Remember Edward Warchoki? The Polish humanoid robot that went viral in April for chasing wild boars through a parking lot in Warsaw? Even late-night comedian John Oliver did a bit on him, calling Warchoki “a pretty canny PR campaign for anthropomorphic robots. All I’m saying is, ‘That is a nice way to get us all used to him before he’s inevitably one day used as a weapon of war.’ ”
Warchoki has not yet turned into a weapon of war — unless you consider being an online influencer a form of digital warfare. As the first robot influencer, Warchoki has his own social media accounts and appeared at Poland’s parliament. Last week he entered the art world when he was among the first visitors to what looks to be a fascinating exhibition, “How to Feel Real. Art, Technology and Us,” at MO Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania. The show is a collaboration of the modern art museum with ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, which specializes in media art.
According to a news release, the show “explores questions that are becoming increasingly urgent in a world shaped by technology: How do we feel real, and what does it mean to be alive?” Apparently Warchoki was there to address the issue head on.
“People keep asking me if I’m real, so when I heard about an exhibition asking what ‘real’ actually means, I thought: Finally, someone is asking the right question. I’m coming to the beautiful Vilnius to see what the artists have to say — and, of course, to check whether they think I’m real,” Warchocki said in the release.
A number of works in the exhibit explore artificial intelligence, automation, “and the ways machines are increasingly taking on roles we once considered distinctly human,” said MO Museum director Milda Ivanauskienė. “Bringing Edward into the museum is a playful extension of this idea, as his deliberately human-like and slightly absurd persona makes the questions raised by the exhibition tangible — inviting us to wonder why we are so eager to find the human in a machine.”
I am intrigued by this last question and wonder about it myself: Why exactly are we so quick to anthropomorphize AI? Every time I’ve interacted with a chatbot I feel the urge to be polite in my dealings, to say “please” and “thank you” when I ask questions. I certainly don’t do that with a Google search. And once, when I saw a delivery robot hopelessly stuck in a pothole, I felt genuinely bad for it. “Poor little guy,” I thought. I imagine if I met Warchoki, I’d react the same way.
I’m glad MO Museum is exploring these impulses by using artist’s thoughts and interpretations as a way to offer answers to an issue that is not going away — but only growing more powerful and omnipresent by the day.
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt and I’ve got a pickle-kimchi lollipop to sell you. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
You’re reading Essential Arts
Our critics and reporters guide you through events and happenings in the SoCal arts scene. In your inbox every Friday.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
Elim Chan conducts the L.A. Phil in 2024.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Elim Chan Conducts the L.A. Phil It will be a busy couple of weekends in L.A. for the San Francisco Symphony music director-designate. First up is a program featuring Dongshoon Shin’s “Dance Card,” Franz Liszt’s “Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major, S. 125” with pianist Yefim Bronfman, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s suite from “Swan Lake.” Next week will be “A Symphonic Ballet,” with Claude Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, L. 86,” Karen Gomyo premiering Samuel Adams’ “Violin Concerto No. 2 (The Wheel),” and Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrushka (1947).” “Swan Lake,” 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. “Symphonic Ballet,” 8 p.m. Thursday, 2 p.m. Oct. 17-18. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Kuniko Kato Presents Reich90 The North American tour of the Steve Reich Project, conceived and produced by Japanese percussionist Kato arrives downtown in honor of the composer’s 90th birthday. 7:30 p.m. Colburn School, Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. colburnschool.edu
Victoria Marks : A Deer Walks into a Dance The award-winning choreographer and four performers (Rian Alcid, Maya Billig, Karen Chuang and Aaron Mason) explore the idea connection in a world of division via movement, text and the deconstruction of a (bad) joke. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd., Westwood. cap.ucla.edu
SATURDAY
L.A. Opera’s new music director, Domingo Hindoyan, conducts a dress rehearsal of “Carmen.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Carmen Los Angeles Opera’s new music director, Venezuelan conductor Domingo Hindoyan, opens the company’s season with a new production of Bizet’s “Carmen.” It stars mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb, who has dazzled in Mozart at L.A. Opera. The Spanish gothic new production is by director/designer Thaddeus Strassberger and choreographer Antonio Najarro. (Mark Swed) The season-opening performance will be broadcast live in high definition, free of charge, at Steinmetz Park in Hacienda Heights and at the Santa Monica Pier. Through Nov. 7. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. Free simulcast, 6 p.m. Saturday, Santa Monica Pier and Steinmetz Park, 545 S. Stimson Ave., Hacienda Heights. laopera.org
Strauss, Ravel, Beethoven Music Director Jaime Martín conducts the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in Richard Strauss’ “Metamorphosen,” Maurice Ravel’s “Piano Concerto in G Major” with Conrad Tao, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major (Eroica).” 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 4 p.m. Sunday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. laco.org
SUNDAY
Dale Brockman Davis, Alonzo Davis and David Hammons.
(Museum Associates)
The Brockman Gallery: Los Angeles,1967-1990 For more than two decades, the Leimert Park gallery, founded by Alonzo and Dale Davis, served as a vital cultural hub, staging exhibitions, festivals, concerts, literary events and more. Named after the brothers’ maternal grandmother, born enslaved, the Brockman Gallery was a flourishing, ongoing act of self-determination in the wake of the 1965 Watts Rebellion. It showcased Black artists whose opportunities were severely limited at mainstream, white-run institutions and galleries: David Hammons, Suzanne Jackson, John Outterbridge, Elizabeth Catlett, Betye Saar, Carrie Mae Weems, Senga Nengudi, Noah Purifoy and many more. More than 60 works by artists associated with the gallery will be included in this first full-scale consideration of the Brockman’s scope and impact. (Leah Ollman) Through Jan. 24. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
Pacific Jazz Orchestra: A Tribute to Quincy Jones Led by Chris Walden, and featuring vocalists Nayanna Holley and Adam ‘Aejaye’ Jackson, the ensemble performs early work by the late producer/composer. Presented by Ventura Music Festival, 3 p.m. Sunday. Rancho Campana Performing Arts Center, 4235 Mar Vista Drive, Camarillo. pacificjazz.org
TUESDAY
Mendelssohn & Brahms Members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform a program of chamber works from Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Ulysse Marion A new work by choreographer Dimitri Chamblas, created with former Paris Opera Ballet dancer Marion Barbeau and dancer and musician Ulysse Zangs, explores the journey of a performer throughout a life in art. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
THURSDAY
At the Very Bottom of A Body Of Water The latest work by Benjamin Benne, a dramatist many have been keeping close tabs on, continues his collaboration with veteran director (and fellow L.A. native) Juliette Carrillo, and dives even further into magical realism in an unconventional work exploring the oceanic depths that grief can reveal. (Charles McNulty) Through Nov. 29. Boston Court Pasadena, 70 N. Mentor Ave. bostoncourtpasadena.org
Judy Baca, detail from the 1960s segment of the Great Wall of Los Angeles mural.
(Judy Baca and the SPARC Archives.)
Skirball Cultural Center Three new exhibits open: “The 1960s — A Generation on Fire: Judy Baca’s Great Wall of Los Angeles” presents new murals as part of the evolving L.A. landmark; “Patrisse Cullors: Wishes Made Material” features three new works inspired by conversations between Black and Jewish communities; and “Jenny Yurshansky: What We Carry” explores local immigration stories, memories and family history through collected objects. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. skirball.org
The SoCal scene
Zoe Ryan, director of UCLA’s Hammer Museum.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
ICYMI, the best of this week’s L.A. Times arts coverage:
Climate activists in Tallahassee this week unveiled a statue of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that was created to melt. “In response to the Governor’s recent ‘Don’t say climate change’ action in state law, 350Action (one of the world’s most influential climate change advocates) built quite a visual — a statue that couldn’t withstand Florida’s daily climate. It’s provocative but for a purpose, to encourage young people to vote in a few weeks for candidates that recognize the threat from climate change,” a news release noted of the “climate denial statue.”
And finally, not strictly arts related, but some Halloween fun for you: Street Food Cinema is hosting its annual Boo-ze, Bites and Frights events with some spooky horror film screenings at Heritage Square and the Ford over the next few weekends, including a Saturday showing of “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” which is a film that still genuinely terrifies me.
Netflix subscribers have been urged to check out a ‘heartbreaking’ true story that has been compared to Green Mile – but be warned as it’s said to be ‘one of the saddest films to ever exist’
Netflix viewers have been urged to check out the movie(Image: NETFLIX)
Netflix viewers have been left in floods of tears after watching a ‘hidden gem’ tucked away on the video streaming platform. Luke Eccleston, who reviews movies and television shows on social media, is urging Netflix subscribers to check out a ‘heartbreaking’ true story that’s perfect for Green Mile fans.
Luke, who posts under the username Eccy Reviews, said on TikTok: “I’m not saying this lightly, but you need to run to Netflix immediately because I’ve just discovered the biggest hidden gem. I’ll be very surprised if you’ve seen this film, and once you have, you will never, ever forget about it. The film that I’m talking about is called Miracle in Cell No 7. Now, if you’re someone who’s seen this film, you’ll know that this is one of the saddest films to ever exist.”
Ensure our latest headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings…
Content cannot be displayed without consent
‘This is one of the saddest films to ever exist’
Based on the the Korean movie Miracle in Cell No 7, it tells a story of love between a mentally-ill father who was wrongly accused of murder and his lovely six-year-old daughter.
Luke added: “It is actually based on a true story. This follows this man with special needs who has this younger daughter.
“After an incident where another little girl is killed, he is framed and sent to prison. He is sentenced to death. The people in the prison believe that he did the things.
“What he is accused of and the things they do to him is honestly awful. After time, they begin to realise who and what he is.
“The story, what comes out of it is genuinely incredible. I was shocked so many times watching this film. I was in so many tears.
“I’ve recommended this to so many friends, and every single person who’s watched it has said that they cried.”
‘I loved this movie, cried and cried’
Starring Aras Bulut Iynemli, Nisa Sofiya Aksongur, and Deniz Baysal, the movie has won 12 awards alongside its 13 nominations.
Commenting on Luke’s video, one user said: “Just put it on, I’ve got my tissues ready.”
Another user added: “Similar to Green Mile.”
A third user said: “I loved this movie, cried and cried. Amazing!”
Netflix replaced one of its top executives in a major management shake-up on Thursday, a day after the company announced it was laying off 6% of its staff.
Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria is leaving the company after a decade, Netflix said in a statement. She will be replaced by former Disney executive Peter Rice, who was most recently chairman of Walt Disney Television and chairman of general entertainment for Walt Disney Co.
“Peter is one of the most effective at-scale operators in the entertainment industry,” Netflix Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said in the statement. “His business acumen is sharp, his talent relationships are exceptionally strong, and his experience across TV and film is deep and broad.”
Bajaria’s exit comes as Netflix has been under pressure from investors to turn out more hit shows and movies and increase the amount of time consumers spend on the platform amid rising competition from other streamers.
“Due to the slowdown in massive hits and viewer growth, an ax was gonna fall on some executives who led content strategy,” said Ross Benes, senior analyst at research firm Emarketer.
Bajaria oversaw the teams responsible for Netflix content around the world. She joined Netflix in 2016 and was named chief content officer in 2023. She was instrumental in expanding Netflix’s reach internationally and the streamer’s push into live events.
Hits released on Netflix during Bajaria’s tenure include the 2025 animated movie “KPop Demon Hunters” and crime drama series “I Will Find You.” Under her leadership, Netflix grew its reach in live programming, streaming NFL games as well as WWE matches. The company also changed its film strategy to focus on fewer movies that aimed to be bigger and better.
She also played a key role in helping Netflix generate large audiences for its non-English-language original series, reality shows and programs that featured talent from underrepresented communities.
But her tenure also coincided with mounting challenges to growing Netflix’s business.
Free, ad-supported streaming services like YouTube are increasingly taking up more streaming hours and investors are concerned about how Netflix will continue to grow. YouTube represented 14.2% of streaming time in the U.S. on TVs compared to Netflix’s 7.8% in July, according to Nielsen data.
Netflix has said efforts like live programming have been successful at getting significant subscription sign-ups. While live programming represents 5% of Netflix’s content budget, it holds 1% of watch time on the streaming service, Sarandos has said.
The company also was poised to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which would have dramatically increased its library of content, but Netflix bowed out of the auction after the price became no longer “financially attractive.”
Netflix stock has declined 40% from a year ago. Shares closed Thursday at $72.61, up 3%.
“The drop in share price has been staggering,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film & Media Arts. “That plunge, plus the negative reaction to its move to buy Warner Bros. left it vulnerable, and so you have to do two things. One is right the ship, but you also need to send a message to shareholders that you’re taking action.”
In a memo to staff announcing the change in leadership, Sarandos wrote, “I know this is a big change in a year that has already had its share. But I also see an opportunity to take our slate to the next level, especially in UCAN [U.S. and Canada] where we have an outsize impact in creating big, buzzy hits that our members love and drive conversation around the world.”
Rice is an experienced corporate executive who spent nearly three decades navigating Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, serving as president of 21st Century Fox and CEO of Fox Networks Group.
He also brings deep roots in the feature film world, having previously run Fox Searchlight Pictures, which could mean he will want to put his own stamp on Netflix’s film group, Galloway said. That group is currently led by executive Dan Lin.
“Netflix has fundamentally changed the way stories are made, shared and experienced around the world,” Rice said in a statement. “They’ve shown again and again that they’re willing to take chances on distinctive voices and fresh ideas, and I’m excited to work with the team to help bring even more great stories to members everywhere.”
A round-faced man with dark-rimmed glasses, a moustache and short-trimmed hair, Ismael came to the US when he was only five years old.
Southern California became his home, and as an adult, he qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, which offered temporary protection against deportation.
He lost his DACA status, however, in 2015 after a conviction for driving under the influence.
His family remembers him as a caring son and uncle, always willing to buy his niece and nephew new clothes or school supplies.
“Ismael was always looking after his siblings. He just had a big heart,” said his brother, Jose Miguel Ayala. “He was very protective of not just us, but my mum and dad too.”
He was 39 years old when he was brought to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.
Two weeks after his arrival, Ismael told his family that he developed a high fever and a painful sore on his backside.
On September 18, 2025, workers at Adelanto initiated a Code Blue alert for Ismael, signalling a life-threatening medical emergency. Medical staff rushed him from his dorm to the infirmary in a wheelchair.
ICE documents show that Ismael was given pain medication, an ointment and a fibre supplement.
But according to Physicians for Human Rights’ Cuneo, who reviewed the case, Ismael should have received a physical examination and antibiotics.
“That is a major failure,” Cuneo said.
Demonstrators leave white flowers outside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center on September 29 in solidarity with those detained inside [Jill Connelly/AP Photo]
That weekend, hours after Lucia’s visit, Ismael’s condition worsened. Just after midnight on Sunday, ICE records say he was vomiting, shaking and sweating.
According to ICE documents, he was later sent to an intensive care unit, where he went into cardiac arrest within minutes of his arrival and subsequently died.
“I believe Ismael’s death could have fully been prevented by timely care,” Cuneo said. “It was a simple abscess that was not treated in a timely manner.”
Fault Lines obtained a coroner’s investigation that reveals Ismael was critically ill when he first arrived at the hospital, a fact that was left out of ICE’s public report on his death.
The coroner’s report also contradicts ICE’s timeline for Ismael’s death. It indicates Ismael went into cardiac arrest early on September 21, nearly a full day before he passed away. Medical staff, however, managed to restore his heartbeat after intubating him.
That conflicts with ICE’s report, which only notes his pulse stopping once: shortly before his death was announced on the morning of September 22. ICE described his condition on September 21 as “calm and cooperative”, but it signalled no heart problems.
“If they had given him the medical care and what he needed, maybe he would be here with us,” Lucia said.
In a statement about Ismael’s death, ICE said detainees receive “comprehensive medical care” throughout their time in custody.
But California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta told Fault Lines that his office found “the exact opposite” during its inspections of the state’s detention centres.
“We’ve gone to these facilities. We’ve gone into Adelanto. We have done our own physical inspections,” Bonta explained.
“If what the ICE spokesperson said was true, Mr Ayala-Uribe would be with us today.”
An internal mortality review committee also found that the care provided to Ismael at Adelanto “deviated beyond safe limits of practice”, according to a document obtained by US media earlier this year.
It also suggests that medical staff delayed responding to calls about Ismael’s declining health in the days leading up to his death.
LONDON — It’s the day after the London premiere of “Sense and Sensibility,” and its stars, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles, have shed the glamour of the evening before. Both are curled in chairs in an otherwise empty room in an upscale Hyde Park Corner hotel, modestly dressed in jeans, sneakers and casual tops. Each drinks from an enormous glass bottle of water rather than wasting time with a cup.
The spectacle of a blockbuster red carpet is familiar for Edgar-Jones, whose career took off after the 2020 limited series “Normal People” and has since included “Where the Crawdads Sing” and “Twisters.” But last night marked the biggest such occasion so far for Creed-Miles, best known for the Prime series “Hanna.”
“I was a bit nervous with my friends and family all there,” admits Creed-Miles, who plays the more emotional of Jane Austen’s Dashwood sisters, Marianne. “I’m very lucky because Daisy has done it before and she’s so cool about it.”
“Absolutely not,” says Edgar-Jones, who plays the sensible Elinor. She grins sheepishly. “If anything, I think I’m getting more nervous.”
Both actors understood the high stakes of remaking Austen’s 1811 debut novel, most famously adapted in 1995 by screenwriter and star Emma Thompson and director Ang Lee — a movie that became a generational touchstone nominated for seven Oscars. The new version, in theaters Friday, was adapted by Diana Reid and directed by Georgia Oakley, best known for her evocative 2022 feature debut, “Blue Jean.”
Oakley wanted to re-create the emotions of reading the book as a teenager.
“In comparison to other Austen novels, I remember it feeling quite wild,” Oakley says, speaking separately over Zoom. “I also wanted to capture the spirit of the two older sisters as the beating heart of the story. My memory of it was that their story was the main love story of the book.”
Daisy Edgar-Jones, left, as Elinor and Esmé Creed-Miles as Marianne in a new version of “Sense and Sensibility.”
(Focus Features)
Oakley’s “Sense and Sensibility” emphasizes that relationship between Elinor and Marianne. Although they approach the world differently, they find common ground in each other. It was essential to find the right actor for each role, but also to ensure there was both tension and chemistry between them. Edgar-Jones, 28, was cast first without an audition. There was never any question as to which sister she would play.
“I have played a significant Marianne before,” Edgar-Jones says in a nod to affluent, tortured outcast Marianne Sheridan, her role in “Normal People.” “And I love both characters, but I’m moving into my late 20s now. Elinor has a maturity and a wise older soul quality that I really liked and felt I was right to occupy. I have always been attracted to characters who don’t necessarily have the words to express how they feel.”
Oakley appreciated Edgar-Jones’ restraint. “She is able to show so much by seemingly doing very little,” Oakley says. “Elinor has a lot on her shoulders, so I was looking for an actor who could give a sense of that from the very beginning.”
Creed-Miles, 26, faced a more uphill climb to become Marianne. She describes her first audition as awful.
“It was really bad,” she says. “Maybe I was nervous. I can be a bit of a mess. But someone saw something in me, I guess, and they called me back. This time I worked my ass off and spent days preparing the scenes. They liked that audition enough to bring me in for chemistry reads with Daisy and some of the boys.”
“There’s an earthy, undone nature to the world Georgia made,” Edgar-Jones says of director Oakley’s take on Austen.
(Erik Carter / For The Times)
“The first audition didn’t go exactly to plan,” says Oakley, who didn’t expect to see the actor again. “But [the second time] I was so moved by Esmé performance. We have this idea of how we think people are supposed to speak in a period drama, and Esmé seemed to not be affected by any of that.”
Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles had previously worked together on the 2018 drama “Pond Life,” which was an asset going into “Sense and Sensibility.”
“It’s a summer I have never forgotten,” Edgar-Jones says of the experience, her first film role. “I met Esmé and we fell in love. We watched a lot of ‘Love Island.’ And then COVID happened and we weren’t reunited until our chemistry read.”
Although they hadn’t completely stayed in touch, there was a natural rhythm between them. “We had so much history and nothing was ever overly discussed,” Edgar-Jones adds. “It was instinctual. That level of intimacy takes time to develop and the fact that I already had years with Esmé meant that it felt very lived in.”
“Sense and Sensibility” was filmed entirely on location around England, primarily in the sweeping countrysides and dramatic coasts of Devon and Dorset. Oakley wanted to emphasize nature and to show how the Dashwood women’s emotional landscapes evolved alongside the shifting landscapes around them, both in the countryside at Barton Cottage and in the more confining social landscape of London. There is a naturalistic aesthetic to the film, augmented by the locations, the costumes and the hair and makeup design. The characters wear muted, sweeping gowns, their hair often loose.
“There’s an earthy, undone nature to the world Georgia made,” Edgar-Jones says. “Sometimes there’s distance you can sometimes get from watching a period drama because obviously we no longer wear corsets and bonnets and ride in horse-drawn carriages. But even though this feels very much of the Regency time, it also feels very close.”
“I loved how authentic everything felt,” Creed-Miles adds. “It didn’t feel frilly for the sake of itself. The clothes helped me find a sense of Marianne. I needed the costumes to close that gap.”
“We wore no makeup, even to the point where sometimes I’d put on some lip balm and Georgia would be like, ‘Take it off,’ ” Edgar-Jones recalls.
“The characters started to feel like real people in my life who I knew,” says Creed-Miles. “It was almost like a split personality.”
(Erik Carter / For The Times)
Creed-Miles says the unbuttoned aesthetic felt more true to the time, even if some commenters online have claimed it’s not period accurate.
“We don’t have depictions of women’s internal lives in the way that we do now,” she says. “When you look at a portrait there’s a composure that’s not the same as having a phone picture of someone when they’re getting out of bed in the morning.”
Oakley fills the screen with a palpable yearning. The camera often lingers over the actors’ faces, revealing Elinor’s inner turmoil and Marianne’s dramatic heartbreak. For many scenes, Oakley asked the cast to do silent takes.
“We wanted to tell a story that had space for some quieter moments,” the director says. “The actors were free to speak or make noises, but they couldn’t say the words of the scene.”
“In making this, I realized Elinor isn’t devoid of emotion,” Edgar-Jones says. “She’s full of it, but she’s learned how to govern it. Realizing that she was an extraordinarily passionate person and not a stone was really important for me. By the end, I felt completely marinated in it.”
“The characters started to feel like real people in my life who I knew,” Creed-Miles agrees. “It was almost like a split personality.”
“Circumstances have changed for young women quite drastically over the past 200 years,” director Oakley says. “But the fundamental contradictions around what it means to be a young woman haven’t changed nearly as much as we would like to think.”
(Erik Carter / For The Times)
Oakley’s interpretation of “Sense and Sensibility” has a wistful, almost Brontë-like quality. You can feel each character’s pain and joy and hopefulness. At the premiere, the audience audibly gasped and cheered, even though Austen’s story is well known to many. Oakley didn’t want to make her film overly contemporary, but she feels the story resonates today because Austen is so timeless.
“Circumstances have changed for young women quite drastically over the past 200 years,” Oakley says. “But the fundamental contradictions around what it means to be a young woman haven’t changed nearly as much as we would like to think. There’s this enormous gap between what we tell young women that they can reasonably expect from their lives and what the world is prepared to offer them.”
Creed-Miles admits that she’s recently fought with someone on Instagram about whether Austen was a feminist.“They didn’t have that terminology back then, but she was a rebellious author in that she used these sociocultural structures to explore the trials and tribulations of femininity,” Creed-Miles says. “It was really important to Georgia that we kept that alive. Reading Austin as an adult, I have so much respect and admiration for the themes she was exploring with a really deft hand. It’s never rammed down your throat.”
Edgar-Jones, an Austen fan, agrees that she captured a truth about the human experience. That’s what allows the author’s work to be retold and reimagined over decades.
“The joy of adaptation is that every new person who says these words will bring a piece of themselves and give it new meaning,” Edgar-Jones says. “And every time we explore something again, it will be colored with the context of today. Great art, like this, should be brought to life again and again.”
Who doesn’t love a Hollywood ending — or a beginning?
The only guide you need for fall entertainment.
As summer gives way to the inevitable grunts of awards-season jockeying, how wonderful it is to crawl back into the head of our favorite portal John Malkovich, returning with his most complex work in years in “Wild Horse Nine” (hitting theaters Nov. 6). Meanwhile, Jordan Firstman made his name with viciously funny online “Impressions” and a spotlight-stealing turn on HBO’s “I Love LA,” but did you know he was Trojan-horsing in a triple threat? “Club Kid” (out Nov. 6) marks the arrival of a serious screenwriter, director and star making a feature debut of rare wisdom.
Read on for features about those two movies, and if you’d like more options, here are 17 fall titles worth getting excited about in the coming months.
‘Resident Evil’ (Sept. 18)
Austin Abrams in “Resident Evil,” directed by Zach Cregger.
(Sony Pictures Releasing)
Milla Jovovich brought stony-faced supermodel moxie to 2002’s underrated first film and her subsequent franchise was a mixed bag. But there’s a whole global fandom of obsessives who feel that none of these movies truly got the crux of what made Capcom’s original games such an all-night fixation. One of those people turns out to be filmmaker Zach Cregger, who, between “Barbarian” and his Oscar-winning “Weapons,” can now write his own ticket. As unlikely as it seems, this reboot is a project he has spent a considerable amount of his newfound Hollywood capital pursuing and you have to love him for it. Apocalyptic Raccoon City and a viral zombie outbreak are sure to figure, but also, given the Cregger of it all, spooky subterranean passages and confident performances, this time from Austin Abrams and Paul Walter Hauser. — Joshua Rothkopf
‘Digger’ (Oct. 2)
Tom Cruise in the movie “Digger.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Tom Cruise has been busy these last 15 years, starring in five “Mission Impossible” movies, reboots of “The Mummy” and “Top Gun” and a handful of other would-be blockbusters best forgotten. In nearly all of them, he plays a version of the unstoppable Cruise persona. And that’s a performance for sure. But we haven’t seen him play a real character in a long time, which makes his new movie my most-anticipated of the fall, even if the trailer makes it look like it could be a tonal train wreck. Billed as a “comedy of catastrophic proportions,” “Digger” has Cruise playing a Texas oil man charged with saving the world from an environmental disaster that he appears to have caused. The writer-director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, is a five-time Oscar winner, but not a filmmaker known for his humor. That makes the trailer’s absurdist tone and visual style intriguing (and also concerning). Iñárritu clearly loves “Dr. Strangelove,” as do we all. Fingers crossed. — Glenn Whipp
‘Fjord’ (Oct. 9)
Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve in the movie “Fjord.”
(Neon)
Winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — the second for writer-director Cristian Mungiu and an astonishing seventh in a row for distributor Neon — this is a gripping morality tale specifically designed to make viewers question their instinctive reactions no matter where they sit on the political spectrum. A conservative religious couple (Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, both giving quietly riveting performances) relocate from Romania to a small village in Norway and soon find that the outwardly progressive locals are less than welcoming. The Gheorghius’ five children are taken into protective custody amid allegations of abuse and soon enough, it seems that their beliefs and values are being put on trial. Fans of “Anatomy of a Fall” (another Neon title) will appreciate the detailed glimpse inside another international legal system, as the courtroom scenes are full of tension, emotion and surprise. — Mark Olsen
‘The Social Reckoning’ (Oct. 9)
Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg in the movie “The Social Reckoning.”
(Leah Gallo / Columbia Pictures)
It’s been 16 years — an eon in internet time — since David Fincher made gripping drama out of coding, depositions and bruised male egos in “The Social Network.” Facebook’s story has since then taken a far darker turn: Russian troll farms, growing concerns about worsening teenage mental health and election misinformation. Aaron Sorkin, who scripted the first film, both writes and directs the follow-up, drawing on internal Facebook documents that whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) leaked to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) for the paper’s “Facebook Files” investigation. In a particularly inspired bit of casting, Jeremy Strong succeeds Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg. After playing Kendall Roy, a would-be mogul desperate to seize power in HBO’s “Succession,” and Roy Cohn, a fixer who wielded it ruthlessly in the Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” Strong may have been preparing for Zuck all along. That alone might be reason enough to log back onto Facebook. — Josh Rottenberg
‘Sense and Sensibility’ (Oct. 16)
Daisy Edgar-Jones, left, and Esmé Creed-Miles in the movie “Sense and Sensibility.”
(Focus Features)
You come to “Sense and Sensibility” for sisterly love, for Edward and Elinor, for wit and cleverness, for nosy neighbors, for passionate longing, brooding, Byronic suitors and happily-ever-afters. The 1995 film adaptation of the Jane Austen classic, directed by Ang Lee with Emma Thompson starring and writing the screenplay, was damn near perfect, setting a high bar for any and all comers. So it’s with pleasure (and relief) that I can report that the latest version, directed by talented British filmmaker Georgia Oakley, will delight Janeites and anyone else who appreciates a smart, charming costume drama. The film faithfully adheres to the text, foregrounding the relationship between the Dashwood sisters, the passionate Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) and the pragmatic Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones). It’s fresh without needing to lunge for all the compulsively shocking aesthetics that undid Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” earlier this year. Oakley crisply delivers everything you want, everything you need. — G.W.
‘Whalefall’ (Oct. 16)
Austin Abrams in the movie “Whalefall.”
(20th Century Studios)
If you’re a sucker for that “Pinocchio” sequence in which Geppetto gets swallowed by a whale, you’ll dig Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Daniel Kraus’ “Whalefall,” a drama about a Californian scuba diver stuck in the stomach of a 60-ton behemoth. That’s bad enough. Worse, the kid’s oxygen tank is running low. One part survival quest, one part ghost story, the narrative centers on the young man hallucinating his abusive dead father, who advises him on how to escape. I devoured the book in one weekend, but couldn’t imagine how this claustrophobic nightmare could possibly translate to film. Director Brian Duffield (“Spontaneous,” “No One Will Save You”) has braved the challenge. Austin Abrams plays the trapped swimmer; Josh Brolin is his seafaring dad. It’s a reunion for two of the leads in last year’s “Weapons.” Steel yourself for slimy bile, sticky emotions and wet tears. — Amy Nicholson
‘Clayface’ (Oct. 23)
Tom Rhys Harries in the movie “Clayface.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Even comic-book obsessives will mention a dozen other DC villains before digging out Clayface, the nom de gloop of a disfigured actor transformed into human Play-Doh. But after the animated series “Harley Quinn” stretched the character into a squishy, vulnerable showboat, I’m curious to see what he looks like in the hands of James Watkins, director of the mischievous 2024 thriller “Speak No Evil.” Watkins has a vicious sense of humor and the casting of Welsh theater actor Tom Rhys Harries in the title role is a signal that the film might be a performance showcase in the vein of Tom Hardy’s roiling split-personality turn in “Venom.” Early glimpses of footage at CinemaCon hint that the script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini is most hyped to mix the superhero genre with icky body horror. Apparently, there are images in which Clayface doesn’t even have a face. — A.N.
‘Fatherland’ (Oct. 23)
Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler in the movie “Fatherland.”
(Agata Grzybowska / Mubi)
Paweł Pawlikowski has made a specialty of looking at European history from close range: the aftermath of the Holocaust in the Oscar-winning “Ida” and the Iron Curtain era in “Cold War.” Eight years after the latter, Pawlikowski returns with this spare black-and-white drama, for which he left Cannes with a directing honor. Hanns Zischler plays author Thomas Mann, the Nobelist and critic of Hitler, returning to Germany in 1949 after 16 years in exile, with his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) behind the wheel. Their journey takes them through a ruined country eager to reclaim one of its greatest writers without dwelling too much on why he fled. After the moral minefields of “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest,” Hüller seems ideally cast as Erika, a writer and committed anti-Nazi unlikely to let her father, or the country around him, off the hook. — J. Rottenberg
‘Klara and the Sun’ (Oct. 23)
Jenna Ortega in the movie “Klara and the Sun.”
(Sony Pictures)
When novelist Kazuo Ishiguro published “Klara and the Sun” in 2021, a book narrated by an artificial intelligence still felt safely like science fiction. Five years and one AI boom later, the future has arrived early. Jenna Ortega plays Klara, a solar-powered “artificial friend” purchased as a companion for an ailing teenager (Mia Tharia) whose mother is played by Amy Adams. Klara observes the humans around her with extraordinary attentiveness but only a partial understanding of their behavior, gradually forming her own ideas about love, loneliness and what makes one person irreplaceable to another. Taika Waititi, whose movies have ranged from the antic Nazi satire “Jojo Rabbit” to the candy-colored superhero spectacle of the “Thor” films, is an unexpected match for Ishiguro’s quiet, melancholy story. But with people already turning to chatbots for companionship, the film’s central question no longer feels quite so theoretical: What happens when the machine stops feeling like a machine? — J. Rottenberg
‘Wicker’ (Oct. 23)
Alexander Skarsgård and Olivia Colman in the movie “Wicker.”
(Kristof Galgoczi Nemeth / Black Bear Pictures)
Most of the questions you have following the recent trailer that sent the internet into a tizzy are in fact answered by seeing the movie itself. Set in an indistinct Mitteleuropean village of an uncertain era, the story follows an unmarried fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) who asks her friend, a master basketweaver (Peter Dinklage), to make her a husband. And does he ever, sending over a mass of reeds fashioned into Alexander Skarsgård. Their little community goes berserk, full of curiosity and more than a hint of jealousy at their loving and compatible albeit unconventional union. Adapted from an Ursula Wills-Jones short story by the husband-and-wife writer-director team of Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, the film never overlooks how absurd its premise is, but also finds tender emotional notes within it as well. “Wicker” is a wise, warm allegory examining community and relationships — and why we need the things we do. — M.O.
‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ (Nov. 6)
A scene from the movie “Godzilla Minus Zero.”
(2026 TOHO)
Three years ago, the post-World War II period thriller “Godzilla Minus One” was a monster smash, earning the 72-year-old franchise its first Oscar win and biggest box office haul to date. (What, you thought the radioactive lizard wouldn’t come back?) Takashi Yamazaki’s sequel — the 39th Godzilla movie, if you’re counting — takes place in 1949 Tokyo after disgraced kamikaze pilot Kōichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki) has begun to rebuild his life with new wife Noriko (Minami Hamabe). In still-traumatized Japan, simply having hope for tomorrow is brave and foolhardy with an angry kaiju sulking in the Pacific. Yes, Godzilla exploded in the last film. Since when has that mattered? “Godzilla Minus Zero” has giant shoes to fill, but personally, I couldn’t care less if the green guy wins another Academy Award as long as the multiplex enjoys a shivery blast of his atomic breath. — A.N.
‘Paper Tiger’ (Nov. 13)
Adam Driver in the movie “Paper Tiger.”
(Neon)
A favorite of international festival programmers and film critics for decades now, James Gray has never quite had his breakthrough with mainstream audiences. That may finally change with his latest, which finds him again exploring the rich, complicated bonds of family amid the betrayals and uncertainties of New York’s outer-borough criminal underworld in a way that feels totally fresh and new. Miles Teller is a family man drawn into a business scheme by his ex-cop brother (Adam Driver) that puts them both afoul of the Russian mob in a story set in Queens in the 1980s. Scarlett Johansson plays Teller’s wife. All three give what are easily among their career-best performances as Gray steadily ratchets up the tension with a master’s hand, melding the crime thriller with domestic drama in a distinctive way. With a tremendous payoff in its devastating climactic sequence, this feels like the film Gray has been building toward his entire career. — M.O.
‘Elsinore’ (Nov. 20)
Andrew Scott as Ian Charleson in the movie “Elsinore.”
(Anthony Dickenson / Focus Features)
The Scottish actor Ian Charleson would forever be an Olympic runner on the beaches of “Chariots of Fire,” head tipped back in a kind of spiritual ecstasy. The role brought him international acclaim, but there weren’t enough of them, and a secret battle with HIV and AIDS took its toll. But what Charleson didn’t know was that, near the end, he would embark on the run of his life, performing a legendary Hamlet onstage in a race with death. Andrew Scott carries the whole of this exhilarating biopic on his knitted brow, diving deeply into the metaphysical darkness of Shakespeare’s text, into the rituals and camaraderie of actors and, ultimately, into the defiance of an artist who only wants to disappear once more into his art. Inexplicably overlooked for “All of Us Strangers” and “Blue Moon,” Scott is just now arriving at a kind of effortless humility, dazzling yet approachable, that puts him in the company of the all-time greats. — J. Rothkopf
‘Josephine’ (Nov. 20)
Mason Reeves in the movie “Josephine.”
(Sumerian)
If we are to have things like a “Sundance Film Festival” or “independent cinema,” it should be to support and nourish movies like Beth de Araújo’s powerful San Francisco-set thriller, about a violent sex crime witnessed by an 8-year-old, who is altered by the experience but then called upon to be a courtroom voice in the world of adults. Everyone who has come together to make this tricky but meaningful project seems to be operating on a higher plane: For Channing Tatum, playing a dad increasingly out of his depths, it’s an opening door to the kind of complex roles he has earned from being a dependable goof. For Gemma Chan, as a parent dealing with the unthinkable, the film is a promise fulfilled. But for young Mason Reeves, imbuing the title character with an evolving mystery that suggests a prodigy, “Josephine” is a revelation. — J. Rothkopf
‘Minotaur’ (Nov. 20)
A scene from the movie “Minotaur.”
(Mubi)
The whispers were fierce at a recent Academy Museum screening of Adrian Lyne’s windy erotic thriller “Unfaithful” as plugged-in attendees looked for points of similarity with Andrey Zvyagintsev’s sleek domestic drama, one that dominated this year’s Cannes conversation. Both movies are remakes of Claude Chabrol’s 1969 “The Unfaithful Wife,” but Zvyagintsev kicks the concept up to expert level, turning an affair and its brutal repercussions into a referendum on Russia’s new-money detachment: eating, lying and screwing with the Ukraine war out of mind. Was Zvyagintsev able to shoot in Russia itself? Of course not — he needed to film in look-alike Latvia. That’s how dependably infuriating he is to the authorities. But it’s a miracle he’s shooting anywhere at all: A case of long COVID, a coma and a yearlong hospital stay almost snuffed out one of the boldest filmmakers on the planet. His return to action is a grand piece of fortune. — J. Rothkopf
‘The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth’ (in Imax Nov. 25; on Netflix Dec. 23)
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in a scene from 2019’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”
(Andrew Cooper / Sony Pictures Releasing)
Three years ago, Quentin Tarantino teased that his 10th and final film would be “The Movie Critic,” centered on a film reviewer for a 1970s porno rag, but he scrapped it and pivoted to a sequel featuring Brad Pitt’s stuntman from “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” Tarantino didn’t want to direct it, though, preferring to challenge himself with something more ambitious for his sign-off. So he handed the screenplay — an “unwieldy thing,” he calls it — to David Fincher, tasking him to shrink it down. And that’s how we’ve arrived at a collaboration between two defining American filmmakers who came to prominence in the ’90s and share an interest in dark impulses that often turn violent. How Fincher will meld his clinical precision to Tarantino’s yo-gabba-gabba gonzo spirit is the movie question of the season. — G.W.
‘All of a Sudden’ (Nov. 25)
Tao Okamoto, left, and Virginie Efira in the movie “All of a Sudden.”
(Neon)
It still feels like a magic trick, the way Japan’s Ryusuke Hamaguchi turned “Drive My Car,” a three-hour movie about grief and chauffeuring (among other subjects), into a 2022 Oscar juggernaut. The director is back to remind you of everything you loved about that one, plus he’s got even more in the trunk. Many filmmakers are indulged with long running times; few of them make them as worthy and unnoticeable as Hamaguchi. He’s also in a class with Richard Linklater and virtually no one else when it comes to the lingering, evolving conversation, the kind that drifts into flirtation, debate and something soul-revising. Here it’s between two women (Tao Okamoto and the emotionally reverberant Virginie Efira) who, over the course of a walk along the Seine as dusk turns to night, find themselves bonded by something unexpected. “All of a Sudden” has death on its mind, but also how we live and care for each other en route to that destination. It’s a conversation we all need to have. — J. Rothkopf
