartoon characters, but the actresses make them both real and enormously sympathetic. … Beneath the endless silliness of the movie beats a real heart, and its theme of loyal friendship keeps propping it up every time the thin walls of the story seem about to collapse. Though ‘Romy and Michelle’ doing Tucson doesn’t take us much further than Beavis and Butt-head doing America, the ride, and the company, are a lot more fun.”

John Cusack stars as Martin in 1997’s “Grosse Pointe Blank.”

(Melinda Sue Gordon / Hollywood Pictures)

From a screenplay by Tom Jankiewicz, D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink and star John Cusack, “Grosse Pointe Blank” features Cusack as a succeful hit man attempting to attend his 10-year high school reunion and rewin the heart of an old girlfriend (Minnie Driver). That is, until a cadre of competing assassins and federal agents all show up as well.

In his original review, Kenneth Turan drew comparisons to Armitage’s earlier caper comedy “Miami Blues,” writing, “A wild at heart, anarchic comedy that believes in living dangerously … Clever enough to make jokes about Greco-Roman wrestling and make them funny, ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’s’ greatest success is the way it maintains its comic attitude. Working with a smart script and actors who get the joke, director Armitage pulls off a number of wacky action set pieces. Even if you think you’ve heard actors say, ‘I love you, we can make this relationship work,’ in every conceivable situation, this film has a few surprises in store.”

In other news

U.S. premiere of ‘Onda Nova’ in 4K

An image from 1983’s “Onda Nova,” being released in the U.S. for the first time.

(Spamflix)

Also on Sunday, Mezzanine will have the U.S. premiere of a 4K restoration of the 1983 Brazilian film “Onda Nova,” which translates as “New Wave.” Directed by Ícaro Martins and José Antonio Garcia, the film was withheld by the Brazilian dictatorship and only released there after a lengthy legal battle. It is thought to have never before screened in the U.S.

Women’s soccer was banned in Brazil until 1979, and women were only allowed to start teams in 1983, the year “Onda Nova” was produced. The film brings a defiantly queer and anarchically rebellious attitude to the story of a group of women on a newly formed soccer team and features special appearances by figures involved in Brazil’s struggle for freedom, including musician Caetano Veloso, journalist Osmar Santos and well-known male athletes Casagrande and Wladimir.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

Greg Braxton did an interview with the ever-quotable Spike Lee this week. Lee’s newest film, “Highest 2 Lowest,” starring Denzel Washington, is in theaters next week and begins streaming on Apple TV+ on Sept. 5. Lee will make an appearance at the Egyptian Theatre next Thursday for a Q&A after a screening of the film.

The film is adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s “High and Low,” in which a wealthy businessman believes his son is kidnapped and must scramble to put together the ransom money. When his son is found, it turns out that actually it is the son of his driver who has been abducted. The criminals still want their ransom, creating a moral dilemma for the businessman.

Lee likens the relationship between “High and Low” and “Highest 2 Lowest” to that between the renditions of the song “My Favorite Things” as done by Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music” and performed by saxophone great John Coltrane.

“It’s a reinterpretation,” he says. “There’s a history of jazz musicians doing reinterpretations of standards. We’re jazz musicians in front of and behind the camera.”

Spike Lee, photographed in New York in July.

(Victoria Will / For The Times)

Likewise, audiences will bring their own feelings to how they would respond to the ethical dilemma at the center of the film.

“That is what makes the whole scenario great,” Lee continues. “Everyone would answer that situation differently. [Toshiro] Mifune laid down the foundation. He handed the baton to Denzel and Denzel took it, and did not miss a motherf—ing stride. You know like those brothers in the Olympics? We don’t drop the baton.”

The new film marks the fifth collaboration between Lee and Washington, a collaboration that also includes “Mo’ Better Blues,” “Malcolm X,” “He Got Game” and “Inside Man.” Lee hopes it won’t be the last. Even at 68, the director maintains an enthusiasm and focus for his work and the future.

“I’m just getting started,” he says. “As an individual and an artist, when you’re doing what you love, you win. I don’t see the finish line, the tape.”

“Highest 2 Lowest” also features a performance by Latin jazz great Eddie Palmieri, who died this week at age 88.

‘Pee-wee’s Big Adventure’ turns 40

The late Paul Reubens, in his most famous role as Pee-wee Herman, on the big screen at the TCL Chinese Theatre for a special screening of 1985’s “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” at 2023’s AFI Fest.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

On Saturday the Academy Museum will present a 40th anniversary screening of Tim Burton’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” which finds Paul Reubens’ signature character on an epic quest to recover his beloved bicycle. As part of the evening’s program, the actual prop bicycle will be presented to the museum on behalf of Reubens’ estate.

The debut feature of director Tim Burton — who has recently found new success with the series “Wednesday” — “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” is an endlessly surprising and delightful film, one in which absolutely anything seems possible.

In his original review of the film, Michael Wilmington drew comparisons to Peter Lorre and Soupy Sales in attempting to describe the particular appeal of Reubens’ petulant, perennially childlike character.

“That’s what makes the character work: this sense of absolute, crazed conviction. And it makes the movie work as well — for its own audience,” Wilmington said. “Be forewarned: This film is not for anyone whose taste in humor runs only to silky Oscar Wildean epigrams or naturalistic comedies of the ‘Tootsie’ school. The wrong crowd will find these antics infantile and offensive. The right one will have a howling good time.”

Paul Reubens in the HBO documentary “Pee-wee as Himself.”

(Dennis Keeley / HBO)

The recent documentary “Pee-wee as Himself,” Matt Wolf’s startlingly intimate documentary on Reubens, includes recordings made just a few days before his 2023 death and is currently nominated for five Emmy awards.

The film explores Reubens’ life and how the explosive popularity of the Pee-wee character came to overwhelm him.

“We’re all entitled to our inner lives,” Wolf said in an interview for the paper with Dave Itzkoff. “Artists, particularly, are many different people inside. Paul was no exception, except the way he went about that was more extreme than perhaps you or I.”

‘Children of Men’ in 35mm

Clive Owen in the movie “Children of Men.”

(Jaap Buitendijk / Universal Pictures)

Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 “Children of Men,” will screen at the Academy Museum in 35mm on Wednesday. (Frankly, the movie does not play out nearly often enough.) As part of the museum’s ongoing Branch Selects program, “Children of Men” was selected by the cinematographers branch in recognition of the work by Emmanuel Lubezki, whose work here is staggering for how often it hides the difficulty of what is being accomplished, creating a sense of naturalism amid complicated technical achievements.

Set in 2027 Britain, the film presents a frightening scenario in which no child has been born on Earth for 18 years. Theo (Clive Owen) is a former activist-turned-disillusioned bureaucrat resigned to a staid hopelessness. An encounter with his former lover Julian (Julianne Moore), who has become even more of a militant, leads him to shepherding a young woman named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) to safety. She is well along in a secret pregnancy that could literally save the world.

In reviewing the film, Kenneth Turan wrote, “The best science fiction talks about the future to talk about the now, and ‘Children of Men’ very much belongs in that class. Made with palpable energy, intensity and excitement, it compellingly creates a world gone mad that is uncomfortably close to the one we live in. It is a ‘Blade Runner’ for the 21st century, a worthy successor to that epic of dystopian decay. … This is a world of rubble, fear and hopelessness whose connections to our own are never forced; Cuarón is such a fluid director with such a powerful imagination, they don’t have to be. This could well be our future, and we know it.”

Kevin Crust wrote a piece spotlighting the use of sound and music in the film, noting, “After a provocative ending that keeps audiences in their seats for the credits, ‘Children of Men’ continues to reward aurally, finishing strongly with two politically pointed songs. Leaving us with Lennon singing the anti-nationalist rant ‘Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)’ and Jarvis Cocker declaiming global society’s ills with an unprintable refrain in ‘Running the World,’ Cuarón emphasizes the timelessness of this future-set film and stamps it with a humanistic double exclamation point.”

Points of interest

‘The Heartbreak Kid’ is back again

An image from 1972’s “The Heartbreak Kid,” starring Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd.

(LMPC via Getty Images)

We have mentioned Elaine May’s 1972 “The Heartbreak Kid” in these parts before, but any time it screens is worth mentioning. The Eastwood Performing Arts Center will be screening the film Friday and Saturday from the 2K scan of a 16mm print overseen by film historian and programmer Elizabeth Purchell. (I spoke to Purchell about creating the scan last year.) Cybill Shepherd, one of the film’s stars, will be there to introduce the Friday night show.

Long notoriously difficult to see because of rights issues, the film is back in regular rep-house rotation thanks to this new scan — a true treat for local audiences. Seeing the film with a roomful of people laughing along is an experience not to be missed.

Directed by May from a screenplay by Neil Simon, the film stars Charles Grodin as a man who deserts his new bride (Jeannie Berlin) on their honeymoon so he can pursue another woman (Shepherd).

In a review at the time, Charles Champlin wrote, “We are in the presence of a harsh social commentary, revealing again the dark side of Simon’s humor as well as some of Miss May’s own angers (reflected in her first feature ‘A New Leaf’) about the men having it their own way, to everyone’s discomfort.”

‘Bully’ and ‘Another Day in Paradise’

Brad Renfro, Bijou Phillips, Nick Stahl, Rachel Miner and cast in the movie “Bully.”

(Tobin Yelland / Lionsgate)

Though photographer-turned-filmmaker Larry Clark is now largely known for his 1995 debut feature “Kids,” he did go on to make other films. The New Beverly Cinema will spotlight two of his best with 2001’s “Bully” and 1998’s “Another Day in Paradise” as a double bill Monday and Tuesday.

“Bully” is based on the 1993 true story of a group of South Florida teens who murdered someone in their own circle of friends. Graphic, sweaty and sleazy, the film has an emotional and psychological intensity that makes it deeply disturbing. The cast includes Brad Renfro, Nick Stahl, Bijou Phillips, Rachel Minor, Kelli Garner, Michael Pitt, Daniel Franzese and Leo Fitzpatrick.

In a review of the film, Kevin Thomas compares “Bully” to “Over the Edge” and “River’s Edge” for its study of disaffected youth, noting, “Clark presents virtually all the young people in his film as doomed by clueless parents, a boring, arid environment saturated with images of violence and their own limited intelligence. Yet Clark so undeniably cares for these kids, illuminating their out-of-control rage and passions with such clarity, that it’s hard to dismiss him as a mere sexploitation filmmaker.”

Clark’s second feature, “Another Day in Paradise,” is still arguably his most conventional film, something of a post-Tarantino riff on “Drugstore Cowboy” as a young drug-addicted couple (Vincent Kartheiser and Natasha Gregson Wagner) fall under the tutelage of an older drug-addicted couple (James Woods and Melanie Griffith) who introduce them to a life of petty crime.

In a review, Thomas said, “‘Another Day in Paradise’ is as mercurial and reckless in tone as are its junkie characters, and Clark catches all these quicksilver shifts with unstinting perception and even compassion. As contradictory as it is energetic, the film takes as many risks as its people do and as a result strikes a highly contemporary nerve.”

A riveting and shockingly candid feature by Richard Natale chronicled the behind-the-scenes struggles between Clark, actor Woods (also a producer) and co-producer and co-writer Stephen Chin over final cut of the movie. Things reached a head on the evening of the film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, leading to this most unusual quote from Chin: “The Larry Clark that punched me out in Venice is not the Larry Clark I know as a friend.”

For his part, Clark, who checked himself into rehab soon after that incident, said the attack came after a day in which he did “about 40 interviews and had about 60 margaritas. I was out of control. I have no defense. My motto is to never plead guilty. But in this case, I plead guilty.”

The road to find steady work in Hollywood is more fraught now than ever before. The entertainment industry is in the throes of a seismic transformation, as traditional jobs are vanishing, and AI threatens to completely upend the way visual media is made and consumed. Fortunately, Ada Tseng and Jon Healey are here to help.

The writing team, both former Times editors with extensive experience covering show business, have written “Breaking Into New Hollywood,” a how-to guide like no other. Healey and Tseng interviewed hundreds of insiders both above and below the line — gaffers, casting directors, actors, writers, stunt people and many others — to provide an extensive, wide-screen view of how to break in, and what it’s like when you actually do find that dream job.

I sat down with Healey and Tseng to discuss their new book.

Ada Tseng, left, and Jon Healey.

(Ricardo DeAratanha; Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

This is the most comprehensive how-to guide for Hollywood careers I’ve ever read. Where did the impetus for the book come from?

Ada: The book started as a Hollywood careers series at the Los Angeles Times, when Jon and I were editors on a team that specialized in writing guides and explainers. As we were thinking about how to be useful to L.A. Times readers, I pitched a project to help people who were interested in getting a job in Hollywood. A lot of people come to L.A. starry-eyed with big dreams, but the film and TV industry can be pretty brutal.

As journalists, we’re Hollywood outsiders, but we had access to hundreds of professionals who were generous enough to share what they wished they knew when they were starting out. We see it like this: On behalf of the people who don’t have connections in the industry, we cold-emailed people, asked for informational interviews, picked their brains, listened to stories of what they did to build a career — and did our best to consolidate their most practical pieces of advice into an actionable guide.

Jon: A lot of folks I interviewed had similar origin stories in this respect: They knew that they wanted to work in the industry in some capacity, but they didn’t know what exactly they could do. So it made sense to do a book for that sort of person — a guide that would show an array of possible career paths to people who didn’t know what role they wanted to fill.

I feel like “How to Break into the Business” books in the past have tended to focus on positive outcomes rather than the struggle. Did you want to temper expectations, or at least make sure people think things through very thoroughly before jumping in?

Ada: We just wanted to be honest. The glamorous fantasy of Hollywood is so intoxicating. But if you’re going to work in the industry, you need to navigate the day-to-day reality of it. I don’t think we were trying to encourage or discourage anyone. I’d hope that some people would read the chapters and think, “This seems doable, and now I can make a plan,” while others would read it and think, “If I’m honest with myself, I’m someone who needs more stability in my life.” Because it’s not just a career choice. It’s a lifestyle choice.

Jon: Right, this was about expectation-setting and reality-checking. The very first interviews I did in this project were of Foley artists. An expert I interviewed said there were 40 to 50 established Foley practitioners in the U.S., and 100 to 200 folks trying to get into the field. That’s a very tough nut to crack. Then there are the Hollywood unions, which present a catch-22 to anyone trying to join their ranks — they have to do a certain number of hours in jobs covered by union contracts, but union members get first crack at all those gigs.

Your book also covers jobs above and below the line. I think many people don’t even realize how many different career opportunities exist.

Ada: There are two things we heard over and over again. People would say, “It’s incredibly important to understand what all the different departments do.” And they’d also say, “So many people — even our own colleagues in the industry — don’t understand what we do.” So we wanted to encourage newcomers to learn about all different types of jobs in Hollywood and how they work together.

Jon: Talking about the emotional components is about setting expectations too. The vast majority of people who work in Hollywood, from A-list actors to entry-level grips, are freelancers. That’s a tough life of highs and lows, and you have to prepare for that mentally as well as financially. People have to hustle for years to establish themselves, and that takes an enormous capacity for rejection. On top of that is the physical toll the work can extract, especially on the folks involved in setting up and tearing down sets. Part of the point of the book is to tell people with Hollywood dreams that they’ll need to gird themselves emotionally and physically for the work.

You also broach the subject of money and who makes what. Another novel idea for a book like this.

Ada: We consistently heard from people that it takes 5 to 7 years to make a living — and that’s if you’re successful. So unless you come from wealth, how you pay your bills when you aren’t booking gigs is an integral part of breaking into — and achieving longevity — in Hollywood.

Also, the money varies widely — depending on experience, how big the project is and other factors, but it’s good to understand the basic minimums dictated by the unions, as well as whether you’re interested in a career path where you can expect to have yearly full-time work – or if 30 weeks of employment a year is considered a really good year.

Jon: The hardest parts to write for me, and probably for Ada too, were the sections telling people in certain fields that they were expected to work for free. Happily, the industry seems to be getting better about that, albeit because it’s been forced to do so.

Ada: Although, it’s not even that you aren’t making money. You have to spend a lot of money, whether you’re taking classes, buying equipment, submitting your work for fellowships — getting your own plane tickets and hotel rooms to go to events to network or promote your work. You’re basically investing in yourself as a business.

Your sections on AI are eye-opening. It is not necessarily a career killer but, in fact, might boost employment, right?

Jon: I like to give a super long answer to this question that cites the long history of industrial revolutions, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say that technology has always been crucial to the film and TV industry, and innovations over the years have ended some livelihoods while creating others. AI tools can allow filmmakers to be more efficient, just as digital cameras and LED lights have done. That inevitably means fewer jobs per project, but also should result in more projects being green-lit. And as digital tools and streaming services eliminate barriers to entry in music, so can AI eliminate barriers to entry in film. Advocates of AI believe there will be a net increase in jobs, and time will tell whether they’re right. But there’s no question that the jobs in film and TV will be different.

Ada: This was another hard part to give advice about, because AI is rapidly evolving and there’s a lot of well-founded fear about the jobs of our generations that will be eliminated. But this book is for the next generation, and aspiring creatives need to treat AI as part of their toolkit.

Was there any common thread that runs through all of the interviews you conducted with professionals?

Ada: Everyone is deeply committed to their crafts, but what they’re most passionate about is storytelling. What I mean by that is: A costume designer, of course, is passionate about clothing, but if their main priority was beautiful clothing, they’d be a stylist or a fashion designer. Costume designers are passionate about using clothing to create a character and tell a story. Similarly, if a set decorator’s main passion was creating beautiful homes, they’d be an interior designer. But a set decorator wants to use the furniture, decor and objects to help you understand the protagonist’s backstory.

Jon: Even the most accomplished crew members and producers we talked to said they looked at their jobs as advancing someone else’s vision, not their own. They learned early on not to get invested emotionally in their best ideas because someone else — the director on a film, the showrunner on a TV series — would be the judge of which ideas to use. That’s really humbling.

What do you think is the most profound change in Hollywood as it continues to transition from theatrical and TV into streaming?

Jon: Streaming has proven to be a huge boon to long-form storytelling, at least from the viewer’s vantage point. You’d still have “Succession” without streaming, but you don’t have the quantity of “Succession”-level shows without the investment and competition from the likes of Netflix, Apple and Amazon. But the economics of streaming series are very different from those of a long-running broadcast TV show. There are fewer episodes, which means less pay for writers, actors and crew members over the course of a year. And residuals are lower for those who are entitled to them. Meanwhile, after a steady rise in the number of scripted shows released in the U.S., the volume fell sharply in 2024. So it appears that peak TV may have peaked.

For movies, the pandemic gave studios a preview of the post-theatrical world to come. Nevertheless, the industry is still struggling to come up with a coherent approach to streaming. So much of a movie’s marketing is still tied to theatrical releases, and multiplexes and studios continue to fight over how long a new movie should wait before it hits the streamers. And I wonder if there isn’t a lingering stigma for movies that are available immediately for streaming, similar to the one for movies that went straight to DVD.

Ada: It’s not just streaming. Everything that we consume from our phones — from social media content to podcasts to gaming livestreams — is not only competing with mainstream Hollywood but also becoming part of the same big entertainment ecosystem.

But on the flip side, it’s never been more possible for aspiring creatives to bypass traditional gatekeepers, make their own projects, connect directly with audiences and build their own revenue streams — even if it’s never going to be easy.

Preorder “Breaking Into New Hollywood” and read Tseng and Healey’s original Times reporting that led to the book.

Feels like a good weekend to stay in, stay cool, maybe put some peaches in a deep freeze and catch up with some favorite shows, old and new. (I’m still watching “Miami Vice,” even though my white linen suit is at the cleaners.)

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Got any home improvement projects on tap? Seems like a good time to tackle one while we take a look at the shows that might win Emmys next month for writing and directing.

Writing and directing power rankings

The writing and directing categories at this year’s Emmys could give us a couple of A-list acceptance speeches — Ben Stiller and Seth Rogen — as well as providing the usual hints about what shows will wind up prevailing in the series categories.

Let’s sketch out how the races are shaping up with our official set of power rankings, ordered from worst to first for drama, comedy and limited series. Try to see if you can read it all in a single take in honor of all the “oners” nominated.

Drama series directing

Adam Scott and Britt Lower in “Severance.”

(Apple TV+)

7. “The White Lotus.” “Amor Fati,” Mike White
Season 3 aftertaste remains as bitter as one of Timothy’s poison piña coladas.

6. “Slow Horses.” “Hello Goodbye,” Adam Randall
Another exemplary season. There’s a reason Randall recently became the first director to be hired for another go-round.

5. “Andor.” “Who Are You?,” Janus Metz
Should be required viewing for American citizens right now.

4. “The Pitt.” “7 a.m.,” John Wells
How it all began …

3. “The Pitt.” “6 p.m.,” Amanda Marsalis
And how it ended.

2. “Severance.” “Chikhai Bardo,” Jessica Lee Gagné
We finally got our Gemma episode and it was breathtaking in the ways it used visual language to convey the most heartbreaking love story this side of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

1. “Severance.” “Cold Harbor,” Ben Stiller
Innie Mark vs. Outie Mark. Frantic chases down the hallways. An impossible choice. And a marching band.

Comedy series directing

Sarah Polley, left, Catherine O’Hara and Seth Rogen in “The Studio.”

(Apple TV+)

5. “Mid-Century Modern.” “Here’s to You, Mrs. Schneiderman,” James Burrows
For those keeping score, that’s Emmy nomination No. 28 as a director for Burrows. (He has won five times.)

4. “The Bear.” “Napkins,” Ayo Edebiri
Tina’s origin story, and the episode that probably won Liza Colón-Zayas her Emmy last year. Also likely to be remembered for being Edebiri’s directorial debut and, taken with her co-writing this season’s standout “Worms,” an auspicious sign of good things to come.

3. “The Rehearsal.” “Pilot’s Code,” Nathan Fielder
In which Fielder lives the life of Sully Sullenberger, from baby to adult, complete with a puppet mom and an unforgettable lactation scene.

2. “Hacks.” “A Slippery Slope,” Lucia Aniello
Blueprint for Colbert’s last episode?

1. “The Studio.” “The Oner,” Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
Not my favorite “Studio” episode (that would be “The Pediatric Oncologist”) but an obvious choice to take this category.

Limited / TV movie directing

Owen Cooper, left, and Stephen Graham in “Adolescence.”

(Netflix )

6. “Sirens.” “Exile,” Nicole Kassell
It was not a good year for limited series.

5. “Zero Day,” Lesli Linka Glatter
Seriously.

4. “Dying for Sex.” “It’s Not That Serious,” Shannon Murphy
La petite mort onward to the last roundup. Que Dieu te garde, Molly.

3. “The Penguin.” “A Great or Little Thing,” Jennifer Getzinger
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any darker, the show’s finale went there.

2. “The Penguin,” “Cent’Anni,” Helen Shaver
The series’ best episode and why Cristin Milioti will probably win the Emmy.

1. “Adolescence,” Philip Barantini
Every episode was a oner.

Drama series writing

Tramell Tillman in “Severance.”

(Apple TV+)

6. “Slow Horses.” “Hello Goodbye,” Will Smith
To my great and everlasting surprise, “Slow Horses” won this Emmy last year, meaning that however long it lasts — and there will be at least two more seasons — it will have triumphed at least once.

5. “The White Lotus.” “Full–Moon Party,” Mike White
I’m a little like Saxon after his hookup with his brother in this episode, wanting to pretend it — and the whole season — never happened.

4. “The Pitt.” “7 a.m.,” R. Scott Gemmill
This is such a wonderfully written episode, introducing us to a couple of dozen characters, establishing them and the setting and doing so in a tight 53 minutes.

3. “Andor.” “Welcome to the Rebellion,” Dan Gilroy
There’s so much respect for what the Gilroy brothers did with “Andor” that you could see voters having a strong impulse to reward it.

2. “The Pitt.” “2 p.m.,” Joe Sachs
You remember how this episode ends? The honor walk for Nick? I am getting tears in my eyes typing this sentence. And that was just one element in an episode that left me so gutted that I had to sequester myself after it ended before I could even choke out a word or two with my wife.

1. “Severance.” “Cold Harbor,” Dan Erickson
Trippy, emotionally fraught season finale that’ll probably win since loyalists of “The Pitt” have two choices in this category.

Comedy series writing

Jean Smart in “Hacks.”

(Jake Giles Netter / HBO Max)

6. “What We Do in the Shadows.” “The Finale,” Sam Johnson, Sarah Naftalis and Paul Simms
They shut the casket one final time, satisfying nearly everyone who loved the show for six seasons.

5. “Somebody Somewhere.” “AGG,” Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen and Bridget Everett
Another series finale, a near-perfect summation of the show’s lovely blend of joy and melancholy.

4. “Abbott Elementary.” “Back to School,” Quinta Brunson
Solid season opener of a series that has crossed over into “taken-for-granted” status.

3. “The Rehearsal.” “Pilot’s Code,” Nathan Fielder, Carrie Kemper, Adam Locke-Norton and Eric Notarnicola
“It was difficult at first to inhabit the mind of a baby. I know so much more than babies do, and it can be hard to forget all that stuff. So I tried not to think about the fact that I was a 41-year-old man and just did my best to be present in the moment.”

2. “The Studio.” “The Promotion,” Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez
The episode that started it all and made me more interested to see a “Kool-Aid” movie than practically anything that an actual studio released this summer.

1. “Hacks.” “A Slippery Slope,” Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky
“Hacks” has won this Emmy twice in its first three seasons, and the dramatic episode — Deborah loves Ava more than her dream job! — seems a spot to prevent a “Studio” sweep.

Limited / TV movie writing

Christine Tremarco and Stephen Graham in “Adolescence.”

(Netflix )

5. “Say Nothing.” “The People in the Dirt,” Joshua Zetumer
Car bombs, hunger strikes, political assassinations.

4. “Black Mirror.” “Common People,” Charlie Brooker and Bisha K. Ali
Technology really is going to destroy us, isn’t it?

3. “Dying for Sex.” “Good Value Diet Soda,” Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether
Of course, we’re all gonna die anyway. Might as well indulge.

2. “The Penguin.” “A Great or Little Thing,” Lauren LeFranc
After all, evil and depravity win out in the end.

1. “Adolescence,” Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham
So hug your children tonight.

New Delhi, India – What if Michael had died instead of Sonny in The Godfather? Or if Rose had shared the debris plank, and Jack hadn’t been left to freeze in the Atlantic in Titanic*?

Eros International, one of India’s largest production houses, with more than 4,000 films in its catalogue, has decided to explore this sort of what-if scenario. It has re-released one of its major hits, Raanjhanaa, a 2013 romantic drama, in cinemas – but has used artificial intelligence (AI) to change its tragic end, in which the male lead dies.

In the AI-altered version, Kundan (played by popular actor Dhanush), a Hindu man who has a doomed romance with a Muslim woman, lives. But the film’s director, Aanand L Rai, is furious.

“The idea that our work can be taken and modified by a machine, then dressed up as innovation, is deeply disrespectful,” Rai said, adding that the entire film crew had been kept in the dark about the re-release.

“What makes it worse is the complete ease and casualness with which it’s been done,” said Rai. “It is a reckless takeover that strips the work of its intent, its context, and its soul.”

This is the first time a film studio has re-released a movie with AI alterations, anywhere in the world, and it has also caused an uproar among critics, filmmakers and film lovers.

Here is what we know so far about why this move has been so controversial, and what the legal and ethical issues are.

How has the film been altered?

Eros International, a prominent film studio, has re-released a Tamil-dubbed version of the film, Raanjhanaa, titled Ambikapathy, with an alternate, AI-generated ending.

This altered version, which significantly deviates from the original film’s climax, screened at cinemas in Tamil Nadu, a southern Indian state, on August 1.

At the end of the original movie, the lead male character, Kundan, lies dead, covered in bruises from his injuries, in a hospital with his lover sitting by his side, crying. In the AI-altered ending, however, Kundan does not die. Instead, he opens his eyes and starts to stand up.

How have people reacted to the re-release?

The release of the AI-altered version prompted immediate objections from the film’s original creators. Dhanush, a Tamil actor, issued a statement noting that “this alternate ending stripped the film of its soul” and that the re-release had “completely disturbed” him.

With its changed ending, Ranjhaanna is “not the film I committed to 12 years ago”, he said. The actor added that the use of AI to alter films “is a deeply concerning precedent for both art and artists [that] threatens the integrity of storytelling and the legacy of cinema”.

Rai, the director, shared a detailed note on Instagram condemning the move. “Let me say this as clearly as I can: I do not support or endorse the AI-altered version … It is unauthorised. And whatever it claims to be, it is not the film we intended, or made.”

“This was never just a film to us. It was shaped by human hands, human flaws, and human feeling,” Rai added. “To cloak a film’s emotional legacy in a synthetic cape without consent is not a creative act. It’s an abject betrayal of everything we built.”

Richard Allen, professor of film and media art at City University of Hong Kong, said it seems inevitable that AI-altering will become a mainstream method of filmmaking in global film industries.

“If producers think they can make more money out of old content by using AI, they will do so,” Allen told Al Jazeera.

Is AI-altering legal?

Rai has said that he is investigating legal options to challenge the re-release of this movie.

Eros International insists that its actions are perfectly legal, however, and has refused to retract the re-release.

“This re-release is not a replacement – it is a creative reinterpretation, clearly labelled and transparently positioned,” said Pradeep Dwivedi, chief executive of Eros International Media.

Dwivedi noted that under Indian copyright law, the producer of a film (in this case, Eros International) is deemed its author and primary rights-holder, meaning that the production house is the first owner of copyright for the film.

He said the film studio is “the exclusive producer and copyright holder, holds full legal and moral rights” under Indian laws. He described the alternate ending to the movie as “a new emotional lens to today’s audiences”.

The studio, which has released more than 4,000 movies globally, will “embrace generative AI as the next frontier in responsible storytelling”, Dwivedi said, adding that Eros International is “uniquely positioned to bridge cinematic legacy with future-ready formats”.

What about the ethics of this?

Mayank Shekhar, an Indian film critic, said the real issue with AI-altering is one of ethics: doing it without the expressed consent of the creators – writer, director and actors – involved.

“What’s left then is simply the legalese of who owns the copyright, or who paid for the product, and is hence the sole producer, and therefore the owner of the work,” Shekhar said. “Technically, I suppose, or so it seems, what Eros has done isn’t illegal – it’s certainly unethical.”

In his statement, Eros International’s Dwivedi said that every era of cinema has faced the clash between “Luddites and Progressives”. He added: “When sound replaced silence, when colour replaced black-and-white, when digital challenged celluloid, and now, when AI meets narrative.”

Dwivedi insisted that reimagining the movie’s ending was not “artificial storytelling,” but “augmented storytelling, a wave of the future”.

Has AI been used to alter films before?

AI has not been used to alter the storyline of an existing movie by its own producers or crew for re-release before this.

However, it has been used for post-production purposes in movies – such as voice dubbing or computer-generated imagery (CGI) enhancements. Its use was a flashpoint in Hollywood during the labour protests of 2023, which resulted in new guidelines for the use of the technology.

In an interview, The Brutalist’s Oscar-nominated editor, David Jancso, said that the production had used a Ukrainian software company, Respeecher, to make the lead actors, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, sound more “authentic” when they spoke Hungarian in the film.

Similarly, filmmaker David Fincher supervised a 4K restoration of his celebrated crime-thriller, “Se7en” for its 30th anniversary this year, using AI to correct technical flaws in focus and colour.

Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO, said last month that the company had used generative AI to produce visual effects for the first time on screen in its original series, El Eternauta, or The Eternaut. Netflix has also been exploring the use of trailers personalised for subscribers’ user profiles.

Reuters reported that Netflix had also tested AI to synchronise actors’ lip movements with dubbed dialogue to “improve the viewing experience”, quoting company sources.

Will AI alterations become the norm in cinema?

Allen said the alteration to Raanjhanaa felt different from the way AI has been used to enhance movies in the past. “There are so many things that AI doctoring might do to a movie,” he said.

However, he added: “We won’t necessarily lose sight of the definitive version, unless newly released versions are mislabelled as restorations or original versions of the movies themselves, which goes back to the ethical frameworks.”

Shekhar said: “The larger issue is simply of regulation. AI is too new for laws to catch up yet.

“The fact is, a work of art ought to be protected from predators. And respected for its own worth, whether or not somebody likes the ending of a film!”

An alternative ending to a film also needs to be plausible.

In 2022, Titanic director James Cameron said he commissioned a forensic analysis, involving a hypothermia expert, that proved there would have been no way for both Jack and Rose to survive on that infamous floating door. Jack “had to die”, Cameron said then.

And AI can’t change that science.

The hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” is making its way to the big screen on Sept. 5.

Lin-Manuel Miranda announced the theatrical release date for the Tony Award-winning musical Tuesday night during an interview on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

“We always wanted to release it theatrically, but then the pandemic hit and so we decided to release it on streaming, so that everyone could see it at home whenever they wanted,” Miranda said on the show. “[Soon] you will be able to see ‘Hamilton’ in movie theaters nationwide and in Puerto Rico.”

The show’s cinematic release marks a major milestone: It’s been nearly 10 years since the off-Broadway premiere of “Hamilton,” which was based on the life of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father of the United States. Created by Miranda, who also composed the music, lyrics and book, the hip-hop- and R&B-inflected musical used source material from “Alexander Hamilton,” a 2004 biography written by Ron Chernow. The musical went on to win 11 Tony Awards, including best musical, and the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2016.

The film was shot in June 2016, during a live performance at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, and features much of the original cast. This includes Miranda as Alexander Hamilton; Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr; Renée Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler and Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton.

The film was originally slated for release in movie theaters in October 2021. Disney paid $75 million for worldwide movie rights in 2020 and released it later that year exclusively on its streaming platform; the film went on to win two Emmy Awards in 2021.

The “Hamilton” anniversary is being celebrated in more ways than one. Prior to Miranda’s “Tonight Show” interview, Madame Tussauds New York unveiled a wax figure of Miranda dressed as Alexander Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

Two special performances of the hit musical will also take place at the same theater today. Every actor who has performed on the Broadway musical since its opening has been invited, according to the Associated Press.

Attendees for the matinee were already selected via a lottery process and the evening performance is an invite-only fundraiser for the Immigrants: We Get the Job Done Coalition — a host of 14 immigrant service organizations that uplift immigrant communities across the country.

Tickets for the film are now available for purchase.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

As awards season begins to take shape, this week the New York Film Festival announced its closing night selection: the world premiere of Bradley Cooper’s “Is This Thing On?”

Starring Will Arnett and Laura Dern as a couple on the brink of splitting up when he immerses himself in the world of stand-up comedy, the film has been described as a “pivot” from Cooper’s previous directing efforts “A Star Is Born” and “Maestro.”

Will Arnett in Bradley Cooper’s “Is This Thing On?,” which will have its world premiere on closing night of the New York Film Festival.

(Jason McDonald / Searchlight Pictures)

Dennis Lim, artistic director of the NYFF, said that in putting together a program each year, he doesn’t mind drawing from films that have already premiered at festivals throughout the year, including Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Telluride, Toronto and others.

“How do we make a case for cinema as an art form that is still vital and relevant? I think programming the New York Film Festival is answering this question,” said Lim. “If I’m going to put forward a list of films that makes the case for cinema as an art form that matters today in 2025, which are the films that I’m going to put forward as evidence? The program is our answer to that question.”

John Woo on Hong Kong action cinema

Chow Yun-fat, left, and Danny Lee in John Woo’s “The Killer.”

(Shout! Studios)

The stylish, delirious action cinema that emerged from Hong Kong in the late 1980s and early 1990s redefined the genre, creating a visual grammar and thematic template that is still wildly influential to this day. The American Cinematheque and Beyond Fest, in partnership with Shout! Studios and GKIDS, are launching “Hong Kong Cinema Classics,” a series to celebrate these explosively exciting films.

Due to tangled rights issues, many of these movies have been largely out of circulation in the U.S. for years. To have them now remastered in 4K from original camera negatives is a thrill and puts them back in front of audiences where they belong.

The series will launch Saturday with the U.S. premiere of the new restoration of John Woo’s 1992 “Hard Boiled,” his final film made in Hong Kong before coming to the U.S., starring Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung and Anthony Wong. Woo himself will be present for the screening at the Egyptian Theatre and will return on Sunday for 1989’s “The Killer” and a triple-bill of the “A Better Tomorrow” trilogy.

Other films in the series include Woo’s “Bullet in the Head,” Ringo Lam’s 1987 “City on Fire,” Tsui Hark’s “Peking Opera Blues” and Ching Siu-tung’s trilogy of “A Chinese Ghost Story” films.

Director John Woo, photographed in Los Angeles in 2023.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

After relocating to America in 1993, Woo would go on to make a string of English-language films in Hollywood such as “Hard Target,” “Broken Arrow,” “Face/Off,” “Mission: Impossible 2” and “Windtalkers” as well as the more recent “Silent Night” and a 2024 remake of “The Killer.”

Speaking from his home in Los Angeles recently, Woo noted what it means to him that audiences still respond to his Hong Kong films.

“I so appreciate all the fans — for all these years they still give me great support,” said Woo, 78. “That’s why I’m so excited. It’s hard to believe that after so many years, I still have a chance to meet the audience and the audience is still excited about it. So I’m very proud.”

The Hong Kong action movies celebrated in the series slowly found their way to western audiences via festival screenings, limited theatrical releases and eventually home video.

Writing about “The Killer” in 1992, The Times’ Kevin Thomas said, “Sentimentality and violence have gone hand-in-hand from the beginning of the movies, but seldom have they been carried to such extremes and played against each other with such effectiveness.”

For Woo, there was a creative freedom while making his movies at that time. Proven Hong Kong directors were often allowed to largely do what they wanted without interference.

“In the rest of the world, I’ve been told there are very clear rules for every kind of movie,” said Woo. “The comedy is comedy. Action is only for the action fan and people who enjoy the melodrama never go to see the action movie. So each kind of movie has a certain kind of audience. But for the Hong Kong film, it is so much different. We had — in one movie — a human drama, a sense of humor and then the action. We can put everything all together.”

Chow Yun-fat, left, and Tony Leung in John Woo’s “Hard Boiled.”

(Shout! Studios)

In a 1993 profile of Woo by Joe Leydon, writer-director Quentin Tarantino, then known only for his debut “Reservoir Dogs,” lavished praised on his fellow filmmaker, saying “John Woo is reinventing the whole genre. The guy is just terrific — he’s just the best one out there right now.”

Tarantino added, “After I saw ‘A Better Tomorrow,’ I went out and bought a long coat and I got sunglasses and I walked around for about a week, dressing like Chow Yun-fat. And to me, that’s the ultimate compliment for an action hero — when you want to dress like the guy.”

Woo has always been open about the influence of filmmakers such Jean-Pierre Melville, Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese on his own movies.

“I just feel like we are all in a big family,” said Woo of his enduring influence, which you can see evidence of as recently as the “John Wick” franchise. “We are all learning from each other. Every time it’s a learning process for me.”

Alex Ross Perry visits ‘Videoheaven’

Maya Hawke records the narration for Alex Ross Perry’s “Videoheaven.”

(Cinema Conservancy)

Having already released the boldly form-defying hybrid documentary “Pavements” this year, filmmaker Alex Ross Perry continues his adventurous streak with “Videoheaven,” an epic essay film about the rise and fall and continued life of video stores and their importance to film culture, with narration by Maya Hawke.

Perry will be in-person for a series of L.A. screenings this week, starting at Vidiots on Wednesday for a Q&A moderated by “The Big Picture” podcast co-host Sean Fennessey. On Thursday, the film will play at Videothèque with Perry in conversation with the store’s co-manager, Lucé Tomlin-Brenner. On Friday, Aug. 8, the film will play at the Los Feliz 3 with an introduction by Perry.

Points of interest

‘Zola’

Riley Keough, left, and Taylour Paige in “Zola.” Its director, Janicza Bravo, will attend the movie’s screening Thursday at the Academy Museum.

(Anna Kooris / A24)

The Academy Museum is screening Janicza Bravo’s 2020 “Zola” on Thursday with the filmmaker in person. Written by Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris, the film is based on a notorious 2015 Twitter thread by A’Ziah “Zola” King that chronicled an uproarious tale of a road trip gone very wrong. With a cast that includes Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun and Colman Domingo, the film plumbs disorientation and information overload both with equal skill.

Bravo, who has directed recent episodes of “The Bear” and “Too Much” (also appearing in the latter as an actor) spoke at the film’s release about balancing outrageous humor with the darker currents of its story, which touch on complex issues around sex work, sex trafficking and race.

“If it were a not funny movie about sex work and sex trafficking, I don’t think that I would be the right director for it,” said Bravo. “But A’Ziah King, who wrote this story, had imbued it with so much dark humor — you’re laughing at some of the most disturbed moments. … Her way of exorcizing her trauma — it feels so familiar to me. I feel so close to it. This is how I move through the world.”

“Zola” is screening as part of the series “American Gurl: Seeking…” which spotlights coming-of-age films about women of color. Also upcoming in the series is Martine Syms’ “The African Desperate”; Minhal Baig’s 2019 “Hala,” starring Geraldine Viswanathan; Nisha Ganatra’s “Chutney Popcorn” in 35mm with the filmmaker in conversation with Fawzia Mirza; Robert Townsend’s 1997 “B.A.P.S.” in 35mm with screenwriter Troy Byer and Spike Lee’s “Girl 6” in 35mm.

‘Taxi Zum Klo’

The 45th anniversary re-release poster for “Taxi Zum Klo.”

(Altered Innocence)

For its 45th anniversary, Frank Ripploh’s 1980 German film “Taxi Zum Klo” is returning to theaters in a new 4K restoration. A semi-autobiographical tale of a schoolteacher (played by Ripploh) exploring Berlin’s queer underground scene, the film was groundbreaking for its unapologetic candor. The film will have a limited run at the Los Feliz 3, playing on Aug. 5, 10 and 12.

In a 1981 review of the film, Sheila Benson wrote, “Films like ‘Taxi’ as so rare as to be unique, a collage of cinema journalism, an unblinking (but selective) view of homosexual life and intensely personal sexual images.”

Merle Oberon and ‘Dark Waters’

Merle Oberon, center, in 1944’s “Dark Waters.”

(United Artists / Photofest)

On Saturday the UCLA Film and Television Archive will have a 35mm screening of André de Toth’s 1944 “Dark Waters,” starring Merle Oberon. Along with the film there will be a Q&A with Mayukh Sen, author of the book “Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star,” moderated by programmer and critic Miriam Bale. Sen will also do a signing before the screening.

A tense thriller that combines elements of Southern Gothic and film noir, the movie is about an heiress (Oberon) who finds herself taking refuge at a relative’s Louisiana plantation. She becomes embroiled in local intrigues and entanglements.

Writing about the movie in 1945, Philip K. Scheuer said, “The production builds suspense rather ingeniously, and culminates in an exciting night-shrouded chase in and around the bayou. … Miss Oberon never tops her initial outburst of hysterics, which I found pretty terrifying, but it is nice to see her in the part.”

In other news

‘Cat Video Fest’ returns

An image from “Cat Video Fest 2025.”

(Oscilloscope Laboratories)

The “Cat Video Fest” is back for its eighth installment, playing at Vidiots, the Alamo Drafthouse DTLA and multiple Laemmle locations. Created and curated by Will Braden, the series has raised more than $1 million since 2019 to help shelters, support adoptions and foster care and volunteer sign-ups.

Yes, you can watch plenty of cat videos on your phone. But sitting in a theater delighting in them with an audience is something else entirely.

This is a story about a movie that saved a sport. OK, that’s a stretch, but only a little one.

Scottie Scheffler is the No. 1 golfer in the world. Has been for a couple of years. He has won two Masters titles, one PGA Championship and the recent British Open, as well as an Olympic gold medal. He is so good that somebody ought to check his golf balls for tiny magnets that hook up to the cups on the greens. So far this year, by slapping a little white dimpled ball around in the grass, he has won $19.2 million. He has yet to turn 30, but his overall income, just from golf tournaments, is around $90 million.

This guy is so good that his caddie, Ted Scott, is estimated, at the normal 10% of winnings, to have pocketed about $5 million. For carrying a bag.

So, what’s the problem?

Scheffler is so good that he might also be sparking a trend called remote remorse. You really want to watch, but once he gets ahead by a couple of shots, there is nothing left. No drama, no possible twist and turn, no chance of any excitement. Other players in those tense, title-on-the-line final holes, dunk a shot into the water or bury one so deep in the sand that their only choice of club is a shovel.

Not Scheffler. He is a 6-foot-3 human robot whose veins circulate ice water. When the going gets tough, Scheffler yawns.

Scottie Scheffler, right, and wife Meredith Scudder attend the premiere of Netflix’s “Happy Gilmore 2” on July 21 in New York.

(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)

So, you see this and you know what is coming next — final putt, arms raised in satisfaction, a hug for his multi-millionaire caddie, the mandatory TV interview with the apparently mandatory British-accent female sportscaster, who will always start with, “How does this feel?”

You, and millions more, click the button on your remote for something more interesting, like HGTV or the Gardening Channel. When Scheffler gets ahead in the final round like that — which is almost always — it is game over. He can squeeze the drama out of a golf tournament like Bill Belichick could out of an NFL postgame interview.

Certainly, you say, Tiger Woods used to win lots of tournaments by lots of big margins and that never seemed boring.

That’s because it wasn’t. Tiger was animated, angry, annoyed, analytical, fed up with some part of his game, charged up over another part, mad at a reporter, upset with his agent. Tiger could win by eight, occasionally did, and it was still must-see TV. When Tiger was at his best, nobody could beat him and the public loved him and just wanted more. Scheffler is currently at his best and the public certainly is terribly impressed and, sadly, kind of meh. Tiger was a pound-on-the-table-and-shout-at-the-TV kind of player. Scheffler is a nod and a shrug.

But there is hope. Hollywood has intervened, as only Hollywood can.

Twenty-nine years ago, an up-and-coming comic named Adam Sandler made a movie inspired by one of his New England friends, who was a great hockey player and could also hit a golf ball a long distance with a hockey stick. Sandler called the movie “Happy Gilmore” and found a wide audience that loved it for its irreverence about a game that flaunts hushed reverence.

Among the highlights was an on-course fistfight between Happy Gilmore (Sandler) and aging TV game show host Bob Barker. Barker won by KO.

The movie was hilariously overdone slapstick. It was a gut-laugh-a-minute. It was so stupid and wacky that it was wonderful.

Now, Sandler has made “Happy Gilmore 2,” and it is again a must-see for all the reasons that the original was. Plus the cameo appearances. Especially one by Scheffler.

In the movie, Scheffler is good, funny, fun. He doesn’t have a lot of lines, but he has perfect timing. He punches a guy out on the green and the cops come and haul him away. “Oh, no. Not again,” he says.

Remember, earlier this year, when Louisville cops hauled him away and put him in an orange jail suit, when he was accused of making a wrong turn while driving into the golf course at the PGA Championship, a tournament that he would eventually win? Well, Sandler and his writers made hay out of that, but more significantly, Scheffler played to it perfectly.

After the movie punch-out, Scheffler is pictured in a jail cell, in an orange jail suit, as a guard asks, since he has been in that cell for three days, if he wants to get out. Scheffler replies, “Ah, what’s for dinner?” When he is told chicken fingers, he says, “I think I’ll stay another night.”

Now, of course, none of that is knee-slapping stuff, but it is Scheffler, and the self-effacing comedy is a perfect image-enhancer, even if it is only in a stupid movie. It is so much better for golf fans to see Scheffler as a roll-with-the-punches fun guy, than an emotionless, ball-striking robot. Neither is totally accurate, but in this media world of image-is-everything, “Happy Gilmore 2” has done wonderful things for this wonderful golfer. Even moreso, for his sport

He will be all over your TV screens for the three-week FedEx playoffs. It starts Aug. 7 with a tournament in Memphis, followed by the next week in Baltimore and the grand finale Aug. 21 in East Lake, Ga., near Atlanta. For the playoffs, the PGA will distribute $100 million in prize money and the winner will receive $10 million.

Scheffler, a likely winner, would then certainly be invited to appear on TV, especially the late-night shows such as Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon. This would present another great image-building opportunity. He could show up in an orange jump suit.

SEOUL  — When South Koreans start to obsess over a movie or TV series, they abbreviate its name, a distinction given to Netflix’s latest hit “K-pop Demon Hunters.” In media headlines and in every corner of the internet, the American-made film is now universally referred to as “Keh-deh-hun” — the first three syllables of the title when read aloud in Korean.

And audiences are already clamoring for a sequel.

The animated film follows a fictional South Korean girl group named “HUNTR/X” as its three members — Rumi, Mira and Zoey — try to deliver the world from evil through the power of song and K-pop fandom.

Since its release in June, it has become the most watched original animated film in Netflix history, with millions of views worldwide, including the U.S. and South Korea, where its soundtrack has topped the charts on local music streaming platform Melon. Fans have also cleaned out the gift shop at the National Museum of Korea, which has run out of a traditional tiger pin that resembles one of the movie’s characters.

Much of the film’s popularity in South Korea is rooted in its keenly observed details and references to Korean folklore, pop culture and even national habits — the result of having a production team filled with K-pop fans, as well as a group research trip to South Korea that co-director Maggie Kang led in order to document details as minute as the appearance of local pavement.

There are nods to traditional Korean folk painting, a Korean guide to the afterlife, the progenitors of K-pop and everyday mannerisms. In one scene, at a table in a restaurant where the three girls are eating, viewers might notice how the utensils are laid atop a napkin, an essential ritual for dining out in South Korea — alongside pouring cups of water for everyone at the table.

“The more that I watch ‘Keh-deh-hun,’ the more that I notice the details,” South Korean music critic Kim Yoon-ha told local media last month. “It managed to achieve a verisimilitude that would leave any Korean in awe.”

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“K-pop Demon Hunters” has nods to traditional Korean folk painting, a Korean guide to the afterlife, the progenitors of K-pop and everyday mannerisms.

(Netflix)

Despite its subject matter and association with the “K-wave,” that catch-all term for any and all Korean cultural export, “K-pop Demon Hunters,” at least in the narrowest sense, doesn’t quite fit the bill.

Produced by Sony Pictures and directed by Korean Canadian Kang and Chris Appelhans — who has held creative roles on other animated films such as “Coraline” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” — the movie is primarily in English and geared toward non-Korean audiences. But its popularity in South Korea is another sign that the boundaries of the K-wave are increasingly fluid — and that, with more and more diaspora Korean artists entering the mix, it flows in the opposite direction, too.

Those barriers have already long since broken down in music: many K-pop artists and songwriters are non-Korean or part of the Korean diaspora, reflecting the genre’s history of foreign influences such as Japanese pop or American hip-hop.

“Once a cultural creation acquires a universality, you can’t just confine it to the borders of the country of origin, which is where K-pop is today,” said Kim Il-joong, director of the content business division at the Korea Creative Content Agency, a government body whose mission is to promote South Korean content worldwide. “Despite what the name ‘K-pop’ suggests, it is really a global product.”

In “K-pop Demon Hunters,” Zoey is a rapper from Burbank. In addition, the soundtrack was written and performed by a team that includes producers, artists and choreographers associated with some of the biggest real-life K-pop groups of the past decade.

Streaming productions are increasingly flying multiple flags, too: Apple TV’s “Pachinko” or Netflix’s “XO, Kitty” are both American productions that were filmed in South Korea. But few productions have been able to inspire quite the same level of enthusiasm as “K-pop Demon Hunters,” whose charm for many South Koreans is how accurately it captures local idiosyncrasies and contemporary life.

While flying in their private jet, the three girls are shown sitting on the floor even though there is a sofa right beside them. This tendency to use sofas as little more than backrests is an endless source of humor and self-fascination among South Koreans, most of whom would agree that the centuries-old custom of sitting on the floor dies hard.

South Korean fans and media have noted that the characters correctly pronounce “ramyeon,” or Korean instant noodles. The fact that ramyeon is often conflated with Japanese ramen — which inspired the invention of the former decades ago — has long been a point of exasperation for many South Koreans and local ramyeon companies, which point to the fact that the Korean adaption has since evolved into something distinct.

It’s a small difference — the Korean version is pronounced “rah myun” — but one that it pays to get right in South Korea.

Apple TV’s “Pachinko,” with Sungkyu Kim, Eunchae Jung and Minha Kim, is an American production filmed in South Korea.

(Apple)

The girls’ cravings for ramyeon during their flight also caught the eye of Ireh, a member of the real-life South Korean girl group Purple Kiss who praised the film’s portrayals of life as a K-pop artist.

“I don’t normally eat ramyeon but whenever I go on tour, I end up eating it,” she said in a recent interview with local media. “The scene reminded me of myself.”

South Korean fans have also been delighted by a pair of animals, Derpy and Sussy, which borrow from jakhodo, a genre of traditional Korean folk painting in which tigers and magpies are depicted side by side, popularized during the Joseon Dynasty in the 19th century.

In the film, Derpy is the fluorescent tiger with goggle eyes that always appears with its sidekick, a three-eyed bird named Sussy.

“K-pop Demon Hunters” is peppered with homages to Korean artists throughout history who are seen today as the progenitors of contemporary K-pop.

(Netflix)

Though they have long since been extinct, tigers were once a feared presence on the Korean peninsula, at times coming down from the mountains to terrorize the populace. They were also revered as talismans that warded off evil spirits. But much like Derpy itself, jakhodo reimagined tigers as friendlier, oftentimes comical beings. Historians have interpreted this as the era’s political satire: the magpie, audacious in the presence of a great predator, represented the common man standing up to the nobility.

The movie is peppered with homages to Korean artists throughout history who are seen today as the progenitors of contemporary K-pop. There are apparent nods to the “Jeogori Sisters,” a three-piece outfit that was active from 1939 to 1945 and is often described as Korea’s first girl group, followed by the Kim Sisters, another three-piece that found success in the U.S., performing in Las Vegas and appearing on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

Longtime K-pop fans might recognize the demon hunters from the 1990s as S.E.S., a pioneering girl group formed by S.M. Entertainment, the label behind present-day superstars Aespa and Red Velvet. (Bada, S.E.S.’s main vocalist, recently covered “Golden,” the film’s headline track, on YouTube.)

For a long time, South Korean audiences have often complained about outside depictions of the country as inauthentic and out of touch. Not anymore.

“Korea wasn’t just shown as an extra add-on as it has been for so long,” Kim said. “‘K-pop Demon Hunters’ did such a great job depicting Korea in a way that made it instantly recognizable to audiences here.”

A 80s movie bombshell looked unrecognizable after becoming the ‘world’s richest actress’ – despite quitting Hollywood.

The star, now 59, appeared alongside a popular TV actor in a classic 80s film.

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One of her early films, 1981’s Endless Love, was Tom Cruise‘s film debut.

The actress’ most recent regular role on television ended in 2014.

Jami Gertz appeared in 1987 flick The Lost Boys, starring alongside Kiefer Sutherland, who played David.

She played the role of Star, a member of David’s vampire gang, and is a half-vampire after resisting the urge for human blood.

Almost four decades on, Jami looked unrecognisable as she enjoyed lunch in West Hollywood.

The star headed to the San Vicente Bungalows – an exclusive private members club known for its celebrity clientele.

She wore a powder blue shirt, accompanied by white trousers and an orange satchel.

According to MailOnline, Jami is reported to be the “richest actress in the world.”

In 1989, she tied the knot with businessman Tony Ressler – who became a major player in private equity.

The now-64-year-old co-founded Apollo Global Mangement and Ares Management.

Forbes’ prestigious annual list reports Tony is currently credited as being worth $14.2 billion.

Elsewhere, Jami herself is reportedly worth a staggering $12 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth.

Jami and Tony own the Atlanta Hawks basketball team, having acquired it in 2015.

They made the purchase alongside former basketball player Grant Hill.

Meanwhile, Tony was previously a contender to buy Chelsea Football Club.

On television, Jami most recently starred in sci-fi sitcom The Neighbors.

Created by This Is Us boss Dan Fogelman, she portrayed Debbie Weaver.

Her most recent film, romantic comedy I Want You Back, was released in 2022.

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Daniel Craig fans can tune into the hit thriller free of charge

A James Bond film that has been hailed as the best movie of the entire spy franchise is now streaming for free.

Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sam Mendes, Skyfall has just been added to ITVX, ready for action fans to devour.

The 2012 thriller, which stars Daniel Craig in the leading 007 role, received overwhelming praise upon its debut.

It follows Bond as he chases an assassin through the streets of Istanbul in a bid to recover a stolen list exposing the identities of MI6 secret agents.

When the mission goes terribly wrong, Chief M (Dame Judi Dench) is forced to take extreme measures to preserve the agency.

Craig shares the screen with Naomie Harris, who Bond enthusiasts will recognise from other films in the franchise.

Other notable cast members include Oscar winner Javier Bardem, 28 Years Later star Ralph Fiennes and French actress Bérénice Marlohe.

As you’d expect from this stellar ensemble, Skyfall was an instant hit.

It bagged a rare 92% Rotten Tomatoes score, where critics raved: “Sam Mendes brings Bond surging back with a smart, sexy, riveting action thriller that qualifies as one of the best 007 films to date.”

What’s more, the spy drama earned five Oscar nominations, including nods in the Best Cinematography, Best Original Score and Best Sound Mixing categories.

Ultimately, the thriller won the Oscars for Best Sound Editing and Best Original Song. The latter was awarded to Adele for her hit song, Skyfall.

Moviegoers were captivated by the film, with one Google reviewer gushing: “By far the best Bond Movie I’ve ever seen especially given the amazing performances of Javier Braden.”

A second agreed: “Skyfall in my view is the best Bond film ever made. No Time To Die is good but this Bond film will always have the edge above others.”

Meanwhile, an IMDb user shared: “This is one of the best Bond movies I have ever seen.

“The story is superbly put together and has some interesting twists, the action is well done and contains none of the shaky cam which plagued the last film. The actors all do a great job.”

Skyfall is streaming now on ITVX

It was clobberin’ time this weekend, as Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” nabbed the top spot at the box office with a performance that returned the Walt Disney Co.-owned superhero franchise to form.

The movie hauled in $118 million in the U.S. and Canada and grossed $218 million globally in its opening weekend. The film, which stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn, is just the latest remake of the comic book property, though the first under Walt Disney Co.’s ownership.

Formerly owned by 21st Century Fox, “The Fantastic Four” is one of several key intellectual properties now under the umbrella of the House of Mouse after its $71.3-billion acquisition of that studio’s entertainment assets in 2019.

Disney has already capitalized on its ownership of the “Deadpool” and “X-Men” properties — its 2024 film, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” garnered more than $1 billion in global box office revenue.

Fox produced and released three “Fantastic Four” movies, none of which were well-received by audiences or critics. A 2015 reboot was particularly reviled.

Quality was not an issue this time. The movie notched a 88% approval rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and an “A-” grade from audience polling firm CinemaScore.

The movie exceeded pre-release estimates. “First Steps” was expected to gross $100 million to $110 million in its debut weekend, on a reported budget of about $200 million.

The theatrical reception for “The Fantastic Four” is a relief for Disney and Marvel, which has struggled in recent years to reap the box office earnings it once did with its superhero films.

The Anthony Mackie-led “Captain America: Brave New World” received middling reviews from critics and brought in about $415 million in global box office revenue. Ensemble movie “Thunderbolts*” received strong reviews, but made only $382 million worldwide.

Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said earlier this year that the company “lost a little focus” in its zeal to produce more shows and movies for the Disney+ streaming platform, acknowledging that “quantity does not necessarily beget quality.”

“By consolidating a bit and having Marvel focus much more on their films, we believe it will result in better quality,” he said during an earnings call with analysts in May.

Anticipation was high for “The Fantastic Four,” and Disney went all out with the marketing. The company hired a skywriter to craft encircled 4’s in the sky near downtown Los Angeles on the day of the premiere and featured a drone show outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion after the showing.

“While Marvel films have settled into a fairly predictable core audience after multiple under-cooked films and streaming series in the post-’Avengers: Endgame’ era, the brand remains sturdy when the right film comes along,” Shawn Robbins, director of movie analytics at Fandango and founder of site Box Office Theory, wrote in a weekend theatrical forecast published Wednesday.

Warner Bros.’ DC Studios’ “Superman” came in second at the box office this weekend with a domestic total of $24.9 million for a worldwide gross so far of $503 million.

British actor Micheal Ward, known for the Netflix series “Top Boy” and and most recently Ari Aster’s movie “Eddington,” is facing charges of allegedly raping and sexually assaulting a woman in the United Kingdom in 2023.

London’s Metropolitan Police announced in a Friday statement that prosecutors had charged BAFTA winner Ward, 28, with two counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault following an investigation into an alleged January 2023 incident. The statement did not provide details about the incident, including the location and the identity of Ward’s accuser.

“Our specialist officers continue to support the woman who has come forward — we know investigations of this nature can have significant impact on those who make reports,” Det. Supt. Scott Ware said in the statement.

Representatives for Ward did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment Friday. The actor is due to appear at Thames Magistrates’ Court in London on Aug. 28.

Ward, who was born in Jamaica, broke into acting less than a decade ago, appearing in the British drama series “Top Boy” and rapper Rapman’s 2019 film “Blue Story.” He won BAFTA’s rising star award in 2020. That same year he appeared in “The Old Guard” opposite Charlize Theron and in Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” miniseries.

His movie credits also include Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light,” “The Book of Clarence,” “Bob Marley: One Love” and “The Beautiful Game.” He currently stars as a young police officer in “Eddington,” the latest film from “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” filmmaker Aster.

After starring in several back-to-back projects over the past six months, Jack Quaid has been eager to finally settle in for a bit.

“It’s amazing that I get to do this job, but I do find myself missing home a lot,” Quaid says from his Los Angeles apartment, which he shares with his girlfriend and “The Boys” co-star Claudia Doumit. “So it will be nice to really connect with the people I grew up with and the place I’m from.”

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

Quaid kicked off his jam-packed year with the sci-fi thriller “Companion,” and a couple of months later, he transformed into a superhero who feels no pain in “Novocaine.” Shortly after, he co-starred in a crime thriller called “Neighborhood Watch,” and he traveled across the pond to London to star in “Heads of State” with Idris Elba, John Cena, and Priyanka Chopra, which is now streaming on Prime Video.

When we hop on a Zoom call, Quaid has recently returned to L.A. after shooting the fifth and final season of “The Boys,” Prime Video’s superhero dramedy.

“I’ve really grown up on that show,” says Quaid, who dedicated an Instagram post to “The Boys” with a collection of bloody selfies. “I worked a bit before, but that show was really like actor boot camp.”

Quaid talked about his perfect Sunday in L.A., which involves taking a “giant walk” to visit all of his favorite spots, including a comic book store, coffee shop and a classic diner. If it were up to him, the action star would break the laws of physics and be in more than one place at a time. For now, sadly, that only works in superhero movies.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

7:30 a.m.: Coffee, records and backgammon

Claudia or I will usually make coffee. We kind of have a whole morning routine. Not to sound too douchey, but I’m never really here or at least I haven’t been in the past year, so every time I’m home, I just want to take it in. The one constant every day is that we wake up, have coffee and put a record on. It’s usually “Pink Moon” by Nick Drake or “Super Sad Generation” by Arlo Parks. Sometimes it’s Marty Robbins’ “Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs,” which is a good one. Just stuff that starts the day off in kind of a chill way.

We’ll go out onto our balcony, have our coffee and play backgammon. Backgammon is something I learned on the set of “The Boys.” It’s just such a fun game that keeps your mind active. You’re not on your phone and it’s nice to play with someone that you love, obviously.

10 a.m.: Fill up my tote bag with new comics

I usually go for a giant walk. L.A. is not a walkable city, but I’m trying to make it one. I love my local businesses and coffee shops, and I try to be a regular whenever I can. I typically will walk to my favorite comic book shop in L.A. called Golden Apple. I started going there to get all the issues of “The Boys” to research the comic. I was really into comics when I was younger, and then recently, I’ve gotten very into comics. My specification is that it can’t be about superheroes. No disrespect to those comics, but I’m in that world a lot.

I really started getting into this writer named James Tynion IV. I stared reading “Something Is Killing the Children” and I got obsessed with it, and that kind of spawned this new comic renaissance for me. I just go to the shop, I talk to the guy who works at the store and he recommends new books to me and I just love that.

11 a.m.: Feel nostalgic at my favorite diner

I’d probably walk all the way to Swingers Diner and meet up with a friend. I used to go there with my sketch comedy group — we would write there a lot. Everyone who works there is amazing and that place is legendary. I grew up in Santa Monica and I used to go to that location which used to have purple cows on the walls. I think that closed, which is unfortunate. Back then, I’d be doing a school play and that’s where everybody would go after a performance.

Typically, I get the protein breakfast with quinoa, egg whites and chicken. Very boring. But on my ideal Sunday, I’d get something involving bananas, pancakes and peanut butter. I’d want to sit and eat on the [patio] area. If it has a little bit of tree shade, I’m in.

1:30 p.m.: Coffee break

Then I would go to Coffee for Sasquatch, which is amazing. My sketch comedy group is called Sasquatch so I feel like I have to go in there. Since it’s my ideal Sunday, I’ll kind of eschew any dietary restrictions. Usually I have black coffee, but I’d get their frozen blended coffee with almond milk, which is basically a milkshake. I can’t remember the name, but It’s so good and it gets you that caffeine buzz. I’d probably have my headphones on, listening to music and reading comics.

4 p.m.: Video games and virtual photography

I think that 4 p.m. is my least favorite time of day. It’s not quite settling down in the evening. The sun is still high in the sky. There’s something about it that I just don’t like, so I’d probably want to go home. My internal clock wherever I am just knows it’s 4 p.m. and I get a little sad.

I’ve gotten really into virtual photography. A lot of games have a photo mode where you can pause the game and put a digital camera anywhere in the 3D space. There’s like lenses and filters, and it’s kind of inspired me to do photography in the real world if I can. It’s really calming so I think I would need that around 4 p.m.

5 p.m.: Run down Sunset Boulevard

5 p.m. is fine because the sun is starting to set and that’s cool. I’d probably go for like a giant jog. I’d basically go to where Book Soup is and then head back. Some of it’s on Sunset Boulevard, which is kind of overwhelming but it’s nice to see the new billboards in town. I’d jog by the Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory. I’m an anxious person and jogging is good for anxiety.

7 p.m.: Mexican food with friends

At 7 p.m., I’d assemble the biggest group of people I know who are in town, including my group of high school friends and their partners, to go to a classic Mexican restaurant. My favorite thing to do in L.A. is to eat authentic Mexican food. L.A. is better with these places here. It’s just what makes L.A. L.A. to me. So I’d go to any restaurant with “El” in the title. The three big “El’s” to me are El Compadre, El Coyote and El Carmen. They’re all delicious and they have so much history to them, which I love. I was literally at El Coyote last night. I always order a combo of shrimp and chicken fajitas, and I’d get a spicy margarita or three of them. I’m a giant spice fan.

9 p.m.: Watch “Jaws” in a cemetery

My favorite thing to do in L.A., period, and I’ve been doing it since high school, is to go to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to watch a movie. There’s this company called Cinespia that does screenings of classic movies. I say it’s in a cemetery and people go, “Why are you doing that?” But it’s on this big grassy field and — at least they say — you’re not on top of dead bodies. People bring a blanket, wine, snacks and everyone just watches a movie.

But let’s say we want to go see a movie that’s currently in theaters. In the fantasy of my perfect Sunday, the ArcLight is back. That was a big pandemic loss for me because that was my favorite movie theater I think I’d ever been to. When you came out of the theater, you’d talk about it with everyone. I loved the employees doing the intro of the movie. I’d love to manifest another dream. ArcLight was the best place to be a moviegoer, so I want to have a hand in creating something like that in L.A. again.

12 a.m.: Canter’s and cartoons before bed

I’d probably go home and fall asleep to “The Simpsons” or “Futurama.” That’s usually the way that Claudia and I go down. But if I’m still hungry, I’d order take out from Canter’s Deli cause I’ve had three margaritas and that’s the best place to have some good greasy, classic L.A. diner food. I’d get a turkey Reuben with some thick french fries. Then I’d like to go to bed late on my perfect Sunday like around 1 a.m. I’d like to relish in that as long as I can.

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” slots into summer blockbuster season like a square peg in a round popcorn bucket. Prestige TV director Matt Shakman (“WandaVision”) isn’t inclined to pretzel himself like the flexible Reed Richards to please all four quadrants of the multiplex. His staid superhero movie plays like classic sci-fi in which adults wearing sweater vests solemnly brainstorm how to resolve a crisis. Watching it, I felt as snug as being nestled in the backseat of my grandparents’ car at the drive-in.

This reboot of the Fantastic Four franchise — the third in two decades — is lightyears closer to 1951’s “The Day the Earth Stood Still” than it is to the frantic, over-cluttered superhero epics that have come to define modern entertainment. Set on Earth 828, an alternate universe that borrows our own Atomic Age decor, it doesn’t just look old, it moves old. The tone and pace are as sure-footed as globe-gobbling Galactus, this film’s heavy, purposefully marching into alt-world Manhattan. Even its tidy running time is from another epoch. Under two hours? Now that’s vintage chic.

“First Steps” picks up several years after four astronauts — Reed (Pedro Pascal), his wife, Sue (Vanessa Kirby), his brother-in-law Johnny (Joseph Quinn) and his best friend Ben (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) — get themselves blasted by cosmic rays that endow them with special powers. You may know the leads better as, respectively, Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Thing. For mild comic relief, they also pal around with a robot named H.E.R.B.I.E., voiced by Matthew Wood.

Skipping their origin story keeps things tight while underlining the idea that these are settled-down grown-ups secure in their abilities to lengthen, disappear, ignite and clobber. Fans might argue they should be a bit more neurotic; screenplay structuralists will grumble they have no narrative arc. The mere mortals of Earth 828 respect the squad for their brains and their brawn — they’re celebrities in a genteel pre-paparazzi time — but these citizens are also prone to despair when they aren’t sure Pascal’s workaholic daddy will save them.

Lore has it Stan Lee was a married, middle-aged father aging out of writing comic books when his beloved spouse, Joan, elbowed him to develop characters who felt personal. The graying, slightly boring Reed was a loose-limbed version of himself: the ultimate wife guy with the ultimate wife.

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But Hollywood has aged-down Lee’s “quaint quartet,” as he called them, at its own peril. Make the Fantastic Four cool (as the movies have repeatedly tried and failed to do) and they come across as desperately lame. This time, Shakman and the script’s four-person writing team of Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer valorize their lameness and restore their dignity. Pascal’s Mr. Fantastic is so buttoned-down that he tucks his tie into his dress shirt.

The scenario is that Sue is readying to give birth to the Richards’ first child just as the herald Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), a.k.a. the Silver Surfer, barrels into the atmosphere to politely inform humanity that her boss Galactus (voiced by Ralph Ineson) has RSVP-ed yes to her invitation that he devour their planet. In a biologically credible touch, the animators have added tarnish to her cleavage: “I doubt she was naked,” Reed says evenly. “It was probably a stellar polymer.”

Typically, this threat would trigger a madcap fetch-this-gizmo caper (as it did in the original comic). Shakman’s version doesn’t waste its energy or our time on that. Rather, this a lean showdown between self-control and gluttony, between our modest heroes and a greedy titan. It’s at the Venn diagram of a Saturday morning cartoon and a moralistic Greek myth.

The film is all sleek lines, from its themes to its architecture to its images. The visuals by the cinematographer Jess Hall are crisp and impactful: a translucent hand snatching at a womb, a character falling into the pull of a yawning black hole, a torso stretched like chewing gum, a rocket launch that can’t blast off until we get a close-up of everyone buckling their seatbelts. Even in space, the CG isn’t razzle-dazzle busy. Meanwhile, Michael Giacchino’s score soars between bleats of triumph and barbershop-chorus charm, a combination that can sound like an automobile show unveiling the first convertible with tail fins.

There is little brawling and less snark. No one comes off like an aspiring stand-up comic. These characters barely raise their voices and often use their abilities on the mundane: Kirby’s Sue vanishes to avoid awkward conversations, Moss-Bachrach’s Ben, in a nod to his breakout role as the maître d’ on “The Bear,” uses his mighty fists to mash garlic. Johnny, the youngest and most literally hotheaded of the group, is apt to light himself on fire when he can’t be bothered to find a flashlight. He delivers the meanest quip in a respectful movie when he tells Reed, “I take back every single bad thing I’ve been saying about you … to myself, in private.”

Yes, my audience giggled dutifully at the jiggling Jell-O salads and drooled over the groovy conversation pits in the Richards’ living room, the only super lair I’d ever live in. The color palette emphasizes retro shades of blue, green and gold; even the extras have coordinated their outfits to the trim on the Fantasticar. Delightfully, when Moss-Bachrach’s brawny rock monster strolls to the deli to buy black-and-white cookies, he’s wearing a gargantuan pair of penny loafers.

If you want to feel old, the generation of middle schoolers who saw 2008’s “Iron Man” on opening weekend are now beginning to raise their own children. Thirty-seven films later, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has gotten so insecure about its own mission that it’s pitching movies at every maturity level. The recent “Thunderbolts*” is for surly teenagers, “Deadpool & Wolverine” is the drunk, divorced uncle at a BBQ, and “First Steps” extends a sympathetic hand to young families who identify with Reed’s frustration that he can’t childproof the entire galaxy.

Here, for a mass audience, Kirby gets to reprise her underwatched Oscar-nominated turn in “Pieces of a Woman,” in which she extended out a 24-minute, single-take labor scene. This karaoke snippet is good (and even a little operatic when the pain makes her dematerialize). I was as impressed by the costumer Alexandra Byrne’s awareness that even super moms won’t immediately snap back into wearing tight spandex. (By contrast, when Jessica Alba played Sue in 2007’s “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” the director notoriously asked her to be “prettier” when she cried.)

This reboot’s boldest stride toward progress is that it values emotionally credible performances. Otherwise, Pascal aside, you wouldn’t assemble this cast for any audience besides critics and dweebs (myself included) who keep a running list of their favorite not-quite-brand-name talents who are ready to break through to the next level of their career while yelling, “It’s clobbering time!”

Still, this isn’t anyone’s best role, and it’s a great movie only when compared to similarly budgeted dreck. Yet it’s a worthy exercise in creating something that doesn’t feel nostalgic for an era — it feels of an era. Even if the MCU’s take on slow cinema doesn’t sell tickets in our era, I admire the confidence of a movie that sets its own course instead of chasing the common wisdom that audiences want 2½ hours of chaos. Studio executives continuing to insist on that nonsense deserve Marvel’s first family to give them a disappointed talking-to, and send them to back their boardrooms without supper.

Ari Aster’s “Eddington” is such a superb social satire about contemporary America that I want to bury it in the desert for 20 years. More distance will make it easier to laugh.

It’s a modern western set in New Mexico — Aster’s home state — where trash blows like tumbleweeds as Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) stalks across the street to confront Eddington’s mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), whom he is campaigning to unseat. It’s May of 2020, that hot and twitchy early stretch of the COVID pandemic when reality seemed to disintegrate, and Joe is ticked off about the new mask mandate. He has asthma, and he can’t understand anyone who has their mouth covered.

Joe and Ted have old bad blood between them that’s flowed down from Joe’s fragile wife Louise, a.k.a. Rabbit (Emma Stone), a stunted woman-child who stubbornly paints creepy dolls, and his mother-in-law Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), a raving conspiracist who believes the Titanic sinking was no accident. Dawn is jazzed to decode the cause of this global shutdown; there’s comfort in believing everything happens for a reason. Her mania proves contagious.

Bad things are happening in Eddington and have been for decades, not just broken shop windows. Joe wears a white hat and clearly considers himself the story’s hero, although he’s not up to the job. If you squint real hard, you can see his perspective that he’s a champion for the underdog. Joe gets his guts in a twist when a maskless elder is kicked out of the local grocery store as the other shoppers applaud. “Public shaming,” Joe spits.

“There’s no COVID in Eddington,” Joe claims in his candidacy announcement video, urging his fellow citizens that “we need to free our hearts.” His earnestness is comic and sweet and dangerous. You can hear every fact he’s leaving out. His rival’s commercials promote a fantastical utopia where Ted is playing piano on the sidewalk and elbow-bumping more Black people in 15 seconds than we see in the rest of the movie. Ted also swears that permitting a tech behemoth named SolidGoldMagikarp to build a controversial giant data center on the outskirts of the county won’t suck precious resources — it’ll transform this nowheresville into a hub for jobs. Elections are a measure of public opinion: Which fibber would you trust?

Danger is coming and like in “High Noon,” this uneasy town will tear itself apart before it arrives. Aster is so good at scrupulously capturing the tiny, fearful COVID behaviors we’ve done our best to forget that it’s a shame (and a relief) that the script isn’t really about the epidemic. Another disease has infected Eddington: Social media has made everyone brain sick.

The film is teeming with viral headlines — serious, frivolous or false — jumbled together on computer screens screaming for attention in the same all-caps font. (Remember the collective decision that no one had the bandwidth to care about murder hornets?) Influencers and phonies and maybe even the occasional real journalist prattle on in the backgrounds of scenes telling people what to think and do, often making things worse. Joe loves his wife dearly. We see him privately watching a YouTuber explain how he can convince droopy Louise to have children. Alas, he spends his nights in their marital bed chastely doomscrolling.

Every character in “Eddington” is lonely and looking for connection. One person’s humiliating nadir comes during a painful tracking shot at an outdoor party where they’re shunned like they have the plague. Phones dominate their interactions: The camera is always there in somebody’s hand, live streaming or recording, flattening life into a reality show and every conversation into a performance.

The script expands to include Joe’s deputies, aggro Guy (Luke Grimes) and Bitcoin-obsessed Michael (Micheal Ward), plus a cop from the neighboring tribal reservation, Officer Butterfly Jimenez (William Belleau) and a handful of bored, identity-seeking teens. They’ll all wind up at odds even though they’re united by the shared need to be correct, to have purpose, to belong. When George Floyd is killed six states away, these young do-gooders rush into the streets, excited to have a reason to get together and yell. The protesters aren’t insincere about the cause. But it’s head-scrambling to watch blonde Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle) lecture her ex-boyfriend Michael, who is Black and a cop, about how he should feel. Meanwhile Brian (Cameron Mann), who is white and one of the most fascinating characters to track, is so desperate for Sarah’s attention that he delivers a hilarious slogan-addled meltdown: “My job is to sit down and listen! As soon as I finish this speech! Which I have no right to make!”

The words come fast and furious and flummoxing. Aster has crowded more pointed zingers and visual gags into each scene than our eyes can take in. His dialogue is laden with vile innuendos — “deep state,” “sexual predator,” “antifa” — and can feel like getting pummeled. When a smooth-talking guru named Vernon (Austin Butler) slithers into the plot, he regales Joe’s family with an incredulous tale of persecution that, as he admits, “sounds insane just to hear coming out of my mouth.” Well, yeah. Aster wants us to feel exhausted sorting fact from fiction.

The verbal barrage builds to a scene in which Joe and Dawn sputter nonsense at each other in a cross-talking non-conversation where both sound like they’re high on cocaine. They are, quite literally, internet junkies.

This is the bleakest of black humor. There’s even an actual dumpster fire. Aster’s breakout debut, “Hereditary,” gave him an overnight pedigree as the princeling of highbrow horror films about trauma. But really, he’s a cringe comedian who exaggerates his anxieties like a tragic clown. Even in “Midsommar,” Aster’s most coherent film, his star Florence Pugh doesn’t merely cry — she howls like she could swallow the earth. It wouldn’t be surprising to hear that when Aster catches himself getting maudlin, he forces himself to actively wallow in self-pity until it feels like a joke. Making the tragic ridiculous is a useful tool. (I once got through a breakup by watching “The Notebook” on repeat.)

With “Beau Is Afraid,” Aster’s previous film with Phoenix, focusing that approach on one man felt too punishing. “Eddington” is hysterical group therapy. I suspect that Aster knows that if we read a news article about a guy like Joe, we wouldn’t have any sympathy for him at all. Instead, Aster essentially handcuffs us to Joe’s point of view and sends us off on this tangled and bitterly funny adventure, in which rattling snakes spice up a humming, whining score by the Haxan Cloak and Daniel Pemberton.

Not every plot twist works. Joe’s sharpest pivot is so inward and incomprehensible that the film feels compelled to signpost it by having a passing driver yell, “You’re going the wrong way!” By the toxic finale, we’re certain only that Phoenix plays pathetic better than anyone these days. From “Her” to “Joker” to “Napoleon” to “Inherent Vice,” he’s constantly finding new wrinkles in his sad sacks. “Eddington’s” design teams have taken care to fill Joe’s home with dreary clutter and outfit him in sagging jeans. By contrast, Pascal’s wealthier Ted is the strutting embodiment of cowboy chic. He’s even selfishly hoarded toilet paper in his fancy adobe estate.

It’s humanistic when “Eddington” notes that everyone in town is a bit of a sinner. The problem is that they’re all eager to throw stones and point out what the others are doing wrong to get a quick fix of moral superiority. So many yellow cards get stacked up against everyone that you come to accept that we’re all flawed, but most of us are doing our best.

Joe isn’t going to make Eddington great again. He never has a handle on any of the conspiracies, and when he grabs a machine gun, he’s got no aim. Aster’s feistiest move is that he refuses to reveal the truth. When you step back at the end to take in the full landscape, you can put most of the story together. (Watch “Eddington” once, talk it out over margaritas and then watch it again.) Aster makes the viewer say their theories out loud afterwards, and when you do, you sound just as unhinged as everyone else in the movie. I dig that kind of culpability: a film that doesn’t point sanctimonious fingers but insists we’re all to blame.

But there are winners and losers and winners who feel like losers and schemers who get away with their misdeeds scot-free. Five years after the events of this movie, we’re still standing in the ashes of the aggrieved. But at least if we’re cackling at ourselves together in the theater, we’re less alone.

Jane Austen fans may have missed this adaptation of her works

As Jane Austen marks her 250th birthday this year, fans are revisiting the celebrated author’s works.

Over the years, numerous adaptations of her novels have been created, along with fresh interpretations that draw inspiration from her books, reports the Express.

Some notable examples include Bridget Jones’s Diary, which reimagines Pride and Prejudice in a modern setting, and Clueless, which transposes Emma from Regency England to the complex social hierarchy of a 1990s Beverly Hills high school.

Additionally, there are productions like ITV’s Lost in Austen, where a contemporary woman finds herself in the world of Pride and Prejudice, and Austenland, which follows a romantic as she visits a Jane Austen-themed park in pursuit of her Regency dreams.

However, one lesser-known adaptation, featuring two Virgin River stars, is also worth watching.

On IMDb, one viewer praised the film as “brilliant”, saying: “Vibrant, colorful [sic], hilarious and lively, this movie was a sheer joy to watch. A refreshing take on an old classic.”

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Another reviewer commented: “Well, it’s pretty hard, isn’t it, to write a spoiler for a film which is based on such a well-known, well-loved novel! I will show my hand here and say that I am a Janeite.

“However, I am not a purist and I like many Jane Austen adaptations that many Janeites don’t (for example I like ‘Mansfield Park’).”

One viewer noted: “The script did a pretty good job of capturing the essence of the story whilst playing around with some of the details eg cutting out the fifth daughter whose role in the story is pretty minimal, and making the ‘tyrant’ in Darcy’s life his mother not his aunt (a more realistic situation in its modern setting).”

Another fan chimed in: “Gurinder Chadha has transported Jane Austen’s great novel to India. What a charmer this film turns out to be! The adaptation of the novel is excellent as the new locale is incorporated to the story.”

They continued: “The incredible Indian colors explode in front of our eyes giving the Western viewers such an opportunity to experience a little taste of India [sic].”

Bride and Prejudice, released in 2004, masterfully blended Bollywood and Hollywood through the lens of Jane Austen.

Directed by Gurinder Chadha of Bend It Like Beckham fame, the film offered a refreshing spin on Austen’s classic tale of Pride and Prejudice.

Bollywood icon Aishwarya Rai Bachchan took centre stage as Lalita Bakshi, who initially butts heads with the suave American businessman Will Darcy, played by Martin Henderson, before they inevitably fall for each other.

Joining Henderson was Daniel Gillies, known for his roles in Virgin River and The Originals, who portrayed his rival George Wickham – a role that amusingly mirrors their respective characters in Netflix’s romantic drama series.

The cast also boasts acclaimed Indian actor Anupam Kher, known for his roles in Bend It Like Beckham and Hotel Mumbai, Naveen Andrews of Lost and The English Patient fame, Namrata Shirodkar from Hera Pheri and Major, Indira Varma who starred in Game of Thrones and Luther, and EastEnders‘ Nitin Ganatra.

Bride and Prejudice is available to watch on Apple TV+

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

Writer-director Ari Aster has refashioned himself from a maker of art-house horror films like “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” into a more overt social satirist with “Beau Is Afraid” and his latest film, “Eddington,” which opens this week.

Pointedly set in the spring of 2020 in a small town in New Mexico — a moment when uncertainty, paranoia and division over the response to COVID were maximally disorienting — the film’s story concerns a sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) who tosses his hat in the ring to run against an incumbent mayor (Pedro Pascal). Each spouts their own complicated, spiraling rhetoric as the race between them becomes more intense, and they seem swept away by circumstances much larger than they can understand or control.

Joaquin Phoenix in the movie “Eddington.”

(A24)

In her review of the film Amy Nicholson wrote, “Aster’s feistiest move is that he refuses to reveal the truth. When you step back at the end to take in the full landscape, you can put most of the story together. (Watch ‘Eddington’ once, talk it out over margaritas and then watch it again.) Aster makes the viewer say their theories out loud afterwards, and when you do, you sound just as unhinged as everyone else in the movie. I dig that kind of culpability: a film that doesn’t point sanctimonious fingers but insists we’re all to blame.

“But there are winners and losers and winners who feel like losers and schemers who get away with their misdeeds scot-free. Five years after the events of this movie, we’re still standing in the ashes of the aggrieved. But at least if we’re cackling at ourselves together in the theater, we’re less alone.”

Carlos Aguilar spoke to acclaimed cinematographer Darius Khondji, a former collaborator of David Fincher, James Gray and the Safdies, about working with Aster for the first time on “Eddington.”

“Ari and I have a common language,” Khondji said. “We discovered quite early on working together that we have a very similar taste for dark films, not dark in lighting but in storytelling.”

‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse’ restored

Francis Ford Coppola in the documentary “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.”

(Rialto Pictures / American Zoetrope)

The 1991 film “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” is widely thought of as among the greatest behind-the-scenes documentaries ever made. Directed by Fax Bahr with George Hickenlooper from documentary footage directed by Eleanor Coppola, the film explores the epically complicated production of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” A new 4K restoration of “Hearts of Darkness” will have a limited run at the American Cinematheque beginning Sunday, with Bahr in-person for multiple Q&As.

When Eleanor Coppola went to the Philippines in 1976 with her husband and their three children for the production of his hallucinatory Vietnam War saga “Apocalypse Now,” he enlisted her to shoot doc footage in part to save on additional crew and also to give her something to do.

Drawing from Eleanor’s remarkable footage, surreptitious audio recordings she made and her written memoir of the experience, “Notes: On the Making of ‘Apocalypse Now,’” “Hearts of Darkness” becomes a portrait of the struggle to maintain creativity, composure and sanity amid chaos as everything that could possibly go wrong seemingly does. Military helicopters are redeployed during takes, star Martin Sheen suffers a heart attack, monsoons destroy sets, Marlon Brando is immovable on scheduling and the ending of what all this is leading toward remains elusive.

Frederic Forrest, left, Laurence Fishburne, Martin Sheen and Albert Hall in “Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut.”

(Rialto Pictures )

“I think it’s really held up and survived,” said Bahr of the documentary in an interview this week. “It works as a complement to this extraordinary film that Francis produced. Of course, [‘Apocalypse Now’] would be what it is without this, but I do think for people who really want to go deeper into the ‘Apocalypse’ experience, this is really a necessary journey to take.”

When “Apocalypse Now” first premiered at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, Francis Ford Coppola infamously said, “The way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment and little by little we went insane.”

The years between the lengthy production of “Apocalypse Now,” its turbulent release and the subsequent years before the “Hearts of Darkness” project came to be likely eased the Coppolas into participating with such candor and full-fledged access.

Eleanor Coppola in “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.”

(Rialto Pictures / American Zoetrope)

“I think having almost 10 years after ‘Apocalypse Now’ was helpful,” said James T. Mockoski, who oversaw the restoration for Coppola’s company American Zoetrope. “It would’ve been a much different documentary when it was supposed to come out. It was supposed to support the publicity and the marketing of the film at that time. ‘Apocalypse’ was very difficult, as we have seen, obviously. I don’t know how much they would’ve had the hunger to revisit the film and go right into a documentary. It was a rather difficult, challenging time for them. And I think 10 years gave them a perspective that was needed.”

“He gambled it all and he won,” said Bahr. “And what I hope we really achieved with ‘Hearts’ was showing the despair that really all artists go through in the creative process. And even though you go there, if you keep at it and your goal is true then you achieve artistic greatness.”

According to Mockoski, Francis Ford Coppola has seen his own relationship to the documentary change over the years. While at times unflattering, and certainly showing the filmmaker racked by doubt and in deep creative crisis, “Hearts” also shows him as someone, improbably, finding his way.

“It’s a very hard relationship with the documentary, but he has grown over the years to be more accepting of it,” said Mockoski. “He doesn’t like the films to ever be shown together. If anyone wants to book it, they shouldn’t be on the same day. There should be some distance. And he doesn’t really want people to watch the documentary and then just figure out, where’s Francis and what is his state of mind at this point? They’re two separate things for him. And he would rather people watch ‘Apocalypse’ just for the experience of that, not to be clouded by ‘Hearts.’”

Martin Sheen in the movie “Apocalypse Now.”

(Rialto Pictures)

In his original review of “Hearts of Darkness,” Michael Wilmington wrote, “In the first two ‘Godfather’ movies, Coppola seemed to achieve the impossible: combining major artistic achievement with spectacular box-office success, mastering art and business. In ‘Apocalypse Now,’ he wanted to score another double coup: create a huge, adrenaline-churning Irwin Allenish spectacle and something deeper, more private, filled with the times’ terror. Amazingly, he almost did. And the horror behind that ‘almost’ — Kurtz’s Horror, the horror of Vietnam, of ambition itself — is what ‘Hearts of Darkness’ gives us so wrenchingly well.”

“What ‘Hearts’ is great about is that it shows you a period of filmmaking that’s just not seen today,” said Mockoski. “You look at this and you look at [“Apocalypse’] and there’s just no way we could make this film. Would we ever allow an actor to go to that extreme situation with Martin Sheen? Would we be allowed to set that much gasoline on fire in the jungle? Hollywood was sort of slow to evolve, they were making films like that up from the silent era, these epic films, going to extremes to just do art. It just captured a moment in time that I don’t think we’ll ever see again.”

‘Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair’

The event’s poster.

(Vista Theater)

Having premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and screened only a few times since, Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair” will play twice daily at the Vista Theater from July 18-28.

Clocking in at over 4 hours and screening from Tarantino’s personal 35mm print (complete with French subtitles), it combines the films known as “Kill Bill Vol. 1” and “Kill Bill Vol. 2” into a single experience with a few small changes. The main difference is simply taking it all in as “The Whole Bloody Affair,” an epic tale of revenge as a woman mostly known as “The Bride” (Uma Thurman in a career-defining performance) seeks to find those who tried to kill her on her wedding day. (I’ll be seeing the combined cut for the first time myself during this run at the Vista.)

Uma Thurman in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Vol. 2.”

(Andrew Cooper / Miramax Films)

Manohla Dargis’ Los Angeles Times reviews of the two films when they were first released in October 2003 and April 2004 still make for some of the most incisive writing on Tarantino as a filmmaker.

Dargis’ review of “Vol. 2” inadvertently helps sell the idea of the totalizing “The Whole Bloody Affair” experience by saying, “An adrenaline shot to the movie heart, soul and mind, Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill Vol. 2’ is a blast of pure pop pleasure. The second half of Tarantino’s long-gestating epic, ‘Vol. 2’ firmly lays to rest the doubts raised by ‘Vol. 1’ as to whether the filmmaker had retained his chops after years of silence and, as important, had anything to offer beyond pyrotechnics and bloodshed. Tarantino does have something to say, although most of what he does have to say can be boiled down to two words: Movies rock.

“In a world of commodity filmmaking in which marketing suits offer notes on scripts, this is no small thing. Personal vision is as rare in Hollywood as humility, but personal vision — old, new, borrowed and true blue to the filmmaker’s inspirations — shapes ‘Vol. 2,’ giving it texture and density. Personal vision makes Tarantino special, but it isn’t what makes him Quentin Tarantino. What does distinguish him, beyond a noggin full of film references, a candy-coated visual style and a deep-tissue understanding of how pop music has shaped contemporary life, affecting our very rhythms, is his old-time faith in the movies. Few filmmakers love movies as intensely; fewer still have the ability to remind us why we fell for movies in the first place.”

Points of interest

‘2046’ in 35mm

Tony Leung in the movie “2046.”

(Wing Shya / Sony Pictures Classics)

Showing at Vidiots on Friday night in 35mm will be Wong Kar-wai’s “2046,” the 2004 follow-up to his cherished “In the Mood for Love.” Loosely connected to both “In the Mood for Love” and Wong’s earlier “Days of Being Wild,” “2046” stars Tony Leung as a writer in late 1960s Hong Kong who has encounters with a series of women, played by the likes of Maggie Cheung, Faye Wong, Gong Li, Carina Lau and Zhang Ziyi. (He may be imagining them.) Fans of Wong’s stylish, smoky romanticism will not be disappointed.

In her original review of the film, Carina Chocano called it “a gorgeous, fevered dream of a movie that blends recollection, imagination and temporal dislocation to create an emotional portrait of chaos in the aftermath of heartbreak.”

‘Lost in America’ + ‘Modern Romance’

Albert Brooks in the movie “Lost in America.”

(Geffen Film Company)

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the New Beverly will screen a 35mm double bill of Albert Brooks’ 1985 “Lost in America” and 1981’s “Modern Romance.” Directed by, co-written by (with Monica Johnson) and starring Brooks, both films are fine showcases for his lacerating comedic sensibilities.

A satire of the lost values of the 1960s generation in the face of the materialism of 1980s, “Lost in America” has Brooks as an advertising executive who convinces his wife (Julie Hagerty) to join him in quitting their jobs, selling everything they own and setting out in a deluxe RV to explore the country, “Easy Rider”-style.

In a review of “Lost in America,” Patrick Goldstein wrote, “Appearing in his usual disguise, that of the deliriously self-absorbed maniac, Brooks turns his comic energies on his favorite target — himself — painting an agonizingly accurate portrait of a man imprisoned in his own fantasies. … You get the feeling that Brooks has fashioned an unerring parody of someone who’s somehow lost his way in our lush, consumer paradise. Here’s a man who can’t tell where the desert ends and the oasis begins.”

Kathryn Harrold and Albert Brooks in the movie “Modern Romance.”

(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)

“Modern Romance,” features Brooks as a lovelorn film editor in Los Angeles desperate to win back his ex-girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold).

In his original review of ”Modern Romance,” Kevin Thomas wrote, “You have to hand it to Albert Brooks. To put it mildly he’s not afraid to present himself unsympathetically.”

In a 1981 interview with Goldstein, Brooks said, “As a comedian it’s really my job to be the monster. People either love me or hate me. If I wanted to be a nice guy, I’d make a movie about someone who saves animals.”

(Brooks would, of course, go on to appear as a voice actor in “Finding Nemo” and “Finding Dory.”)

In other news

‘The Little Mermaid’

A mermaid named Ariel contemplates what it would be like to be human in “The Little Mermaid.”

(Walt Disney Pictures)

For the next installment of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.’s ongoing series at the Egyptian, there will be a screening on Thursday, July 24, of 1989’s “The Little Mermaid” with directors Ron Clements and John Musker present for a Q&A moderated by Carlos Aguilar.

“The Little Mermaid” received LAFCA’s inaugural award for animation, the first of its kind among critics groups.