review

Imelda Marcos’ fetish for fiendishly expensive shoes was a running gag in the 1980s. But did you know that she was also something of a disco queen?

The image of a jet-setting Marcos in her Beltrami pumps boogieing with arms dealers at fashionable New York nightspots is one of the inspirations of David Byrne’s musical about the notorious former first lady of the Philippines, who sang on the campaign trail for her husband, Ferdinand E. Marcos, and ruled with an iron fist alongside him after he declared martial law and plunged his nation into a brutal dictatorship.

“Here Lies Love,” which is having its Los Angeles premiere at the Mark Taper Forum, traces the political power couple’s rise and fall through a series of dance cuts that capture the irrational hold charismatic leaders can have on a public — at least while the music is blasting.

Byrne, the ingenious Talking Heads co-founder, conceived the show and wrote the music and lyrics. Fatboy Slim, a Grammy Award-winning DJ, musician and record producer, contributed to the music. The score, a mix of lush disco and synth pop with hints of island breezes and karaoke camp, brings a club-like energy to the stage.

Aura Mayari and the company of “Here Lies Love” at the Mark Taper Forum.

(Jeff Lorch)

I first saw “Here Lies Love” at New York’s Public Theater in 2013, when the production, directed by Alex Timbers, was staged as an immersive dance party. Audience members moved along a shifting dance floor as the love story between Imelda, a beauty queen from the provinces, and Ferdinand, an ambitious senator accustomed to getting what he wants, sourly played out amid the backdrop of a traumatic national story.

This sung-through musical pulled off something of a coup of its own. As Ferdinand, now president and philandering husband, and Imelda, his embittered wife dripping in compensatory luxury, shore up their “conjugal dictatorship,” theatergoers discovered that, while partying to the seductive beat, a political dystopia was solidifying around them.

Imagine if, in “Evita,” audience members were invited to sing back up on the balcony as Eva Perón belts out “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” accompanying her in her last manipulative hurrah. “Here Lies Love” seemed to want its audience to leave with an aftertaste of cognitive dissonance.

Audiences don’t usually like being duped. But voters need to be continually reminded that when they go to bed with a strongman, they’ll likely wake up without healthcare or voting rights.

“Here Lies Love” at the Taper doesn’t follow the Public Theater’s staging or the similarly immersive Broadway production by Timbers that followed in 2023. It’s a more straightforward presentation that keeps audience members in their seats, except for a moment when uprising is in the air and a few theatergoers are conscripted to join the ecstatic rebellion.

Jeff Lorenz Garrido, from left, Joshua Dela Cruz, and Garrick Goce Macatangay in “Here Lies Love” at the Mark Taper Forum.

(Jeff Lorch)

Snehal Desai’s direction is politically clear-eyed and scrupulous. Corruption, authoritarianism and censorship, as we’re learning firsthand, scandal after constitutional scandal, are no laughing matter. The question is whether “Here Lies Love” can bear the scrutiny of a more traditional musical.

There’s not a traditional libretto, so the story is transmitted mostly through song lyrics. But stump speeches, rallying cries and the theatrical guidance of Imeldific (Aura Mayari, alum of Season 15 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”) help flesh out the chronicle.

This emcee figure, a Taper innovation, replaces the DJ role of previous productions and establishes the show’s metatheatrical frame. The opening number, “American Troglodyte,” underscores the American imperial role in the story and provides Imdeldific with a satiric banner that doesn’t let a smiling superpower off the hook.

William Carlos Angulo’s choreography is unfailingly kinetic, but participating in a party is more energizing than watching one at a remove. Yet the political case of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, a tale of celebrity and tyranny marching in lockstep, speaks so directly to our own time that I found myself gripped by the object lesson of this public saga, even if it’s not always easy to connect all the fragments, never mind distinguish between hard fact and fictional license.

I was particularly fascinated by the portrayal of Imelda (Reanne Acasio), whose political character seems to be shaped by personal disappointments and run-of-the-mill humiliations. Imelda is wounded not only by the philandering of Ferdinand (Chris Renfro) but by an even more painful injury inflicted by her first love, Ninoy Aquino (Joshua Dela Cruz), a politician determined to become the voice of his people.

Ninoy recognizes an essential incompatibility between them. Imelda lives for love while he has political work to do. He bids her adieu in the song “Opposite Attraction,” though fate will bring them together after Imelda and her husband gain power and Ninoy, as the leading opposition figure, becomes their prisoner and eventual victim of the chaos unleashed by their regime.

Joan Almedilla and the company of “Here Lies Love” at the Mark Taper Forum.

(Jeff Lorch)

Unfolding under the theatrical auspices of Imeldific, “Here Lies Love” retells the history of the Marcos years as a musical pageant. Imelda’s transformation, from shy, lowly country girl to “Iron Butterfly,” covering up her shame with jewelry from Tiffany and revealing a will every bit as hard as the diamonds she flaunts, is presented with music so catchy and compulsive that it has the force of historical inevitability

The grooves supplied by Byrne and Slim take not just the characters but the audience on a ride through a brutal anti-democratic period. Does the disco spectacle aesthetic treat this history too lightly?

The production seems wary of this criticism. A program note from dramaturg Ely Sonny Orquiza, attuned to the sensitivities of the large Filipino diaspora in Los Angeles, notes that the production, “featuring an all-Filipino cast and majority-AAPI creative team, is not intended as a definitive or comprehensive history, but as an entry point for dialogue and inquiry.”

The scale of damage perpetrated by the regime is still being collectively processed. One victim, Estrella Cumpas (Carol Angeli), makes the mistake of confronting Imelda, a childhood friend, and is taken into custody. She will have to stand in for thousands of others.

The design scheme certainly doesn’t want to spoil anyone’s good time. Arnel Sancianco’s sets, Marcella Barbeau’s lighting and the more glittering of Jaymee Ngernwichit’s costumes seem to place us in a retro Euro-style disco world, where fun is typically a function of the strength of the cocktails consumed.

But there’s a countermovement in the show, the People Power Revolution that gains momentum after the assassination of Nimoy. The funeral speech of his mother (Joan Almedilla) is turned into the galvanizing protest song, “Just Ask the Flowers,” in which something as basic as maternal love wakes the country to the madness around them. Desai, whose directorial work at the Taper thus far has brought together rave and rebellion, smoothly merges the Dionysian frenzy of the music with the nonviolent revolution that ended Ferdinand Marcos’ protracted dictatorship in 1986.

Dela Cruz’s stirring Ninoy standing tall against the patriarchal savagery of Renfro’s Ferdinand and the petty vindictiveness of Acasio’s well-drawn Imelda is a powerful call to action. Byrne and Slim’s score insists that not even death can stop the beat of this democratic spirit.

The production points out at the end that another Marcos, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., Ferdinand and Imelda’s son, is now president. Perhaps the show’s final number can shed light: “God draws straight, but with crooked lines.”

Director Sang-il Lee sets his epic-scaled “Kokuho” in the vivid world of kabuki theater, but it’s not just the movie’s milieu that distinguishes it. Spanning 50 years and running nearly three hours, “Kokuho,” which has become Japan’s biggest live-action hit ever, evinces intensely mixed feelings about its two main characters’ quest for greatness. Kabuki is presented as an art form of balletic skill, but it can never fully redeem or repair the film’s central figures, who once were friends before ambition got in the way.

In 1964 Nagasaki, 14-year-old Kikuo (Soya Kurokawa) performs at a New Year’s event, impressing Hanjiro (Ken Watanabe), a beloved kabuki legend. But after Kikuo’s father, a yakuza crime boss, is murdered, Hanjiro takes the grieving teen under his wing. Soon, Hanjiro is training Kikuo and his own son Shunsuke (Keitatsu Koshiyama) in his Osaka studio to become “onnagata” — male kabuki actors who portray female characters. Both sweet and bashful, Kikuo and Shunsuke quickly grow close, enduring Hanjiro’s exacting requirements as he shapes them to be graceful, disciplined performers.

“Kokuho” then fast-forwards to the early 1970s as we meet the grown-up versions of Kikuo (Ryo Yoshizawa) and Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama). Now practically brothers, the young men are making their name as a well-regarded kabuki duo, but their personalities have begun to diverge. Kikuo remains soft-spoken, while Shunsuke is more of a partier and big talker, dominating their interviews with local journalists. Hanjiro still thinks highly of them both, although each pupil faces disadvantages. Kikuo is more gifted but in this nepotistic art form, being part of a respected kabuki lineage is crucial, something this yakuza scion doesn’t possess. Shunsuke, meanwhile, lacks his friend’s formidable technique, but because he’s Hanjiro’s son, his future prospects are practically assured. Kikuo and Shunsuke complement one another as performers but a shocking turn of events will sever their bond.

Adapting a novel by Shuichi Yoshida, Lee maps the arc of a friendship while exploring the minutiae of kabuki, both on stage and behind the scenes. (The movie’s Oscar-nominated makeup is an acknowledgment of the blinding-white face paint and bright red lipstick that kabuki actors wear to transform into their roles.) Much like ballet, kabuki necessitates precise choreographed actions: Not only does “Kokuho” provide generous samples of different kabuki pieces but also includes captions that list the title of the individual works and a brief synopsis. Rarely do these pieces directly echo the two men’s interpersonal drama, but the information adds context to the actors’ enchanting movements, which are backed by gorgeous outfits and striking set design that accentuate the mythical tales being played out.

Kikuo and Shunsuke’s fortunes shift over the decades — one of them will literally be kicked when he’s down on two separate occasions — but Lee doesn’t let us settle on a definitive impression of either performer. Our sympathies change as we witness both men’s failings as well as their enduring virtues. “Kokuho” is a hearty melodrama with a little bit of everything — sex scandals, betrayals, unlikely comebacks, health scares — but the film’s gaudy plot twists (which shouldn’t be spoiled) belie the filmmaker’s unsentimental attitude regarding stardom’s perils. Refreshingly, “Kokuho” is that rare film to be un-awed by talent alone. Both Kikuo and Shunsuke will enjoy high highs and low lows, but it’s their perseverance that ultimately means more than arbitrary benchmarks like “genius” or “brilliance.”

The film’s title translates to “national treasure,” another clichéd term thrown around when trying to categorize greatness. Kikuo and Shunsuke revere kabuki’s bygone giants, who are affixed with that moniker. But as “Kokuho’s” characters seek such an accolade for themselves, they come to realize how misleading it is. Yoshizawa and Yokohama bring abiding tenderness to their characters’ friendship while refusing to allow either protagonist to be reduced to a simple set of qualities. Kikuo’s delicate features suggest a pure soul, but Yoshizawa gradually reveals other sides to this gifted, haunted performer. And Yokohama ably depicts a privileged young man who rightly views his good fortune as both blessing and curse.

Their lives intersect, then disentangle, then return to each other’s orbit again. That elegant dance matches what we see on stage, the kabuki performances melding melancholy and beauty, anguish and catharsis.

We used to have more films like “Midwinter Break,” in which the combination of a couple of great actors, a gifted writer and the unfussy shepherding of a thorny, intimate scenario gave discerning moviegoers their recommended weekly allowance of adult drama about the human condition.

That’s no longer the case, so you would be forgiven for attaching more importance to the small-scale appeal of this adaptation of Irish author Bernard MacLaverty’s 2017 novel. Without gimmicks or pomp (save a picturesque setting) and through the supreme talents of Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds, it offers up an affecting two-hander about a couple on the brink who’ve never really acknowledged said precipice. As directed with low-key confidence by Polly Findlay, the movie is both good and, in a certain way, good enough.

Should a marriage be merely good enough? Because hiding in the 40-year togetherness of retired teacher Stella (Manville) and ex-architect Gerry (Hinds) is an unmistakable chasm. It’s a divide with roots in the turbulent Belfast of their youth, which necessitated starting their family in Glasgow. It manifests now in a brittleness that tints their everyday exchanges as ossifying empty nesters.

Stella’s restless energy in wanting to fix things spurs her to arrange an impromptu trip for them to Amsterdam. Initially they rekindle a genial intimacy over art, meals and the city’s beauty. She eases off her intolerance for his drinking by tagging along to bars, while he accompanies his faith-driven wife to the Begijnhof, a historical religious site of dwellings initially intended to house a sisterhood of single Catholic women. We gather her keen interest isn’t entirely touristy but also, because Hinds is so good, that his wisecracks about religion — which she bristles at — have a basis in something personal, too.

We eventually learn what it is that has kept Stella and Gerry in a state of deepening apartness. But these expected revelations aren’t as cathartic as one might hope, probably because what “Midwinter Break” had going for it was a gathering totality of unhurried observance, as if we, too, were stumbling in the dark along with these nervous dancers, who once knew each other so well yet had lost the ability to turn knowing into understanding.

Still, the chance to see Manville and Hinds give heart, soul and edge to a cracked marriage is a display of nuanced skill that no screenwriting choice (even if true to the source material) can fully hamper. Manville, one of our greatest actors, is achingly real, giving Stella the protective bearing of a wounded soldier. Hinds, meanwhile, masterfully shows an affable partner’s emotional immobility.

Findlay knows to stay out of the way when her actors are deep inside what’s lived-in about their situation, or when grace notes — especially the story’s real ties to the Troubles — needn’t be overstruck. Modest to a fault, “Midwinter Break” seems to float like something cautious and wishful, hoping along with the audience that this union’s individual strains will fall into harmony once more.

“Strip Law,” a new cartoon premiering Friday, finds Netflix in an Adult Swim state of mind, which is to say there was no thought of it being made for everybody. (Possibly including some of the people it was made for.) It’s rude, lewd, surreal in a banal sort of way, at times ridiculously violent — that is, the violence is ridiculous.

It was the cast that attracted me: Adam Scott, once more the schlemiel as leading man; Janelle James, sure of her own magnificence, not far from her character on “Abbott Elementary”; and Keith David, whose deep, sonorous voice is almost necessarily one of authority, turned to good or evil or in between as the script demands. James and David, especially, I could listen to for days.

Created by Cullen Crawford, (“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “Star Trek: Lower Decks”), the series is centered on a failing Las Vegas law firm, headed by Scott’s Lincoln Gumb, with James as Sheila Flambé, “a magician and three-year all-county sex champion” he hires as his “co-counsel in charge of spectacle.” Niece Irene (Shannon Gisela), an iron-pumping 16-year-old, works as his investigator; she wears a blindfold labeled “Underage” whenever she’s required to be in a bar. Stephen Root plays his disbarred (later undisbarred — rebarred?) lawyer uncle, Glem Blorchman, the strangest of them all — “It’s 115 degrees out so I put marshmallows in gin,” is something he says as they gather to watch Christmas movies. And David plays Lincoln’s nemesis, Stevie Nichols, the very successful former partner of Lincoln’s late mother, upon whom the son remains perversely fixated.

Much of it is the sort of thing that will work or not work depending on your mood, but generally I prefer the small throwaway jokes to the big gross ones. There are self-reflexive meta gags about “hard-working cartoon writers” and “reappropriating out-of-date catchphrases.” There are many nods to “The Simpsons,” including “frosty chocolate milkshakes” and James L. Brooks’ Gracie Films logo. The final episode, of 10, takes place within the finale of a “Suits”-like legal dramedy. (“It’s against their nature to let something be sweet and fun and airy,” that firm’s bromantic lawyers say of Lincoln’s team. “They have to make it dark and strange and crass.”) And there are left-field references to Cocteau Twins and Bikini Kill, whose “original bass player” Glem claims to be. (“I don’t know what Bikini Kill is,” says Irene. “Neither did I, according to Kathleen Hanna,” says Glem.)

There are various oddball judges (nothing remotely legal happens in a courtroom); “local character” Lunch Meat, who turns up in many roles; a barman, Mr. O’Raviolo, who switches between exaggerated Irish and Italian accents in mid-sentence. Comedian George Wallace plays himself as the mayor of Las Vegas. A Halloween Christmas episode parodies “Miracle on 34th Street”; another takes off on Colton Burpo, the “boy who saw Heaven,” which includes a live-action trailer for a faith-based film featuring Tim Heidecker as a coke-snorting atheistic Lincoln. A virtual reality HR seminar is hosted by “a computerized amalgamation of all five personalities of the Rat Pack,” an immersive Autoverse, in which actors create situations that somehow amount to a driving test. There are the “Nevada-grown” Hot Dates, a sexualized version of the California Raisins; riots occur when the characters are redesigned to be more respectable (“They’re walking away from years of established canon,” laments Lincoln.)

The series felt a little off-putting at first, as if it were straining for effect, but gathered steam as it went on, either because the later episodes are weirder or better written, or because one just gets used to being in that world with those people. There is just enough character in the comedy to create stakes in the narrative; its misfit energy has fueled the screen’s bands of outsiders throughout the years. (“Even when you’re a disaster, you’re a disaster for the right people,” Irene tells Lincoln.) As to the famous fine line between stupid and clever, the stupidity and the cleverness are all but inextricable, and to the point.

The credits declare that the series is “proudly made by real, non-computer human beings,” which is pleasant to know, and in 100 years will still have been the best way to make cartoons, even if by then they are only made by and, for all we know, for machines. The thin-lined drawing style is standard for more or less realistic 21st-century adult TV animation, with perhaps a hint of comics artist Daniel Clowes laid on. But the characters are expressive, and the medium is used to unreal ends, which is, after all, what cartoons are good for.

The first hour of “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” convinces you that the King is the greatest entertainer who ever lived. By the end of it, he’s a god. Director Baz Luhrmann claims he made this Imax documentary so that any poor souls who never got to see the King live can worship him in action. Really, I think Luhrmann is praying that in a thousand years, some alien civilization will discover this footage and build a whole religion around the thrall Elvis’ hip thrusts had over a crowd.

If that future comes to pass, then Luhrmann himself will be elevated as a key disciple. He’s so devoted to Elvis that this is his second tribute in four years, the other being, of course, his 2022 biopic “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler, who was good in the role if not quite iconic. That more traditional film hewed to the genre’s standard rise-and-fall narrative and was dinged mostly because the King’s life represents so many things to so many people — race, class, controlling relationships — that it’s impossible to please everyone or for any actor to fill his blue suede shoes.

“EPiC” sticks to the surer footing of documentary footage: the man himself performing over two dozen tunes — including “That’s All Right,” “Burning Love” and “In the Ghetto” — plus twice that number on the background soundtrack. (I’m not into his gospel hits, but they suit the mood.) A dream concert that’s longer and larger than what fans could have seen in reality, the movie is stitched together primarily from Elvis’ Las Vegas appearances in 1970 and 1972. You can tell which year it is by the amount of rhinestones on his costumes, which become increasingly maximalist.

When Elvis retook the stage in 1969, he hadn’t performed before a live audience in nine years and he’d gotten a little uncool. Beatlemania had dinged his appeal so perilously that editor Jonathan Redmond splices its arrival with images of car crashes and missile attacks. Reporters at that comeback show noted that most of his fans were now — horrors! — over 30, with the exception of a 25-year-old who said he attended out of nostalgia.

Luhrmann quickly sets up the essential framework, then Luhrmann picks up a year after Elvis proved he was still a smash. No longer constrained by moral panic, the Army draft or the decade he spent trapped within the Hollywood industrial complex, this is the King at arguably the high point of his career, right in that sweet spot before his 1973 divorce from Priscilla Presley, after which his mood and health started to flag.

This Elvis comes across confident, breezy, comfortable and funny. In one scene, he jokes about the difficulty of lunging to the ground in a tight jumpsuit (an outfit he adopted because he was nervous of ripping his pants). Later, he switches up the lyrics to “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” to croon, “Do you gaze at your forehead and wish you had hair?”

The camera often seems to be right under his chin, gazing as the sweat on his cheeks and lashes shimmers under the Vegas lights like diamonds. His spell over the crowd feels at once intimate and volcanic. You get the best look at his charisma when Elvis targets his energy at an unsuspecting back-up singer in the middle of “Suspicious Minds.” Slowly striding toward the girl, he hypnotizes her as skillfully as a snake charmer and then, as a punchline, lunges in her direction. She jumps and giggles.

While we become familiar with the faces of his band members, the film doesn’t bother to mention any of their names, not even in the credits. They deserve better, but the film is about how the concert felt, not how it came to fruition. Still, once you get over the contact high of Elvis’ psychedelic neon pink paisley shirt in the rehearsal studio, it’s delightful to see that he gives as much of himself when performing in a small setting as he does in a massive one. He loses himself in thrall to the beat, gyrating his pelvis so fast it resembles a machine gun.

Naturally, there’s a montage of the women in the audience overwhelmed by joy, from a sobbing little girl who won’t let go of his arm to a glamazon in a dangerously low-cut minidress who scoots under the curtain before it closes. The ladies tug on his scarves and toss bras at him, one of which he wears on his head. Surprisingly to modern eyes, when his female fans grab and kiss him, Elvis smooches them back, even after he wades into a sea of his admirers and emerges with the chains on his jumpsuit torn off. If you happen to spot your mother or grandmother in the crowd, well, good for her.

In lieu of mentioning Elvis’ off-stage reality, Luhrmann deepens a song’s effect by cutting to personal photographs that are a little out of context. As Elvis wails the line, “And I miss her,” from his cover ballad about a bad husband, we see a shot of Elvis’ dead mother, Gladys. “Always on My Mind” becomes a brisk yet moving acknowledgment of Priscilla and his infant daughter Lisa Marie. Otherwise, Lurhmann only wants to celebrate the good stuff. There’s no tragedy here. It’s ecstasy minus the agony.

If Elvis was ever cranky, that’s been stripped out. Though we hear him get hound-dogged by nosy questions from the press, the closest Elvis comes to snark is when he sits on a stool to play “Little Sister.” He sings the chorus, then cranks up the tempo a notch and suddenly starts belting the Beatles’ “Get Back,” before smoothly transitioning once more into his own song. Point made: Don’t give those Brits too much credit for revolutionizing rock ‘n’ roll.

Lurhmann’s got his own score to settle. In the Butler version of “Elvis,” he made the case that, as big an artist as Elvis was, he should have been bigger. Colonel Parker, Elvis’s manager, kept his cash cow on a leash, tethering him first to middling B-pictures, then to casinos. The Beatles invaded his country; he never played a single gig in theirs. We never got to find out who Elvis, with his magpie love for all music, might have become if he’d traveled the world and gotten to pick up an ashram sitar.

And while that argument got a little drowned out in the biopic by Tom Hanks’ double-phony put-on accent as Parker, this rapturous salute to the King’s majesty wants to make sure we don’t miss it now. Lurhmann even scores his footage of the Colonel to “The Devil in Disguise.” Hey, every religion needs a heel.

★★★★★ Man on the Run, a documentary directed by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville, chronicles Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles solo career with previously unseen footage

Sir Paul McCartney gave director Morgan Neville a blank piece of paper and told him ‘no notes’ after watching documentary Man on the Run for the first time.

Ahead of it being unleashed to fans next week, The Beatles legend has found a few more words to describe the two-hour film calling it ‘madcap’, ’embarrassing’ at times and often ‘overwhelming’ to watch, “But I come out of it thinking, ‘Yeah I’m OK,” says Paul at a very special screening.

The room of family, friends and rock royalty certainly agree. Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher and Sharon Osbourne are among those turning out to the film’s UK debut on a rainy night in Soho. Actor Paul Mescal, who is playing the mop-topped musician at the peak of Beatles-mania in a brand new four part film release, is also in attendance at the Ham Yard hotel.

While Mescal could be seen to be doing his homework, this brand new documentary from Academy Award winner Neville focuses on Paul’s life as he navigates the demise of the Fab Four and the ascension of Wings in its wake.

So what do you do when you quit the biggest band the world has ever seen? If you’re Paul McCartney you start another one.

Paul admits his boundless enthusiasm has led him into trouble at times, but turning a group of musicians practising at a remote farmhouse into a credible 70s rock band makes a gripping plotline for this joyous documentary showcasing a fascinating upheaval in his life, alongside a great love of his life.

Much of the never before seen clips that tell Paul’s story in intimate and raw detail are are thanks to his late wife Linda.

‘Next to a presidential library, Paul McCartney has the best personal archives,’ Neville was told of his subject before they set to work. “It also helped that Paul married a photographer because Linda takes pictures of everything and there are so many home movies too,” the grateful filmmaker says at a Q+A following the screening. “I thought I lost it all,” Paul says. “You know this was the 60s and 70s, you’d have a lot of break ins, you didn’t really bother locking your door too much. Fans would come in and nick a load of stuff. It was how it was. I kind of automatically just thought it’s all gone, but the kids at my office were fantastic. They looked in every little storage unit and every little drawer and they found it all and logged it. There’s amazing stuff there.”

For Paul, the most special memories he sees on screen are the moments of him and late wife Linda together.

“Seeing me and Linda interacting is very special because you know she’s not here anymore. It’s me and Linda, the kids. The music. Me and John. These memories it’s like a life flashing in front of you. There are so many cool things. All the stuff with the kids and Linda is lovely to see. Obviously it’s emotional because she looks so beautiful. She’s so cool.”

Daughter Stella who is in the theatre gives an approving cheer from her seat. “So that comes over,” notes Paul. “You know and the kids aren’t little anymore and they have kids of their own now.”

Paul married New York photographer Linda in March 1969, in a quiet civil ceremony at Marylebone Register Office in London with Ringo Starr among a select group of guests. Less than a year later, after a decade together the four Beatles went their separate ways – which for Paul was straight to a remote 183 acre farm on the Kintyre Peninsula in Scotland.

Talking on camera, a now 83-year-old Paul says all he wanted to do after the Beatles finished was ‘grow up’. Months into setting up his young family into chaotic country living, the call to create music couldn’t be ignored even from his rural retreat.

First came debut album McCartney, followed up months later by 1971’s Ram as he formed a double act with Linda.

“What am I doing singing with Paul McCartney?” Linda asks in the early home footage, admitting she can’t sing and could play only one note on the keyboard. “It’s a start,” Paul replies.

Ram was released just as Paul launched legal action to dissolve the Beatles’ partnership. It was poorly received. Undeterred, Paul set about forming a larger group this time recruiting Denny Laine, a friend from his time in 60s rock group the Moody Blues to join him and Linda. The trio took on more members, naming themselves Wings as they recorded experimental new material and set off to play in the type of tiny venues that had become a distant memory for superstar Paul.

“We’d show up at universities, not bother to book hotels, just take the kids and dogs in a van and for some reason we thought that was a great idea,” says Paul.

But at the start the enthusiasm was not reciprocated. The band were initially received as a ‘dud’ from fans and critics, with even Paul’s collaborator Lennon mocking his music.

After an early mauling from the industry who had once revered him, it was a slow road to success before Wings’ live shows developed into must-see tours and they produced some of the biggest selling singles and albums of the decade, including number one hit Mull Of Kintyre, Jet, Silly Love Songs and Live And Let Die, the theme to the 1973 James Bond film of the same title.

Paul said Linda’s responses to his boundless energy continues to inspire him today. “Anything crazy I would say, ‘Should I do that? Could I do that?’ And she’d say ‘Yeah, it’s allowed!’ It’s a great philosophy to have.”

The film is not just a family portrait, but also an insight into Paul’s complicated relationship with Lennon. Paul admits he felt he was punished most for the demise of the band and even bought into the blame himself.

“I thought that’s the kind of bastard I am, it leaves you in this kind of no man’s land, but the truth, John had come in one day and said he was leaving The Beatles, he said, ‘it’s kind of exciting, it’s like telling someone you want a divorce’.”

The film also sees Paul reflect on John’s ‘diss track’ about him following their break-up, How Do You Sleep?, which featured on 1971’s Imagine album with the Plastic Ono Band.

“The only thing you did was Yesterday (one of the song’s lyrics), was apparently (former Beatles manager) Allen Klein’s suggestion, but (at) the back of my mind I was thinking, ‘but all I ever did was Yesterday, Let It Be, The Long And Winding Road, Eleanor Rigby, Lady Madonna, f*** you, John,” says Paul. “How do I sleep at night? Well, actually, quite well, but you’ve got to remember, I’d known John since he was a teenager, and that’s kind of what I loved about John. He’s a crazy son of a bitch, he’s a lovely, lovely, crazy guy.”

Paul says one of his ‘greatest blessings’ is that he got to reconcile with John before his death in December 1980. Their children recall the last meeting of the two families in John’s New York City apartment, as ‘one big reunion’.

Stella and sister Mary also recall hearing the fateful moment Paul got the call that his best friend was gone. Stella says she heard a wave of commotion before seeing her dad rush out of their home and out onto the farm alone. The famous ‘Drag, isn’t it?’ clip of Paul reacting publicly to John’s death is shown in the film with Sean Ono Lennon defending the response as coming from a place of pure shock and grief, far from the Paul he recognised.

Reflecting on the period of life captured in the archive film, photo and audio recordings, Paul says: “It’s a heck of a story. It would be nice if people took away the fact that in my craziness and my enthusiasm, we stuck with it and we made it work. There’s something brave about that. It didn’t have to work out, you know, but it did.”

Giving their verdict immediately after the London premiere are two men who know exactly what it’s like to launch a solo career in the shadow of an iconic British band. Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller spoke to the Mirror following the screening. Weller hailed the movie as ‘fantastic.’ “It’s great to see that period of time ,the early 70s again, on screen like that.” Lifelong Beatles fan Gallagher called the project ‘amazing’ as the theatre lights came up.

Sharon Osbourne, who also posed for photos with Paul ahead of the screening, said she could see a movie of late husband Ozzy’s life being depicted on screen one day and was moved to tears by the film at several points. “It was incredible… very emotional. Especially the family moments with Linda. It was beautiful.”

*Paul McCartney Man On The Run airs on Prime Video on February 27*

“How to Make a Killing” boasts an opening so strong that it buys enough audience goodwill to coast through nearly its entire running time. That’s priceless in a screwball murder movie in which everyone’s soul is for sale.

Death row inmate Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) is four hours away from execution. A priest (Sean C. Michael) solemnly arrives to take his final confession and finds the condemned man lounging in a sleeping eye mask, griping that his last meal served him the wrong flavor of cheesecake. “Kill me now,” Becket quips.

This will be a tale of crime and punishment told in flashback, rewinding to Becket’s mother, an heiress excised from an eleven-figure fortune for giving birth as an unwed teenager. And it will be, as Becket insists, “a tragedy.”

But while the story’s framework is familiar, what gives this intro sequence zip is Powell’s sly nonchalance, the little bounce he makes on his cot when Becket pivots to give the flabbergasted priest his full attention. He has ours, too. Powell has yet to find his perfect role (this one’s close) but his confidence is why the industry is convinced that he’s the reincarnation of a classic leading man: Tom Cruise or Cary Grant if we’re lucky, or at least Bugs Bunny.

Writer-director John Patton Ford’s morally bleak comedy is itself a reincarnation of the 1949 British caper “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” which egged on an exiled sire as he avenges himself upon his royal family by murdering everyone between himself and dukedom. The 21st century American privilege that Becket is chasing in the remake doesn’t rely on formal titles. He wants cold hard cash, plus a couple of private islands, planes and ultra-luxury yachts. Besides, he’s already got a first name that sounds like a last name, signifying the American upper crust.

This Dickensian vengeance setup gives us an awful lot of people to murder, all caricatures of the elite. The original “Coronets” offed a posh feminist who scattered political leaflets across London from a hot air balloon, Ford spins that passé joke into a gag where Becket’s spoiled cousin (Raff Law) hovers in a helicopter sprinkling money over a pool party and then for good measure, cannonballs into the water to stuff bills in the crowd’s open and appreciative mouths. (For his next trick, perhaps Ford will remake Terry Southern’s outlandish satire “The Magic Christian,” which has a scene like that but five times filthier.)

Lore goes that when Alec Guinness received the “Coronets” script with an offer to play four of the ill-fated tycoons, he wrote back greedily and said, “Why not eight?” To our good fortune, Guinness did play all eight, even the suffragette. “How to Make a Killing” shares the wealth, giving cameos to a very funny Zach Woods as the scion who fancies himself a hipster artist (he takes photos of the unhoused) and Topher Grace as the Redfellow who found faith or, rather, a more sanctimonious spin on grift as a megachurch pastor. Likening himself to Jesus, Grace’s bleached blond huffs, “Don’t hate on me just because my dad’s a big deal.”

There’s a tease of real-world critique in how the preacher has decorated his office with framed photos of himself with various presidents and drug-runners, alluding to the inescapable suspicion that the world is run by a powerful club whose only admissions requirement is a bank balance with plenty of zeros. The jabs stop at allusions — they’re entertaining but as thin as a communion wafer. Still, I guffawed when Becket popped back into his present-day cell to poke fun at his audience, the Catholic priest: “The last thing the Church wanted was an investigation,” he says with a smirk. “I’m sure you know all about that.”

Like his lead character, Ford himself had to ascend in clout to direct this script, which he launched on the Black List in 2014. He instead made his debut with the much-smaller 2022 indie “Emily the Criminal,” which starred Aubrey Plaza as an art student desperate to pay off her student loans. His heart is with the strivers who find that our K-shaped economy makes it impossible to go straight.

Yet he hasn’t cracked whether the corpses in “How to Make a Killing” are victims themselves. The rich Redfellows get dispatched one by one in scenes that are fun but empty — neither cathartic nor comic, simply boxes to be checked off to great big poundings of thunder and harpsichords.

Surely, I thought, the film will figure out how it feels by the time it offs a Redfellow who’s merely ordinary-terrible: Bill Camp’s drunken, cowardly banker. But it doesn’t and the real victim of the indecision is Powell, who is rarely given a reaction to play. (Guilt? Rage? Glee?) He needs to give us an extra hint how he’s feeling — as an actor, Powell is so slick that even his regular smile comes across phony. I’d say he couldn’t be sincere if he tried, except Powell actually does try for one scene and the bleary, terrified look in his eyes is devastating.

While the promise of that gangbusters opening sequence goes a tad unfulfilled, “Killing” has two strong twists and plenty of reasons to enjoy the romp. I suspect that the movie might be too smart for its own good, or perhaps hemmed in by a cynicism that, everywhere we look lately, it appears that crime does pay. As Becket says early on, “We’re all adults here.” Ford sees all the wrong moves and isn’t sure-footed in choosing the right one, even though I think he has. Today’s crowd wants to smash Marie Antoinette’s cake and eat it, too.

At least along the way, there’s a playful love triangle between Julia (Margaret Qualley), the privileged nightmare who’s had Becket wrapped around her pinky finger since grade school, and Ruth (Jessica Henwick), a humble school teacher. Both characters stake out their polarized corners — the rich bitch versus the sweetheart — with Qualley somehow always arranging her legs to be seductively horizontal in her too-few scenes. Henwick is saddled with the more prosaic role and dialogue (“It’s scary to dream small,” she says). Nevertheless, her presence is so compelling that we root for Ruth every time she’s onscreen.

I’m glad that Ford is part of today’s guillotine crew making capers about economic inequality. But the best shot in the movie shows his promise as a romantic comedian: Becket and Ruth bump into each other in the rain and just as they make eye contact, the sun comes out and they share a smile. It’s a tiny moment of magic that gives you hope that these young lovers can work it out. Better still, it even gives you hope for humanity, even if the movie’s overall forecast for society is stormy.

To age is to find one’s appreciation for life’s daily joys sharpen, especially as more inconvenient realities assert themselves. Lifelong Tangier resident Maria Angeles (Carmen Maura), part of the bustling Moroccan city’s entrenched Spanish community, is one such grateful senior. We see her at the beginning of “Calle Málaga” in a state of smiling contentment, walking her neighborhood streets and being greeted by vendors.

What she surely isn’t expecting, however, as she buys food and makes croquetas in preparation for an eagerly awaited visit from her daughter from Madrid, is that this trip will threaten all she holds dear. That’s because Clara (Marta Etura), a divorced mom struggling to pay the bills, arrives with the news that she’s selling the grand old apartment her widowed mother has lived in for 40 years. Won’t it be nicer for Maria to live with her in Spain and be closer to her grandchildren? Or at the very least be taken care of locally in Spanish-specialized assisted living?

The look on Maura’s face — this celebrated actor’s most well-honed tool — suggests a range of emotions regarding forced elderhood or grannydom that are far less accommodating.

How Maria handles her imminent uprooting is at the core of Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani’s third feature, her follow-up to the similarly sensitive family drama “The Blue Caftan.” “Calle Málaga,” written with Touzani’s husband Nabil Ayouch, is not a passive narrative, though, merely content with the internalized ache of acceptance. It is to some extent an emotional heist film and protest tale in delicate harmony, in that after initially agreeing to be placed in that Tangier senior center while her possessions are boxed up or sold, Maria schemes to steal her life back from under her absent daughter’s nose.

If you don’t look too closely at the details of Touzani’s charming scenario — which requires that a lot of things to fall into place, if enjoyably so — the movie becomes a sweet and spicy counternarrative to stories about aging that patronize their protagonists. (Another noteworthy example was last year’s rapturous American indie “Familiar Touch.”) Maria essentially becomes a crafty squatter in her own up-for-sale apartment, reclaiming some items from a hard-nosed but increasingly understanding antiques dealer (a well-cast Ahmed Boulane) and engineering a clever way to earn money with the help of friendly neighborhood kids who adore her. Her gambit even opens the door for unexpected romance, giving her frequent chats with Josefa (María Alfonsa Rosso), a childhood friend, an increasingly eye-opening frankness.

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Maura, her almond-shaped eyes as powerfully suggestive as ever, conveying Maria’s rejuvenated spirit and sensuality with as much magnetism. Touzani, an unfussy, patient director with a fondness for the simplicity of human interaction, implicitly trusts her star to carry the film’s effervescence and complexity, although you may wish the filmmaking was a little less straightforward.

There is, after all, a reckoning for Maria’s situation we can’t help but keep in the back of our mind. Because our first brief glimpse of Clara is a sympathetic one — as opposed to conveniently antagonistic — we know “Calle Málaga” won’t settle for a tidy resolution. And it doesn’t, save leaving us with a view of Maria’s bid for freedom that, like the rose petal that is one of Touzani’s go-to visuals, beautifies the air whether still connected to the roots or separated and strewn like so much that’s fragile in life.

Poor Sylvia Plath has found little rest in the afterlife.

The New Yorker’s Janet Malcolm had choice words for the army of Plath’s biographers. She likened this species of writer to “the professional burglar, breaking into a house, rifling through certain drawers that he has good reason to think contain the jewelry and money, and triumphantly bearing his loot away.”

Plath, the deserted wife of fellow poet Ted Hughes, mother of two young children, died by suicide at age 30, leaving behind a collection of poems that anatomized her mental descent in scorching language that secured a permanent place in American letters. More than 60 years have passed since her death in 1963, yet the literary myth that has taken the name Sylvia Plath lives on.

I confess I’m not impervious to the posthumous allure. When visiting friends who were staying in the Primrose Hill area of London a few years ago, I would pass by the flat that Plath shared with her husband there and stare wonderingly at the town house, adorned with a blue plaque commemorating its former resident.

“Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia,” a new play by Beth Hyland that opened Thursday at the Geffen Playhouse, is set in a different apartment that the couple shared. This cozily claustrophobic home is located in Boston’s historic Beacon Hill district in the period before they had children and were striving anxiously to realize their early promise.

As Sylvia (Marianna Gailus) and Ted (Cillian O’Sullivan) confront the problems that will eventually drive them apart, two contemporary married writers who have taken up residence at the Boston address grapple with many of the same issues (marital discord, competitive egos and mental health woes) as their more famous literary predecessors.

World premieres are risky, and the writing for this one hasn’t yet settled. The play’s split focus, moving between 1958 and the present, is a sign of conceptual ambition. But Hyland struggles to find the pacing and rhythm of her complicated vision.

Sally (Midori Francis), a writer whose first book was a big hit but whose second book is long overdue, and Theo (Noah Keyishian), who just found out he won a major literary prize for his first novel and is now up for a game-changing job at Columbia University, are at different points in their careers. Sally is processing both the shock of a miscarriage and her ambivalence about her marriage.

She’s also worried that her publisher is going to make her pay back the advance for the book about Plath and Hughes that she’s been unable to make any headway on. “I have to finish the draft,” she tells Theo. “If I can’t do that when I’m living in their apartment, I should honestly just kill myself.”

Clearly, Sally is having a hard time holding it together. The precarious state of her mind forces us to question whether Sylvia and Ted are ghosts, hallucinations or literary inventions sprung to life. But these characters are initially presented as objectively real. We meet them before we meet Sally and Theo, and whether they are figments or not, they are unmistakably haunting the new occupant who’s writing about them.

Unfortunately, these illustrious figures are badly written and stiffly played. O’Sullivan can’t keep Ted’s accent straight, and Gailus seems to be offering a Ryan Murphy version of Plath.

Marianna Gailus, left, and Cillian O’Sullivan in “Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia” at Geffen Playhouse.

(Jeff Lorch)

Sally may be struggling to give Sylvia and Ted life on the page, but Hyland is having her own trouble ushering them to the stage. The word “factitious” kept coming to mind. Artificiality might be the point, but it’s not one that gives much pleasure in the theater.

Who wants to sit through a fictitious novelist’s clumsy drafts? The scenes between Sally and Theo are more convincing, but the dynamic between them grinds on snappishly. Theo tries his best to be a sensitive and supportive husband, but Sally can’t seem to get what she needs from him. And as her marriage and literary career fall apart, her psychiatric problems intensify.

Writing in a desperate junk-food-fueled all-nighter, Sally appears to have entered a manic phase. Theo, terrified that she might make another suicide attempt, looks on helplessly. Their small, spare yet tasteful apartment (the work of the collective Studio Bent) turns into a marital pressure cooker as Theo’s fortunes rise and Sally’s self-belief craters.

Hyland captures the parallels between the two couples. Her Ted is a patriarchal monster, controlling, moody and sexually malignant. Theo is far more psychologically evolved, but he has his own blind spots that provoke Sally, who’s more emancipated than Sylvia but less professionally assured and just as unstable.

The times are vastly different, but the balance of power between these married writers remains precarious. There might be a fascinating play here, but the amorphous scenes that Hyland provides lack a dramatic through line.

As the play flounders, director Jo Bonney casts about for solutions. A playful ghost story that has Sylvia entering and exiting through the refrigerator takes a bloody turn. As Sally spirals, the set turns crimson. This detour into horror is only temporary, but there’s no clear destination in sight.

The unstoppable force of Sally’s resentment and the immovable object of Theo’s perseverance are not an ideal dramatic combination. Francis bravely doesn’t soften Sally’s prickly nature, but she doesn’t give us much reason to sympathize with her character either. Keyishian’s gentle Theo is so solicitous that Sally’s abrasiveness begins to feel abusive, not to say theatrically off-putting. Perhaps that too is intentional. But just as there’s a difference between depicting chaos and depicting chaotically, there’s a difference between presenting theatergoers with a realistic image of mental illness and driving an audience nuts.

Ted is a cartoon creep with an Oxbridge hauteur, but Theo’s shortcomings may be too subtly rendered for a play that cries out for more definition. (Even his betrayal, involving the use of private marital material for literary purposes, seems equivocal.)

Hyland can’t resolve her shapeless play, so she has Sally talk her way into the future in a rambling monologue that’s a complete cop-out.

Sylvia warned Sally that if she tried to write about her, she would do everything in her power to stop her. The ghost of Plath, however, has nothing to worry about. “Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia” conks out on its own.

Whether you’re already on the inside or new to the party, the Canadian meta-comedy “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie,” about a music duo’s epic undiscoveredness, shows little audience favoritism as it ping-pongs between timelines, formats, realities, cultural shout-outs and its two indefatigable lead characters. Make that four leads, since director and co-writer Matt Johnson and his composer-best friend Jay McCarrol each play themselves twice, thanks to archival footage presented in this zippy mockumentary as evidence of time travel.

Don’t be confused. Or rather, be confused but adventurously so! Especially if you aren’t familiar with the cult web series from which this film derives. Indie-savvy viewers might know Johnson’s work from the moon-landing conspiracy lark “Operation Avalanche” or the cheeky docu-dramedy “BlackBerry,” both of which he directed and acted in. But there’s no getting around the fact that if you haven’t encountered them before, then for a good while they’ll come across as Motormouth Clown in a Fedora (Johnson) and Understated Guy at the Piano (McCarrol).

With three Ns to their band name (no relation to a slightly better-known group), a dream of booking Toronto’s longstanding live venue and only a cluttered suburban home to show for it, the duo’s act seems primarily to be coming up with boneheaded ideas for exposure. Johnson’s latest bolt of inspiration is for them to parachute from the top of downtown Toronto’s 2,000-foot CN Tower into the open Rogers Centre stadium below, a plan which meets with amusingly alarmed concern from a very real employee at the hardware store. It’s the first of many encounters with unsuspecting citizens, à la the oeuvre of Sacha Baron Cohen.

Though their stunt fails — yet succeeds for us as a piece of guerrilla filmmaking wizardry — it spurs Johnson toward an even crazier notion: time traveling in an RV to 2008 to change their fates and secure their inevitable fame. Think “Back to the Future” and think about it a lot, since from here on out, that 1985 classic becomes this movie’s lodestar of structural, comedic and musical reference. (McCarrol’s enjoyably overwrought orchestral score shouts out to composer Alan Silvestri.)

That the filmmakers could play against themselves using video of the 2008 versions of their characters (when they had the web series) is undeniably clever, if not always the laugh riot it promises to be. But it also helps foster the jealousy-driven farce that takes over the current-day narrative and is genuinely funny: a rejiggered timeline in which McCarrol becomes a massive pop star and Johnson gets left behind.

Invariably these wacky scenarios will be more amusing to longtime fans, for whom a frantic climax akin to the lightning-meets-DeLorean ending of “Back to the Future” will play like nostalgia for nostalgia. To the uninitiated, though, even amid steady laughter and a sneaking concern for this silly friendship to right itself, it may come off as much ado about who knows what.

But Johnson is nothing if not a punchy ringmaster of deadpan humor and his grab-bag mindset generates enough goodwill to appreciate the DIY brashness of it all. I’m one of those who had no clue of this act’s history and I’m fairly certain I’d look forward to “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie the Sequel.”

If you’re reading this review of Gore Verbinski’s maniacal farce “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” in newsprint, congratulations on being a Luddite.

But if you’re reading it on a smartphone, then you’re one of the suckers that Sam Rockwell is hoping to reach when his unnamed time traveler barges into a late-night Los Angeles diner screaming, “I am from the future and all of this goes horribly wrong!” The patrons pause scrolling to glance at this unhinged, unwashed man wearing a crown of computer wires wrapped around his head like an IT messiah. Then they get a good look at his shoes when he stomps on their tables, kicking cheeseburgers as he tries to make these regular folks engage with the tech-pocalypse he swears is coming.

It’s a sermon we’ve heard plenty of times before and possibly even delivered ourselves. Coming from the ever-charismatic Rockwell, a lecture to stop wasting our lives online sounds no more insurmountable, only more immediate.

Half of the world will die, he foretells. The other half will be too distracted to notice. That is, unless a handful of strangers join him right now, right this moment, to fight for humanity’s cerebral freedom. Unsurprisingly, volunteers don’t raise their hands. (The one eager guy who does has failed him too often in other scenarios.) But Rockwell’s time traveler — he really is one — is used to a firewall of resistance. He’s given this speech at this diner 117 times. Some combination of the 47 people in it is fated to succeed.

That opening scene sounds as if an AI merged “The Terminator” with “Groundhog Day.” True, Matthew Robinson’s funny, savage and surprising script doesn’t downplay its inspirations. (He even lets Rockwell rip off Indiana Jones’ line about snakes.) But the screenplay gets so intricate and angry — and so shamelessly ambitious — you can’t believe someone in today’s Hollywood was willing to put up the money to get it made. Even helmed by proven hitmaker Verbinski of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, it’s a feat akin to convincing someone to fund a skyscraper-sized cuckoo clock that has a bird that pops out and heckles the crowd.

Eventually, a dubious crew enlists: public school teachers Mark and Janet (Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz), grouchy ride-share driver Scott (Asim Chaudhry), assistant Boy Scout leader Bob (Daniel Barnett), jittery mom Susan (Juno Temple) and forlorn Maria (Georgia Goodman), who keeps sighing that all she wanted was a slice of pie. Rockwell also impulsively yokes in Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), a grungy girl in a princess dress, who seems to be on her own suicide mission. The actors are mostly just pegs in a complicated plot, but they snap into place well.

The man from the future doesn’t have a plan — and worse, he considers himself the only person who isn’t expendable. The others can die (and do). As the group shuffles toward catastrophe, Verbinski intercuts their mission with flashbacks to their civilian lives. Their ordinary days, the digital indignities they’ve borne, that’s where Verbinski really gets mean.

The film’s feints and twists are fabulous as they explore how the internet’s promise has soured. One plotline involves a corporate brainstorm to make people love and nurture their own talking adbot, essentially a human-sized Tamagotchi. In another, school shootings have become such an epidemic that when Temple’s Susan gets summoned to identify her ninth-grader’s corpse, the other grieving mothers at the station calmly chitchat about traffic until one glances over at her nonchalantly and says, “First time?”

At first, the not-so-original idea that phones have turned children into zombies is a Romero-style parody of brain rot. (The young actor Cassiel Eatock-Winnik has a great scene as a vicious teen who stares down one of her elders and says, “You’re 35? That’s, like, older than most trees.”) But Verbinski reveals an unexpected angle of attack: Here, society has groomed the next generation to behave like machines. We don’t know why, exactly, but we can imagine a few reasons.

Even coping mechanisms take fire. Susan meets more parents who’ve snapped under the strain and become nihilistic trolls raising their daughter to be toxic so it won’t matter as much if she dies. Another character is quick to insist that everything he’s looking at — the walls, the people — is a facade. A 20-something gig worker named Tim (Tom Taylor) wants to permanently live in a VR simulation. His story is a little rushed but we get the idea that Tim’s not a jerk, just an idealist who can’t handle the tawdriness of the 21st century. As he puts it, “Why would I choose this world over that one?”

Verbinski doesn’t say much outright about the creeping concern that we’re living in a highly surveilled, aggressive and unpredictable police state. He’s able to make that point without words when cops arrive and our heroes-slash-hostages, none of whom have yet done anything worse than skip out on their bill, all assume the itchy trigger finger of the law will shoot them on sight. (And they’re right.) He also makes an ominous refrain of “Thank you for your service.”

It’s easier to howl at a classic like “Dr. Strangelove,” which mocked the leaders giddyuping the planet’s destruction, than at a present-day satire where we ourselves are the joke. As with “Idiocracy” (and eventually “Eddington”), our ability to fully appreciate this merciless, furious comedy might take a decade of remove. Even then, though, I won’t like James Whitaker’s cinematography, which goes for a deliberate ugliness but just looks dishwater drab.

“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” anticipates the audience’s resistance. We do think for ourselves and so we scour the movie for flaws that will justify the urge to roll our eyes. For example: Why does Rockwell let some characters die and not others? Is the movie just as shallow as its j’accuse of us? Some quibbles get answered. Larger questions are left coyly unresolved so that we leave the theater uneasy.

There are so many overwhelming ideas in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” that, at over two hours, it does have the sense of a dissociative doomscroll. There’s even a plot point involving an algorithmic overlord that creates randomly generated armies: “Ghostbusters” with AI slop. The normie survivors try to convince themselves it might send something good, like they’re thumbing TikTok hoping for a treasure worth the time. Rockwell assures them it won’t. Nothing good will ever come. And what does arrive is so hellacious that it makes the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man look sweet.

The film is too cynical to take itself that seriously; Verbinski would roll his eyes at any thoughts and prayers it could do much good. Yet, anyone born with “19” at the start of their birthyear still remembers how it felt to leave the house without a black rectangle in their hands. That makes us all time travelers of a sort, too, beacons of an increasingly distant era in which it was possible to be unplugged.

But it’s OK if you’re on your screen right now. Just sit before a bigger one to see this film.

We’ve seen animated animals belt out tunes in the “Sing” movies. We’ve learned about “The Secret Life of Pets” (twice). And we’ve visited them in “Zootopia” (also on two occasions). Now we get to see them play basketball. “Goat,” produced by Golden State Warriors prodigy Stephen Curry, is yet another underdog story about following your dreams wrapped in a by-the-numbers sports movie. It feels utterly unoriginal on multiple fronts.

Taking the popular acronym GOAT (Greatest of All Time) to its most literal form, the first feature by TV animation veteran Tyree Dillihay — from a screenplay by Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley — follows an anthropomorphic young goat who aspires to become the GOAT.

A lifelong fan of roarball (this film’s version of basketball), Will, who is voiced by Caleb McLaughlin, dreams of playing for his hometown team, Vineland. His admiration for the sport is embodied by Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union), Vineland’s most accomplished player, who carries the entire team on her back — she wants all the glory of victory for herself.

The world of “Goat” is divided between “smalls” and “bigs” (unlike “Zootopia” where the separation is between predators and prey). Will considers himself a “medium” but in the eyes of professional roarball players, he’s tiny. Still, after going viral for bravely challenging Mane Attraction (Aaron Pierre), one of the sport’s major stars who is double his size, Will lands a chance to play in the big leagues.

To the credit of the writers, roarball is a rather inclusive sport. There are no gendered teams, nor any discrimination based on species. Will might be the first “small” to make it big, but that stems from the public’s prejudice, not from rules that ban animals like him from playing.

Desperate for instant relevancy (like plenty of animated features these days), “Goat” is steeped in vapid internet references, from crypto to online memes. Sports fans, however, will find specific allusions, like contentious press conferences and even the kiss cam. Rowdy and kinetic from start to finish, “Goat” does in fact reflect the fast-paced dynamism of basketball, but it soon reveals itself a sugar rush without much substance.

Once Will joins the team, a “never meet your heroes” lesson ensues, since Jett feels like he’s usurping her position. Animosity on her part creates tension until Will opens up about his personal reason for playing. The emotions are not complex here, but they are heartfelt, thanks to how McLaughlin and Union conjure up larger-than-life personalities via their voice performances.

Meanwhile, Will’s other teammates — a rhinoceros, a giraffe (played by Curry himself), an ostrich and a Komodo dragon — don’t feel distinct enough from the ensemble casts of other animated projects like “Sing.” Each member of the assortment has their quirks, some of which occasionally yield a chuckle: Archie (David Harbour), the rhino, has two comically violent kid daughters.

There’s no denying “Goat” has a vibrant aesthetic, but that alone can’t overwrite its defects. Back in 2018, Sony Pictures Animation dazzled the industry when “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” introduced an approach that mixed 3D CGI with traditional hand-drawn animation. This combination of techniques doesn’t make “Goat” particularly unique anymore.

What’s most impressive, visually, about “Goat” is the way the natural world blends with the urban settings. Vineland, Will’s neighborhood, is indeed covered in vines and yet the vegetation appears organically integrated into the infrastructure. Each game takes place in a different ecosystem. The finale, for example, unfolds amid cracked volcanic rocks and lava. There’s visible handcraft and care in creating these backdrops for the action.

A mixed bag of eye-catching imagery and formulaic writing, “Goat” disappoints because it follows every expected path toward a triumphant conclusion. Its premise could have offered up a kid-friendly reading on failure that doesn’t simplify a way out of adversity. If talking animals will continue to be used as surrogates for human experiences — especially for young viewers — some nuance would be appreciated.

Available for 29 days

Ugo Monye, John Barclay and Chris Ashton delve into all the big talking points from an action packed opening week of the Six Nations.

Week one had everything – dramatic losses, freak weather storms and unexpected results.

It proved to be a difficult day in Rome for John as his former side lost in a shock defeat against Italy – John reveals how “gutted” he was.

Ashy was channel hopping between Paris and London – as he witnessed French dominance against Ireland and England’s confident win over Wales.

We also get the latest news on Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, who has been ruled out of the match against Scotland next weekend and is in danger of missing the entire Six Nations.

The big questions get asked too, from what does the future hold for Gregor Townsend, to how dominant can this French side become, and what’s next for Wales?

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Currently nominated for multiple Oscars, Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet” traces how the immeasurable sorrow of losing a child fueled William Shakespeare to write “Hamlet” as a literary effigy to loss. That revered text, which has inspired countless adaptations (“The Lion King” among them), takes on a new form in the hands of Japanese animation master Mamoru Hosoda for his latest fantastical epic, “Scarlet.”

In a career of animated features with thematic heft and deep emotional impact, “Scarlet” may be the director’s most sobering and intense effort to date, not only given the severity of the violence on display, but because it advocates for the sometimes-impossible task of forgiving one’s foes, even when they show no remorse. Here, what’s at stake is one’s very soul. What remains is Hosoda’s investment in parent-child relationships, a recurring subject for him, always explored with compassion for both parties: the child in need of guidance and the parent struggling to be a beacon.

Gender-swapping the play, Hosoda once again centers a heroine (he seems to prefer female protagonists). The 16th century eponymous Danish princess (voiced by Mana Ashida) loses her father, King Amleth (Masachika Ichimura), to a gruesome betrayal. Her unscrupulous, power-hungry uncle Claudius (Kôji Yakusho) murders his own brother to become king. But in his final moments, as Scarlet watches, Amleth pleads a request she cannot hear. Avenging her fallen father — and finding out what he asked for before dying — becomes the young woman’s sole purpose going forward. Rage consumes her.

Hosoda’s body of work consists almost exclusively of movies that take place on two distinct planes, whether those be reality and a digital world (“Summer Wars,” “Belle”) or reality and a magical realm (“Mirai,” “The Boy and the Beast”). “Scarlet” is no different in that regard.

This time, however, he explores an afterlife with its own set of rules. Sensing Scarlet’s resolve to destroy him, Claudius poisons her. Scarlet wakes up in the Otherworld, an endless, arid landscape with an ocean for sky where a dragon roams. The deceased from the past and the present convene here. That’s how Scarlet and Hijiri (Masaki Okada), a paramedic from our present who refuses to believe he’s died, can exist in the same timeline. This purgatory essentially mirrors life: There’s conflict and suffering and if you die again here, you vanish into darkness forever. The goal is to ascend to the Infinite Land, a stand-in for heaven. But Scarlet cares not for eternal peace. She learns that Claudius is here and embarks on a trek to find him and kill him for good.

Hosoda doesn’t dwell on the differences between Scarlet and Hijiri’s realities back in the land of living. Instead, he zeroes in on their clashing worldviews. While Scarlet doesn’t think twice about slaughtering anyone who gets in her way, Hijiri protects life at all costs, so much that one can understand Scarlet’s frustration with him. After a brutal fight, for example, Hijiri bandages her enemies’ wounds with as much care as he does hers.

Multiple battles with Claudius’ henchmen pepper Scarlet and Hijiri’s journey, as does an encounter with the United Nations of this place: a group of wandering nomads from around the world who’ve come together for companionship. Even after death, Hosoda suggests, all people truly hope for is a shoulder to cry on and someone to share their burdens with.

For “Scarlet,” Hosoda ventures into uncharted aesthetic territory. When the narrative is in the Otherworld, fans will immediately notice the look differs from his previous creations. And that’s because Hosoda has opted for photorealistic, computer-generated animation in those sections. The early scenes in Scarlet’s time period are conceived using the more traditional hand-drawn technique.

Still, the characters in the Otherworld, created in CGI, retain qualities of hand-drawn animation, making one hyperaware of the relationship between the figure’s movement and the environment. The mix of visual approaches shocks the eye at first, though it comes to seem fitting.

If probed too closely, Hosoda’s high-concept interpretation of life after death may raise more questions than it can answer (have all of history’s villains been killed in the Otherworld?). But despite any narrative quibbles, the movie deserves praise for its genuine call for compassion. Scarlet’s final encounter with Claudius radiates with the complicated poignancy expected of real, difficult catharsis.

Admittedly, the film’s resolution feels naïve. Scarlet’s good intentions to end wars by way of sheer determination to do what’s right might prove insubstantial in practice. In that regard, “Scarlet” is the prayer of a director who fervently wants to believe in kindness (even for those who don’t deserve it) as the one true road to healing. That’s a tall order these days, especially in this country, but it’s hard to fault Hosoda for the sincere reminder of what could be.

Sharing with the 1989 Tom Hanks film a title, a vague premise, a little paranoid spirit and a Universal Studios backlot street, “The ‘Burbs,” premiering Sunday on Peacock, stars Keke Palmer and Jack Whitehall as newlywed new parents who have moved into the house he grew up in — his parents are on “a cruise forever” — in Hinkley Hills, the self-proclaimed “safest town in America.”

Well, obviously not. First of all, that’s not a real thing. But more to the point, no one’s going to make an eight-hour streaming series (ending in a cliffhanger) about an actually safe town. Even Sheriff Taylor had the occasion to welcome someone worse than Otis the town drunk into the Mayberry jail. In post-post-war American culture, suburbs and small towns are more often than not a stage for secrets, sorrows, scandals and satire. The stories of John Cheever, the novels of Stephen King, “The Stepford Wives,” “Blue Velvet” and its godchild “Twin Peaks,” “Desperate Housewives” (filmed on the same backlot street as “The ‘Burbs”), “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” last year’s “Grosse Pointe Garden Society,” which I mention in protest of its cancellation, are set there — it’s a long list.

Samira Fisher (Palmer) is a civil litigation lawyer still on maternity leave, a job reflecting her inquisitive, inquisitorial nature. Husband Rob (Whitehall) is a book editor, a fact referred to only twice in eight hours, but which allows for scenes in which he rides a soundstage commuter train to the big city (presumably New York) with boyhood friend and once-more next-door neighbor Naveen (Kapil Talwalkar), whose wife has just left him for their dentist. Samira, Naveen and Rory (Kyrie McAlpin), an overachieving late tween who has a merit badge in swaddling, a recommendation from Michelle Obama on her mother’s helper resume and a notary public’s license, are the only people of color in town, but racism isn’t really an issue, past a few raised eyebrows and odd comment. (“What a cute little mocha munchkin,” says a shifty librarian of baby Miles.) “It’s a nice area,” says Naveen, “and people like to think of themselves as nice, so they try to act nice until they’re actually nice.”

As we open, the Fishers have been tentatively residing on Ashfield Place (“over by Ashfield Street near Ashfield Crescent”), for some indeterminable short time. Apart from Naveen, neither has met, or as much as spoken to, any of their new neighbors, though Samira — feeling insecure postpartum and going out only at night to push Miles in his stroller — watches them through the window.

That will change, of course, or this will be one of television’s most radically conceived shows. Fascinated by a dilapidated, supposedly uninhabited house across the street — the same backlot where the Munsters mansion rose many years ago, for your drawer of fun facts — she’s drawn out into a mystery: The rumor is that 20 years earlier a teenage girl was killed and buried there by her parents, who subsequently disappeared. Rob says there’s nothing in it, and in a way that tells you maybe there is.

Lynn (Julia Duffy), left, Samira (Keke Palmer), Dana (Paula Pell) and Tod (Mark Proksch) form a crew of sleuthing neighbors.

(Elizabeth Morris / Peacock)

Out in the world, she will find her quirky Scooby Gang: widow Lynn (Julia Duffy), still attached to her late husband; Dana (Paula Pell), a retired Marine whose wife has been deployed to somewhere she can’t reveal; and Tod (Mark Proksch), a taciturn, deadpan “lone wolf” with an assortment of skills and a recumbent tricycle. (Their shared nemeses is Agnes, played by Danielle Kennedy, “our evil overlord,” the stiff-necked president of the homeowner’s association.) They bond over wine (drinking it) and close ranks around Samira after the police roust her on her own front porch. By the end of the first episode, Samira is determined to stay in Hinkley Hills, warmed by new friends, enchanted by the fireflies and in love with the “sweet suburban air.”

Weird goings-on in a creepy old “haunted” house is as basic a trope as exists in the horror-comedy mystery genre (see Martin and Lewis’ “Scared Stiff,” Bob Hope’s “The Ghost Breakers,” Abbott and Costello’s “Hold That Ghost” and assorted Three Stooges shorts). Suddenly there’s a “for sale” sign on this one, and just as suddenly, it’s sold. The new owner is Gary (Justin Kirk), who chases off anyone who comes around. Tod notes that the security system he’s installed is “overkill” for a private residence, necessary only “if you are in danger, you have something to hide — or both.” You are meant to regard him as suspicious; Samira does.

Created by Celeste Hughey, “The ‘Burbs” is pretty good, a good time — not the most elegant description, but probably the words that would come out of my mouth were you to ask me, conversationally, how it was. I suppose most of it adds up even if doesn’t always feel that way while watching it. It hops from tone to tone, and goes on a little long, in the modern manner, which dilutes the suspense. The characters are half-, let’s say three-quarters-formed, which is formed enough; everyone plays their part. The Hardy Boys were not known for psychological depth, and I read a lot of those books. A lot. Indeed, depth would only get in the way of the plot, which is primarily concerned with fooling you and fooling you again. When a character isn’t what they seem, making the false front too emotionally relatable is counterproductive; the viewer, using myself as an example, will feel cheated, annoyed. I won’t say whether that happens here.

That isn’t to say that the actors, every one of them, aren’t as good as can be. I’ll show up for Pell and Duffy anywhere, anytime. Proksch, well known to viewers of Tim Heidecker’s “On Cinema at the Cinema,” is weird in an original way. The British Whitehall, primarily known as a stand-up comedian, panel show guest and presenter, makes a fine romantic lead. Kirk is appealingly standoffish, if such a thing might be imagined. As Samira’s brother, Langston, RJ Cyler has only a small role, but he pops onscreen and, having the advantage of not being tied up in any of the major plotlines, provides something of a relief from them. And Palmer, an old pro at 32 — her career goes back to “Akeelah and the Bee” and Nickelodeon’s “True Jackson” — does all sorts of wonderful small things with her face and her voice. She’s an excellent Nancy Drew, and the world can never have enough of those.

In the 1930s, the white matriarchs of tiny Natchez, Miss. — one of the 19th century’s wealthiest American towns thanks to the slavery-driven cotton trade — opened their stately antebellum mansions to save themselves from economic ruin. Tourism dollars flowed in, even if the prettified Southern history being sold ignored the immoral plague that built its riches in the first place.

By turns cheeky and disturbing, blunt and nuanced, Suzannah Herbert’s excellent documentary “Natchez” offers its own guided tour of a memory-challenged community (population: 14,000) struggling to reconcile its exquisite, carefully scrubbed façade with the inconvenient truths some would like to see better represented in the narrative.

That longstanding erasure has made Natchez a less commercially friendly prospect to younger generations of visitors. And meaningful progress turns out to be much harder than simply refashioning an exhibit or a docent’s spiel.

Can a place like Natchez — home to both a cherished tourist pageantry called the Pilgrimage and the slave market site called Forks of the Road — find a harmonious existence between its green-and-serene sightseeing pleasures and its terrible past? Its optimistic mayor seems to think so, if the first scene is any indication, in which he exalts a “new Natchez” at a spirited ladies’ luncheon held by the tour-umbrella association, the Garden Club, and featuring that group’s first Black member, Deborah Cosey.

Cosey, we learn, runs Concord Quarters, a burned-down plantation’s last remaining building, which once housed its enslaved. (She also lives there.) Centering the work and lives of these forgotten souls is a mission she sees as telling “the rest of the story.” In one tense scene with her white colleagues, Cosey winces at their version of historical enlightenment — the reclamation project is moving at a horse-drawn carriage’s pace.

The big house is still the main show, antiquated customs and preserved finery still the plot, even as some of these hosting descendants, faced with declining revenues, grasp that there’s an increasing awkwardness to the “Gone With the Wind” myth they’re peddling. Meanwhile, charming and knowledgeable Black pastor Tracy “Rev” Collins offers a lively van tour (“See the real Mississippi”), an educational reality check about slavery’s legacy laced with witty asides.

The divide gets more complicated when the documentary trails openly gay veteran Garden Club member David Garner, whose charity work benefiting the LGBTQ+ community would seem to point to an old world’s shifting tolerance. But when this outlier’s intensely Southern-fried tour patter reveals a chillingly deep-seated racism, it slaps you right back into sobriety about Natchez’s roots — a neo-Confederate mindset that doesn’t care if a camera is there to record it.

“Natchez” is full of quietly charged moments in dreamily scenic surroundings, one result of Noah Collier’s lush cinematography, deployed like a deliberately performative nostalgia that lets us know there’s always more to see if we look (and listen) closely enough. This stylistic approach allows Herbert to expertly avoid inadvertently selling Natchez itself, instead focusing on how this town’s peculiar relationship to an overwhelming past still lives inside those doing the selling.

The gorgeous, quirky and melancholy “The Love That Remains,” from Icelandic filmmaker Hylnur Pálmason (“Godland”), opens with an exhilarating shot from inside a long, empty seaside building, from where we can see the roof suddenly wrenched off by some exterior force. As it hovers in the air above, we get to consider the two parts of this one-time whole and how the light changes inside this deconstructed space.

In one respect, that’s the whole of the movie encapsulated, as we encounter a family of five living in the wake of a separation. Visual artist Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir) looks to assert herself while still living in the rural home she shared with her teenage sweetheart. The increasing alienation leaves fisherman Magnús (Sverrir Guðnason) living offshore on a big trawler as his hold on domestic security slips. Their kids, meanwhile — teenage Ída and twin boys Grímur and Þorgils (the trio played by director Pálmason’s own children) — exhibit a healthy absorption of the circumstances, meeting moments of togetherness with plenty of humor and spirit.

What we glean of the past comes from the fragmented present, as if we’re leafing through a stranger’s exquisitely curated album (there’s only Harry Hunt’s piano score for sad commentary). Elsewhere we see that home-cooked meals, chores and foraging excursions occasionally bring this fractured family back together. But when Magnus pushes to stay for a while, Anna firmly claims her independence.

While apart, their working lives — his at sea, hers on land — speak to a confluence of the elemental and the man-made. Pálmason, who serves as his own cinematographer (and a great one with the 4:3 framing), revels in the sweep and heft of deep-sea fishing, a seasonal trade that gives purpose to Magnus’ days and nights but also fosters an increasingly unwanted solitude. Anna, meanwhile, devotes herself to earth art, turning machine-lasered iron cutouts laid on white sheets in the open air into large-scale, rust-patterned pieces. Getting her work appreciated, however, is another matter. In one painfully funny sequence, a visiting gallerist (and gasbag) barely seems to care about her art, showing more interest in a goose’s nest that has materialized in an enclosure.

Is love another natural element susceptible to age and wear? Across a running time tied to the shifting seasons, pocked by images of breathtaking beauty, Pálmason is after a feeling that only patient observance yields: a lasting reality about the passing of relationships. One of the director’s frequent visual cutaways is to a knight-outfitted dummy the children build on a picturesque spot, lashed to a stake. It’s an indelibly amusing and heartbreaking totem, suggesting play and suffering, and eventually manifesting wounds both real and internalized. (The director’s 2022 short “Nest,” which captures the building of a tree house over a year, is a precursor to his temporal approach to this feature.)

On the heels of Pálmason’s masterful “Godland,” a 19th century colonizer epic of faith and conquest that couldn’t be more different, “The Love That Remains” nevertheless positions this filmmaker as a gifted craftsman of adult storybooks, no matter the era or scope. This is a delicate, confidently imagined fiction made with the eyes of a naturalist, the heart of a believer in family, and a sensibility with room for both the Pythonesque and the Lynchian.

After some late winter sun? This colourful Moroccan city should be top of your list to explore, with its magnificent palaces, stunning gardens and bustling souks

With its famous medina now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a labyrinth of souks to explore and luxury riads to stay at, there’s never been a better time to head to Marrakech. Whether you’re looking for a spot of winter sun or want to soak up the culture later on in the year, you won’t be disappointed. We were surprised by how much was on offer – and in fact, your only problem is likely to be not having enough time to explore.

Where to stay in Marrakech

Hidden down a little alleyway, you’d never find Tarabel Marrakech unless you knew it was there, which makes it the perfect place to rest and relax after a long day of exploring. Upon arrival you step into a courtyard filled with orange trees and are welcomed with fresh mint tea, served with the most delicious biscuits. Looks can be deceiving – you may think the riad is small but there are three hid- den courtyards and cosy alcoves to unwind in. One of our favourite features was the mirror which opened up to reveal the hammam and spa, where you can indulge in a much-deserved massage or facial.

The hotel is made up of just 10 individually designed rooms and suites, meaning peace and quiet is guaranteed. If you can pull yourself away from your room, take a dip in the outdoor pool or recline in the sun on one of several roof terraces.

While the hotel doesn’t have a restaurant, it does have a dedicated kitchen team who are on hand to ensure you get to sample the best Marrakech has to offer. We enjoyed a romantic candlelit dinner on one of the many terraces, which was the perfect start to our trip. Our three-course Moroccan meal was bursting with flavour, starting with a trio of salads and sweet meat samosas before tucking into a chicken tagine with a citrus infusion. To finish it was a heavenly molten chocolate cake accompanied by sliced orange with a dusting of cinnamon.

The kitchen is also open for lunch, but it was breakfast that stole the show – we still think about the fluffy pancakes with honey and fresh fruit juice served in the warmth of the morning sun on the roof terrace.

What to do in Marrakech

We’d never been to Marrakech before but had a long list of spots we wanted to visit – but with just two days to pack it all in, we had to be decisive. Just a five minute walk from the hotel and amongst the hustle and bustle of the medina is Le Jardin Secret, a small but stunning garden filled with plants from across the continent. Stop and spend a minute or two under the pergola that sits in the centre of the gardens.

If you love fashion then be sure to head to Le Jardin Majorelle and the Yves Saint Laurent Museum. The garden is an oasis of calm and will have you stopping to take photos at every turn. Make sure you book tickets online to avoid disappointment, and get an early slot to avoid crowds.

And if you love architecture then Bahia Palace is a must. You’ll be blown away by the stunning tile designs on the floors and walls along with the beautifully painted ceilings and wooden doors. Our favourite spot however was Dar El Bacha Museum, which is located just minutes from Tarabel. Set back from the street, you’ll be open mouthed as you step into the courtyard with its intricate tiled floors, handpainted ceiling and the garden full of pomegranate trees.

Stop for a drink at Bacha Coffee, which is hidden inside the museum (although be warned, you may be waiting a while for a seat).

And finally, you can’t spend time in Marrakech without heading to the souk. The little alleyways are lined with small shops selling everything from jewellery and leather goods to spices and rugs. It’s a visual feast and you can easily lose hours exploring.

Hidden hotspot

One of our favourite finds while exploring the city was Ice Mamman. Once you’re finished haggling in the souks or just tired from exploring, this ice cream parlour with a roof terrace has everything from sorbets, snacks and smoothies for you to enjoy. The winning flavour has to be the chocolate ice cream – absolutely delicious!

How much does it cost?

Rooms at Tarabel Marrakech cost around €350 per night including breakfast. Marrakech is served by direct flights with BA, easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair, TUI and WIZZ Air from various locations across the UK, and Aer Lingus and Ryanair from Ireland.

The Olympics are back, wearing their warm Winter Games gear. Although there were will be a couple of weeks of sports competitions to come, none are possible without an opening ceremony, a combination of solemn official protocol with a fantastic representation of the host country’s culture and character, evoking the Olympic spirit itself. There are few opportunities to mount an entertainment of this scale — not even a Super Bowl halftime show can compare.

This year we are in Italy, for the bi-metropolitan Milan-Cortina games, held in the city’s San Siro Stadium and in the north where the mountains are. The ceremonies, too, were split geographically, with Olympic cauldrons in both cities, with the athletes’ parade further shared with Livigno and Predazzo, national delegations divided according to where their events would be held.

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1. Human bobbleheads of Italian composers Rossini, left, Puccini and Verdi. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) 2. Dancers on stage in San Siro Stadium. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The main business took place in the arena. Directed by Marco Balich, who specializes in big shows, it was elegant, in a sleek, clean-lined Italian way, and over the top, also in an Italian way. Color played a great part, the program beginning in white (a balletic interpretation of Antonio Canova’s sculpture “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss”), moving to to black and white (a nod to Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” and its paparazzi), and then to a riot of color, as giant floating tubes of paint sent streams of colored fabric stageward.) There were dancing human bobbleheads of opera composers Verdi, Puccini and Rossini, as if they were mascots for Team Rigoletto, Team Tosca and Team William Tell. There were dancing gladiators and moka pots, a phalanx of runway models dressed (in Armani) in green, white and red, to represent the Italian flag.

In white and shiny silver, with an ostrich feather boa and a reported $15 million worth of diamond jewelry, there was a statuesque, statue-still Mariah Carey, who is not Italian, but sang in Italian, the standard “Nel blu, dipinto di blu,” known here as “Volare,” which merged into her own “Nothing Is Impossible.” (She must by now be accounted a citizen of the world.) Why did I find this so moving? I am not someone who ordinarily cares anything about Carey, but she was marvelous in this context.

Mariah Carey performed the Italian tune “Volare,” before leading into “Nothing Is Impossible.”

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The parade of nations is also a fashion show; for whatever reason, the cold weather gear is generally better looking than the togs of summer. (As usual, Ralph Lauren designed the American outfits — white puffy jacket with knit caps of a Scandinavian pattern.) As ever, the countries arrived alphabetically (apart from Greece, who always gets to march first; Italy, coming in last as the host country; France, in penultimate position as the host of the next Winter Games; and the U.S., third to last as the host of the games, in 2034, after that). It makes neighbors of Lebanon, Lichtenstein and Lithuania, and so on, equal in standing if not in size. (I have a special fondness for the small delegations from the less imposing nations.) There was an especially big hand for the Ukrainian team, dressed in their national colors.

The second half opened with a cartoon in which an animated Sabrina Impacciatore (of “The White Lotus” and, “The Paper,” which NBC happily did not cross-promote), traveled backward through previous Winter Games before coming to life to lead an energetic production number that traveled back to now. (She should get some sort of athletic medal for this performance.) The Chinese pianist Lang Lang accompanied Cecilia Bartoli singing the Olympic anthem, and the great Andrea Bocelli, flanked by strings, offered a thrilling reading of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.” Surrounded by dancers, the Italian rapper Ghali read an antiwar poem by Gianni Rodari.

Sabrina Impacciatore leading a group of dancers during the ceremony.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The theme of the evening, and of evenings going forward, it is hoped, was “Armonia,” or harmony, not just between the city and the country (expressed symbolically through dance), but, as a series of speeches made clear, among everybody, everywhere.

“At a time when so much of the world is divided by conflict, your very presence demonstrates that another world is possible. One of unity, respect and harmony,” said Giovanni Malagò, president of the organizing committee, addressing the athletes. Kirsty Coventry, the first female president of the IOC, noted that while Olympic athletes are fierce competitors, they “also respect, support and inspire one another. They remind us that we are all connected, that our strength comes from how we treat each other, and that the best of humanity is found in courage, compassion and kindness.”

And then there was Charlize Theron, of all people, quoting her countryman Nelson Mandela: “Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference,” This is, of course, exactly what some portion of this nation would call “woke,” and though such divisions are not the exclusive province of the United States, it was easy enough to read this as a message delivered to the White House.

Charlize Theron quoted her fellow countryman Nelson Mandela in her speech.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Finally, two Olympic torches were lit two Olympic cauldrons, in Milan and Cortina, their flames at the center of shape-shifting spheres. Almost inevitably, the ceremonies flirted with, or embraced, corniness at times, but even (or especially) when it was corny, it was terrifically affecting. I ran through half a dozen handkerchiefs over the course of the proceedings. Admittedly, I might be unusually susceptible to these things, but I doubt I’m the only one.

Let the games begin.

Feb. 5 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection said Thursday it will begin a first-half audit of public institutions’ asset management, including the sale of broadcaster YTN, amid allegations that some state-linked assets were disposed of at below-market prices.

The audit agency released its 2026 annual plan and said it will focus on high-risk areas tied to financial soundness, including large public-sector projects, asset sales and the operations of overseas offices.

A Board of Audit and Inspection official said the agency will conduct a comprehensive review of cases in which assets were sold or leased at low prices without sufficient valuation, citing claims that public institution assets, including YTN, were subject to “fire-sale” pricing.

YTN became the center of controversy in October 2023 over allegations of forced privatization and a rushed or preferential sale after a 30.95% stake held by KEPCO KDN and the Korea Racing Authority was transferred to the Eugene Group, according to the report.

President Lee Jae-myung ordered ministries in November 2025 to halt and reexamine state asset sales, the report said.

The audit plan also includes reviews described as “visible to the public,” covering illegal drug customs clearance management, defect handling in multi-unit housing and the operation of information security certification systems.

In addition, the agency said it will conduct “innovation support audits” in new technology areas such as artificial intelligence and research and development. The plan also calls for an audit of relaxation facilities, including a cypress sauna and a bedroom, installed at the Yongsan presidential office during former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s tenure, according to the report.

An audit agency official said the board will aim to drive institutional changes that the public can feel.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260206010002246

Successful romances star at least one looker. I don’t mean someone attractive. I mean an actor who gazes at their scene partner with such delight that we swoon, too. Clark Gable was a looker. Diane Keaton was a looker. The combined eyeball voltage of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone is so powerful that it’s turned silly scripts into hits.

Harry Melling is a late-blooming looker. Onscreen most of his youth as the Muggle brat Dudley Dursley in the “Harry Potter” franchise, Melling is only just now getting to show off that talent in the funny-kinky “Pillion,” which puts him on his knees beaming up at Alexander Skarsgård’s 6-foot-4 biker as though this blond hunk was the sun. His Colin, a shy gay man who sings the high notes in a barbershop quartet, is so visibly infatuated licking Skarsgård’s leather boots in a dark alley that you believe he lusts for humiliation. Colin has only just discovered that fact about himself. He’s yet to even learn this man’s name. (It’s Ray.)

Perhaps you’d like to be taken to dinner first, but “Pillion” is about Colin’s needs — specifically his need to please — and first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton challenges us to root for his bliss. This fetishy adventure is a minimalist romantic comedy in which submissive meets dominant, and submissive explores his physical and emotional vulnerabilities. Marriage and a baby carriage are off the table; the journey matters, not the destination.

“Pillion” is what motorcyclists call the passenger seat, at least in suburban England where this is set. It’s a passive position compared to the driver, but still a cooler upgrade from where Colin starts the movie riding in: the rear of a sedan. Out the car’s back window, he sees Ray zoom by in white Stormtrooper-looking gear and, by happenstance, bumps into him that night at a pub where Colin’s mother, Peggy (Lesley Sharp), has set up a blind date with a nice bloke. That guy gets forgotten the instant Ray slips Colin a note with a time and place to meet.

Peggy isn’t panicked by her son’s alpha-male predilections. “I think a biker sounds exciting,” she says with a grin. His father, Pete (Douglas Hodge), just wants him to wear a helmet. Neither parent is privy to the fact that Ray simply isn’t very nice. Ray controls the gobsmacked Colin quietly, calculating the bare minimum of kindness required to have a house boy willing to cook dinner, tend to his Rottweiler and sleep on the floor. He withholds his approval to keep the paler, smaller man anxious.

That Rottweiler contended for the Palm Dog at last year’s Cannes, a prize for the festival’s best canine. Frankly, Melling himself should have won. His performance is pure puppy, from the way he silently studies Ray’s silent cues to the eagerness with which he leaps up to fetch Ray a beer. When Ray lavishes attention on another biker’s pet pillion, Kevin (Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters), Colin sulks until his master unzips his trousers and gives him a treat.

Flexing his abs in shiny Motoralls, Skarsgård uses his own appeal to expose an unattractive wrinkle in human behavior: Ray is so gorgeous that everyone just takes it as fact that Colin is lucky to be near him. When a coworker asks this scrawny geek how he bagged a hunk like Ray, Colin brags that he has “an aptitude for devotion,” which includes wearing a padlock around his neck and shaving his Byronesque curls so that he looks like a zealot — which in a way, he is.

Over and over, Colin takes stock of his own debasement. But then he looks at his model-handsome lover and calculates that his suffering is worth it. He’s good at compartmentalizing; he’s a parking violations attendant who tickets angry people all day. When he needs an excuse to cry, he finds one (and it hurts to watch).

Lately, it’s been a thrill to see queer stories confidently leapfrog over coming-out narratives to the trickier question of whether two individuals in particular are a decent match. Lighton leaps further than that — he goes full Evel Knievel by daring to ask how we feel about a relationship that’s indecent, but still has worth as a set of training wheels for a wobbly young man learning what he wants.

It’s a more optimistic take on Colin and Ray’s coupledom than was in the book that inspired the script, Adam Mars-Jones’ 2020 novella “Box Hill,” which was subtitled “A Story of Low Self-Esteem.” A study of the psychology of abuse, that story’s more brainwashed version of Colin finds him decades older looking back on the affair and pining for a relationship that reads as horrible between the lines.

Lighton isn’t oblivious to the power imbalance, but he’s made a movie about going forward, not being stuck. He trusts his naif with more agency, and so “Pillion” is freer to play its insults for laughs. You’ll giggle a lot. That gleam in Melling’s eyes makes it feel like a comic fantasy, although who knows? Perhaps there really are BDSM biker gangs hosting afternoon picnics with serving boys tied spread-eagled on a buffet table. That bucolic scene is filmed in a slow pivot around the park, cinematographer Nick Morris getting a chuckle from how the image shifts from Georges Seurat to “Hellraiser.”

Eventually, Colin’s parents will be more flinchy about his new boyfriend, leading to a beat or two that don’t land with the impact they could. Oddly, Lighton might be too restrained himself. Like his leads, he prefers to say everything with a look.

But while Melling is always endearingly open and responsive, Skarsgård stays unreadable. His Ray always seems to be hiding behind a motorcycle visor even when he’s not and when he deigns to speak, the words trail off in a huff of exhaustion. The only thing we know about Ray’s life are the names of his two previous dogs, and that’s only because he has them tattooed on his chest.

Any more personal facts about Ray — his own job or family or romantic history, even his favorite movie — would risk us clinging onto it too tightly as an explanation of what he gets out of this himself. Serving Ray’s pleasure is Colin’s focus. And our focus is on Colin’s pursuit of that.

Yet with subtle skill, Skarsgård reveals that Ray is thinking about Colin more than he’s willing to let on. Curiosity flickers across his face when his submissive surprises him. He stays gruff, of course, but you sense that Ray is as manacled by his authoritarian role as Colin literally is in his hungry, slurping devotion to his master. Puny and pathetic as Colin appears, he begins to seem like the braver of the two. It takes courage to map your own boundaries — then to cross over that line and get hurt, and get back up and out there. Lighton’s biker BDSM rom-com might sound niche, but free yourself to see it and you’ll discover it’s a universal romance.

Two figures will always haunt the human imagination: the woman in ecstasy, and the woman in madness. This enduring fascination may stem as much from the paper-thin line that separates the two states as it does from our deep-seated fear of both. If the devoted nun resembles the raving patient, does that not justify locking them away, protecting ourselves from their unsettling power?

Two recent novels go behind the walls of anchorite and lunatic cells in different centuries and for different purposes, yet wind up demonstrating how women forced by circumstance behind walls influence the lives of others into the future. In “Canticle,” a debut from Janet Rich Edwards, a young woman named Aleys enters religious life in 13th-century Bruges, Belgium, after a Franciscan, Brother Lukas, witnesses her fervor. A series of unfortunate events ultimately lead to her permanent cloister, a tiny cell built into the wall of a cathedral. Paula McLain’s new book, “Skylark,” spans several centuries in Paris, beginning in the 17th when Alouette Voland is sentenced to the Salpetrière asylum after protesting the arrest of her father, an expert fabric dyer, from prison, for the brilliant blue hue he has concocted — actually his daughter’s recipe, which contains dangerous arsenic. Alouette’s attempts to reclaim her work as her own instead of her father’s result in her consignment to Salpêtrière.

While both novels feature terrific and authentic detail about the rough confines Aleys and Alouette endure, the message beneath the descriptions is far more terrifying and authentic: for centuries, the fear of female agency and non-male approaches to power has led to deep trauma, not just for individual women, but for Western civilization itself. For instance, Aleys’s late mother cherished books, even though common people rarely knew how to read and write, let alone owned books. Aleys cherishes the tiny, exquisite psalter her mother inherited from an abbess aunt. Although Aleys’s mother cannot read, she knows the stories of the saints and relishes embroidering them with “goriest” details to keep her children interested. Yet, even as Aleys’s world begins to change with the rise of lay literacy, those lay people are almost entirely men. Women, whether secular or religious, remain forbidden to read, write or tell stories.

“Canticle” author Janet Rich Edwards.

(Laura Rich)

Aleys, at first, seems to be on a path toward personal enlightenment. Brother Lukas declares her a Franciscan, convincing his superior, Bishop of Tournai Jaan Metz, that the young woman possesses special spiritual gifts. The Bishop agrees, but insists that since no other Franciscans are female, Aleys must be sent to the nearby Beguines—laywomen who take no vows, live in community, and work to support the church. While Aleys initially finds the Beguines “wanton” due to their “strange rites,” including casual dress and meetings, their charismatic leader, Grand Mistress Sophia Vermeulen, convinces Aleys of the group’s higher purpose.

Aleys later discovers that a beguine named Katrijn Janssens has been secretly translating Latin scripture into Dutch. In the evenings, the women often perform ecstatic dances while someone reads from the “Canticle of Canticles” (also known as the “Song of Songs”). Aleys already has a strong mystical bent, and after some time in the Begijnhof, she supposedly cures a young boy’s illness. Unfortunately, she’s unable to do the same when Sophia becomes sick. Her subsequent eviction from the Beguines leads to her accepting the Bishop’s offer of sanctuary—as an anchorite, destined to live out her days in a tiny stone outcropping. Her only contact with other humans is a slit through which she can hear daily mass, save for Marte, the low-ranking Beguine assigned to deliver her meals and empty her slop bucket.

Meanwhile, Alouette has become an adept of dye recipes. Even though she and other women are able to read, write, and keep ledgerbooks by this date, the complicated and often secret tinctures concocted for fabrics remain the province of men.

Like Aleys, Alouette forms alliances with other women, Sylvine and Marguerite, the latter of whom carefully documents the guards’ abuses in a ledger. These abuses include the murder of inmates’ infants, a fact that galvanizes the pregnant Alouette (the father of her child, Étienne, is a quarryman) into joining a plan for escape through the Paris sewers. The women find refuge in a convent and, ultimately, in a seaside town where some measure of peace awaits them.

It’s a far happier ending than Aleys’s, who is met with a darker fate. That is partly because McLain’s novel doesn’t end with Alouette’s relatively soft landing; “Skylark” continues in 1939 through the perspective of Kristof Larsen, a Dutch psychiatrist in Paris. His relationship with his Jewish neighbors, the Brodskys, grows closer as Nazi power corrupts France. Despite his ties to the resistance, Kristof cannot save the entire family during the 1942 Vélodrome d’Hiver roundup, but he takes responsibility for their 15-year-old daughter Sasha. Along with his compatriot Ursula, they are guided to safety through the same Paris tunnels that sheltered Alouette centuries earlier.

“Skylark” author Paula McLain.

(Simon & Schuster)

The fragile tie between Alouette and Sasha rests in a tiny piece of glass found during the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris after the 2019 fire. A conservator uncovers the shard, which bears an intense blue figure of a skylark — evidence, at least to the reader, that Alouette’s recipe endured, and a symbol of how both she and Sasha escaped. Female creation and resistance, the novel suggests, endure, too.

At first, that seems at odds with Aleys’s tragic fate. “As the crowd parts before her, Aleys sees the path of gray cobblestones receding to the stake. Parchment is piled high at its base. Smaller fires have already been lit, dotting the plaza. They’re burning her words, too. . . ” Yet, it’s no spoiler to reveal that during her long weeks and months as an anchorite, Aleys found the means to slowly and secretly teach Marte, lowliest of the Beguines, how to read and write. “They write words on the sill between them and wipe them off, their palms and feet dark with dust.” Just as Aleys’s mother passed on her passion for books and Alouette pursued her passion for beauty, Marte will carry on a passion for stories.

More important, however, and something that ties “Skylark” to “Canticle,” is that Aleys and Alouette, Marte and Sasha, live on through work done by and with women. Whether it’s a recipe for dye, a hunger for divine knowledge, or the means to freedom, the main characters in both novels believe deeply in women’s full humanity. Aleys acknowledges the contentment of the Beguines, understanding that their communal labors knit their “hopes, their labor, even their disagreements” as “strands in a single weave. Kristof says of Ursula that she “charts her course in full light with eyes wide open, and still she chooses danger. Chooses–over and over–not to surrender.”

It’s true that the authors of these novels live in 21st-century North America, where many people believe in equality even if the full humanity of others is under attack, but neither Edwards nor McLain indulges in anachronisms. Aleys yearns for divine ecstasy but does not come across as a would-be influencer, let alone as a Mother Ann Lee fomenting spiritual revolution; she believes in the church, even if not fully in its leadership, until her end. Alouette and her comrades pursue a different life but do not seek it for everyone, which feels right not just for their era but for their experience of trauma. Even Ursula and Sasha rely on men for their escape, accepting that whoever has the correct experience and expertise should lead the way.

What “Canticle” and “Skylark” get right about their very different heroines and time periods is that change doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it benefit everyone. Aleys teaches Marte to read, but Aleys will suffer for her ideas. Sasha will escape Vichy France, but her family will still die in the concentration camps. Switch the clauses in those sentences around, however, and you’ll be reminded that change can and does happen, one determined woman at a time.

Patrick is a freelance critic and author of the memoir “Life B.”