NYPAA News

In the aftermath of the Thursday afternoon robbery-turned-shooting at high-end Italian restaurant Il Pastaio in Beverly Hills, jeweler Shay Belhassen is offering a $50,000 reward for his stolen watch. A rose gold Richard Mille RM 11-03 Flyback Chronograph, Belhassen estimates it’s worth as much as $500,000.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Belhassen had just sat down at the restaurant when he witnessed three men dressed in hoodies coming his way.

“One of them ran and pulled a gun from his jacket pocket, grabbed me from the back of my chair, choking me and putting a gun to my head,” Belhassen told the Los Angeles Times on Friday. “His two friends — one of them is yanking my hand and the other is yanking at my watch.”

In the scuffle that ensued, Belhassen was able to obtain the weapon, which accidentally went off, grazing a woman in the leg who was transported to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

Belhassen said he was angered at the fact that similar crimes have been occurring in the area in recent weeks — few of which have gotten as much attention — and he doesn’t believe police are adequately handling the uptick in robberies near the Wilshire area targeting luxury watches.

However, in a statement released Saturday, Beverly Hills Police Department Chief Dominick Rivetti said law enforcement is staying vigilant in looking for suspects.

“I want the world to know that Beverly Hills is a very safe community,” Rivetti wrote. “We invest significantly in our police department to ensure our officers have every resources necessary to do their jobs effectively. We will be supplementing our personnel with armed, private security guards who will have a strong, visible presence in the City. We work closely with our businesses so that shoppers and restaurant guests feel comfortable and secure. And we are vigilant in investigating and bringing to justice those who make the grave mistake of committing crimes here.”

https://variety.com/2021/biz/news/beverly-hills-police-department-jeweler-il-pastaio-shooting-1234923387/

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you haven’t seen “The Series Finale,” the ninth and final episode of “WandaVision” on Disney Plus.

“WandaVision,” the first big television show of 2021, ended up being both an oddity and an inevitability. While the Disney Plus series is from the powerful production house of Marvel Studios, it also proved to be a deliciously strange, surprisingly poignant reflection on grief, family and community. Watching Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) wind her way through decades of sitcom history, layers of her own trauma, and an increasingly tragic love story with her considerate (and synthetic) counterpart Vision (Paul Bettany) became a weekly event that united viewers in a pressing need to know what on earth was going to happen next.

As the series evolved, though, it became clear that fans were watching and appreciating “WandaVision” very differently depending on their level of affection for the ever broadening Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some came to the show with years of knowledge of the comics, the movies, or both; others went in relatively cold, deciding to give it a shot despite not knowing all the ins and outs of what had happened to the characters before they ended up in the mysterious town of Westview. Both fanbases, however, had plenty of strong opinions about how the show unfolded and, as of March 5, ended.

And so to look back at “WandaVision” as a whole, Variety Senior Entertainment Writer Adam B. Vary and Chief TV Critic Caroline Framke got together to talk about how differently they experienced this unusual series, their thoughts on that finale, and what they’ve learned about Marvel Studios’ approach to TV since tuning in to The Wanda Show.

Caroline Framke: Let’s get this out of the way now: I’m one of those people who had to watch the little recap package Disney Plus put together for neophytes going into “WandaVision,” having not rewatched any of the “Avengers” movies in a hot minute. Even though I always liked Wanda and Vision as characters, I’m a casual Marvel viewer who wasn’t about to remember their every interaction, so was worried about how lost I might get while watching a series all about them.

But after watching the first three episodes, I was pleasantly surprised. At that point, “WandaVision” was a series of clever sitcom homages that were extremely friendly to anyone who might not have understood all the Marvel backstory leading up to that point. Olsen and Bettany were great, the songs were near perfect, and the subtext of Wanda plastering a broad grin across her face lest it shatter under the pressure of her own grief was powerful enough to keep me intrigued. I knew better, but I couldn’t help but wonder if “WandaVision” might have the room and guts to pull off maybe the boldest Marvel show of all, aka a Marvel show that could tell a self-contained story without having to tie back in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The fourth episode, of course, is when “WandaVision” takes its first turn back into the Marvel-verse, which is fine, or at least inevitable. And hey, I’m never mad about spending more time with actors like Teyonah Parris, Kat Dennings and Randall Park, who anchored those segments with real presence and charm. But there was nonetheless a part of me that was disappointed to realize that “WandaVision” was, in fact, made to serve the bigger picture after all — a feeling that only intensified after the finale, which is almost entirely a Big Boss sky battle in the style of basically every Marvel movie to date.

Adam, as someone who knows the comics and Marvel basically inside out, I know you had a wildly different experience of “WandaVision” than I did. With that in mind, what was it like for you to watch this show week in and out?

Adam B. Vary: First, I have to say, Caroline, I’m so pleased to know that you were able to follow “WandaVision” from the start. As someone who has seen every MCU movie at least twice (yes, even “Iron Man 2”), I found those early episodes to be remarkably brave for how little they bothered to explain who Wanda and Vision even are, let alone how they got their powers or where they came from. Those first three episodes are a real tightrope walk, forging ahead with a story that makes little sense both to the uninitiated and the core believers. Yes, “WandaVision” draws from several comic storylines in Marvel history, but none of them were explicitly set in a sitcom fantasyland mere days after Wanda and the rest of the MCU vanquished Thanos and half the population of the universe was blipped back into existence. So I truly had no idea where “WandaVision” was going, and I loved it all the more for that.

As the show progressed, it also became increasingly clear that “WandaVision” wasn’t just a show about grief, but about feeling alienated from your own life, and seeking refuge in the cozy comforts of home — even if those comforts are a high-gloss pastiche of family-friendly situation comedies. Of course, there’s no way that head writer Jac Schaeffer and director Matt Shakman could have known when they were making this show that it would debut 10 months into a once-in-a-century pandemic that has riven the world with overwhelming loss. But clearly, some kind of chaos magic was in the air over at Marvel, because I think a large part of what made “WandaVision” such a sensation — what allowed it to captivate Marvel newbies and diehards alike — was that it spoke directly to our lives now in a way the MCU has never quite managed before.

If it seems like I’m avoiding your question, it’s because I am trying not to admit that the part of “WandaVision” that in some ways worked the least is the part that feels, at first glance, the most Marvel-y — i.e., S.W.O.R.D., a.k.a. S.H.I.E.L.D. But For Space Stuff. Obviously, there has to be some kind of external reaction to what Wanda’s doing in Westview, but as delightful as Parris, Dennings, and Park are, those segments never quite vibrated at the same frequency as what was happening in the Hex.

And yet, in the end, I don’t think the S.W.O.R.D. stuff was the biggest hurdle for  “WandaVision.” Instead, I’d point to the plot twist that was at once the most sitcom-y and the most Marvel-y moment of the show: the surprise appearance of Evan Peters as Wanda’s late brother Pietro. What did you make of that when it first happened, Caroline?

Framke: Though I already knew intellectually that diehard Marvel fans were watching this show at a different frequency than I was, it was Peters crashing the show that made me fully understand the gulf between our experiences. To me, that moment just felt like proof that things were starting to unravel beyond Wanda’s immediate control. For you and other (I say with great affection) extreme nerds, Peters showing up as Quiksilver teased the enormous implications of Fox’s “X-Men” universe possibly colliding with Marvel’s — a thing I only realized once I read your recap! Otherwise, he was just some funny dude in a beanie.

Still, your point about this casting twist being a bit of a fork in the road for “WandaVision” is, I think, a fair one. From “Halloween” on, the show is firmly in its endgame of revealing Agatha (the incomparable Kathryn Hahn) as The Big Bad, pushing Wanda to realize the depth of her trauma, and nudging her into owning her power as — we can say it now! — The Scarlet Witch. And look, for as much as I basically shrugged off the majority of the “Marvel-y” revelations and S.W.O.R.D. stuff (with the notable exception of Parris’ Monica Rambeau coming into her own superpowers), I still love a good origin story. Ending the show with Wanda adopting a fearsome new persona and exploring her capabilities is thrilling, even for someone who has no concept of what could be coming for her next.

That being said: it’s fitting that the most riveting scenes of the finale for me, by a long shot, weren’t of Agatha Harkness vs The Scarlet Witch, Vision vs Vision, or Wanda vs Westview (which was wrapped up entirely too quickly for my liking — those people will be traumatized for life!). The best parts of “The Series Finale,” and the show as a whole, are undoubtedly the quiet moments in which Wanda reckoned with her pain, with Vision right there to offer his steadfast support. Watching Wanda say goodbye to her sons, who she knew were about to disappear along with the fantasy town she got lost in, was devastating. Letting Vision and Wanda have their most honest, loving conversation to date as a crimson wave of magic loomed ominously in the near distance was an absolute gut punch. (And not for nothing: romantic as hell, thanks to Bettany and Olsen’s tender portrayals of doomed soulmates. More sexual tension and swooning in the MCU, please!) For as much as I understood that there was no escaping a final act of neon lightning fights, because Marvel gonna Marvel, I was ultimately a fan of “WandaVision” for moments like those.

Vary: For me, the best example of what you’re talking about came in the penultimate episode, when Vision, comforting Wanda while she grieves Pietro, tells her, “What is grief but love persevering.” That line — which has already been debated and meme’d around the world and back — is a perfect sentiment without being sentimental, underlining the theme of the series while also showing us the precise moment Wanda fell in love with Vision.

I do want to get back to Fietro for a second, though, because I think this gets at the divide we’re talking about here. We now know that Schaeffer cast Peters in that role to evoke stunt replacement casting on sitcoms, like the two Aunt Vivs on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” or the two Beckys on “Roseanne.” That point is even punctuated in the finale when Monica learns Fietro is really some dude named Ralph Bohner by finding his headshot.

That’s a really good joke. But it doesn’t fully work unless you also know Peters’ history as the other Quicksilver in the “X-Men” movies. And that’s where I think “WandaVision” got itself into some trouble. Suddenly, all kinds of multiverse shenanigans seemed to be at play, and the serious (and seriously online) fandom took that and sprinted with it, Pietro-style, getting far ahead of the story in a torrent of fan theorizing. I suspect, and please correct me if I’m wrong here, that it also made “WandaVision” feel a bit less welcoming to folks who don’t care that Magneto is Wanda’s father in the comics, or even that Olsen’s next MCU movie — “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” — has “multiverse” right there in the title. Was that the case for you?

Framke: Before I answer that, quick question: Does “Fietro” mean “Fake Pietro”?

Vary: Yes! Agatha calls him that!

Framke: Well! I didn’t even clock that, let alone that Wanda is Magneto’s daughter(?!?) in the comics, so there you go.

For the most part, though, I’ll say that not having all the MCU knowledge at my fingertips wasn’t really a problem. From my more limited vantage point, “WandaVision” was the story of a grieving woman denying her pain until she couldn’t, and also, there was magic and stuff. The most confused I got was in episode 4 with all the S.W.O.R.D. stuff, and even that made enough sense once I remembered the context of Thanos’ Snap and such.

My relative lack of backstory knowledge meant that I maybe had a less frustrating time watching “WandaVision” than the fans who couldn’t just watch an episode and walk away without investigating all the Easter Eggs and possible ways the show might feed into the MCU at large. I could enjoy Peters dropping by without unpacking everything that casting choice might mean, accept Wanda’s family story at face value, and leave the series more intrigued by The Scarlet Witch than anticipating what she’s going to do next according to the comics that first created her. But like you say: “WandaVision” is just as much for Marvel’s existing fans as the new ones it brought in, which means it had to walk a tightrope that I’m not sure that a series like “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” for instance, might bother to. From where I’m standing, that makes “WandaVision” a more immediately interesting show, but I can see how it might have been frustrating for fans expecting more.

Vary: It’s a perpetual risk for anything that draws from wildly popular source material: At least part of your audience is going to be writing their own show in their heads as they watch, and sharing that online by the droves, further warping audience expectations. It’s a problem that is only going to become bigger as mega-franchises like the MCU, “Star Wars” and HBO’s coming “Game of Thrones” spin-offs continue their relentless, streaming service-feeding expansions.

In that vein, one sentiment I heard from former MCU diehards who’ve grown weary of the Marvel machine is how grateful they were for just how different “WandaVision” felt in its early episodes. For them, the show’s turn to more familiar MCU tropes in its second half, especially in the finale, was even more disappointing. But how did you feel about it?

Framke: To be honest? I feel the same, but I wasn’t surprised at the eventual collision of the smaller Wanda/Westview story with the MCU. In retrospect, of course that was what was going to happen. What was a bit more disappointing was realizing that the relative daring of the early episodes — their ingenuity, creeping unease, and refreshing willingness to let subtext be subtext — was flying out the window. Watching the finale made me feel like I had been watching an “Avengers”-style Marvel movie all along and just didn’t realize it until it was too late.

I don’t mean that in terms of how some showrunners insist that their ten episode series is a ten-hour movie; “WandaVision,” even more so than many other streaming shows, respects TV as a medium so much that it spent half its runtime lovingly paying tribute to it. I just mean that by the time we got to the finale, which ended with a battle and two post-credits scenes teasing future movies, it felt more like a typical Marvel movie ending than I had been expecting — or more accurately, hoping for — given the rest of the show’s willingness to veer off course.

Vary: Huh! I think you’re right in that a Marvel thing is always going to be a Marvel thing, but “WandaVision” has also successfully pushed the boundaries of what a Marvel “thing” can be far further than I ever thought possible.

Take that finale, for instance. Yes, there was a lot of air fighting and ground pounding and things going boom. But the battles between Wanda and Agatha, and Hex Vision and Ghost Vision, ended not with shows of force but of intelligence: Wanda outsmarts Agatha with those runes, and Hex Vision uses expressions of logical paradoxes to pull Ghost Vision out of S.W.O.R.D.’s thrall.

Of course, “WandaVision” also has me hyped for “Doctor Strange 2,” and that was before the post-credits teaser of Wanda poring through the Darkhold. I’ve been all in on the MCU for years now, and everything Marvel’s doing with these shows only makes me more so.

So Caroline, did “WandaVision” make you keen to swim deeper into the MCU’s waters? Or are you still content to occasionally dip your toes?

Framke: I love a gentle wade into otherwise intense fandom waters, and think I’ll be sticking to that level of involvement for now. But the operative part of that sentence, for better and for worse, is “for now.” I deeply respect the relatively big swings “WandaVision” took from within the MCU machine, and am hopeful that more of the roughly eight million Marvel shows to come will do the same. If so, I’ll be happy to take a deeper dive — or else maybe I’ll be compelled to, whether I like it or not. Soon enough, there will be just too many Marvel shows happening for me to be able to just skim the surface like I’m used to.

All I can hope for is that future Marvel shows — and hell, let’s throw in the Star Wars universe while we’re talking Disney — will see how successful this show’s quieter, stranger moments were and trust that audiences might reward “riskier” storytelling like it in future. If nothing else, “WandaVision” proved that breaking the formula can be even more satisfying than leaning into what’s worked before. That alone makes the experiment worth it.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/opinion/wandavision-finale-review-marvel-wanda-vision-1234923117/

For New York City residents Marina Thomas and Brandt Kempin, going to the movies carries near spiritual significance.

“It’s a version of church,” Kempin says.

The couple returned to their sacred space, IFC Center in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, on Friday to see “Another Round,” a drama about hard-living teachers starring Mads Mikkelsen. They arrived early and commemorated the long-awaited return by taking pictures excitedly posing in front of a theater marquee that read: “We’re back!”

“I realize [the movie] is online, but this is a much better experience,” Thomas says. It’s also a celebration of cinema and science, she says, since Thomas and Kempin have already been vaccinated. “We’re going to wear our masks the whole time,” she adds.

After nearly a year of closures, New York City movie theaters were able reopen this weekend. Venues in the five boroughs are currently operating at 25% capacity, with no more than 50 people allowed in a room at a time. Cinemas plan to keep coronavirus at bay by selling tickets online to reduce contact, requiring masks, upgrading air filters and blocking out rows between occupied seats. IFC Center has taken the extra step of keeping its concession stand closed to ensure guests don’t have a reason to remove their masks.

Austin Frankel, who visited Village East Cinema for a screening of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic “Tenet,” says he feels pretty safe given the precautions taken. There’s no reason in particular he opted to watch “Tenet,” he says. “I just wanted to see a movie in theaters.”

What movies are even playing in theaters these days? For those in attendance, the film in question wasn’t the main reason they showed up at their closest multiplex on a chilly Friday afternoon. Rather, audiences were guided more by a desire to get out of the house and sit in a darkened theater with a tub of popcorn at a time when it’s too cold to do anything outside. Cinemas across the city were sparsely populated, but those who bought tickets conveyed their emotions ranged from “pretty excited” to having an “out of body experience.”

Micah Chavis and Mizan Taylor elected to see Disney’s animated adventure “Raya and the Last Dragon” at AMC Village 7. “I worked at a movie theater before [the pandemic],” Chavis says. “I was watching movies every single day.”

As sample sizes go, the people turning out to the first possible movie screenings likely rank among the die hard of the die-hard cinephiles. Anyone who felt ambivalent about returning to theaters were understandably absent from opening day crowds. Plenty of onlookers walked by multiplex doors, bewildered that movie theaters have turned their lights back on.

At IFC Center, New Yorker John Rerdan bought a ticket for “Mank,” David Fincher’s drama about the screenwriter of “Citizen Kane.” He had “no hesitation whatsoever” about returning to cinemas, even though he’s already seen the movie on Netflix.

“My TV just isn’t big enough,” he says, mentioning he cleared his work schedule to make certain he didn’t have conflicting meetings. “There’s a lot to catch up on. I will be going regularly.”

Taylor Lezhen, a 25-year-old New York City local, admits she’s returning to her local AMC theater mostly for the popcorn.

“I have no idea what’s coming out,” Lezhen says. “I just want to go and sit there.”

Watch the full video above.

https://variety.com/2021/film/features/new-york-city-movie-theaters-reopen-coronavirus-pandemic-1234923274/

The mega-successful Chinese franchise about a mismatched detective duo tackling baffling crimes in foreign destinations continues with a wildly uneven caper set in Tokyo. With performances, plotting and visuals amped up to 11 as per usual, this hyperactive combination of Sherlock Holmes-type sleuthing and Three Stooges-style slapstick comedy offers plenty of zany fun, but the central murder-mystery contains so many convoluted diversions, digressions and detours it makes the whole enterprise play like a long stream-of-consciousness sketch with a glaringly hollow core.

A smash hit domestically after opening on Feb. 12 in the Chinese New Year season, “Detective Chinatown 3” has grossed $667 million in the three weeks since. U.S. distributor Warner Bros. Pictures has yet to announce specific release details following the COVID-19 enforced postponement of the film’s planned global rollout on January 24, 2020. Earning its place in history with the highest opening-day gross of any film in a single market ($163 million in China), the third Detective Chinatown film directed and co-written by series creator Chen Sicheng has benefited hugely by waiting a full year to enter local theaters. The most hotly anticipated of all seven major 2021 Chinese New Year releases, “Detective Chinatown 3” delivers exactly the kind of glossy, big-budget escapist entertainment that viewers are especially craving at this time.

Audiences willing to surrender to the film’s eccentric flow and not look too closely should have a good enough time. Those hoping to be enthralled by the same kind of intricately layered mystery that the series built its reputation on may be disappointed. To be blunt: There are not enough plausible suspects, and many crime movie buffs will find it far too easy to quickly identify the killer.

After running around Bangkok and New York in previous entries, brainy young detective Qin Feng (Liu Haoran) and his buffoonish “third cousin, twice removed” Tang Ren (Wang Baoqiang) are called to the most candy-colored cinematic vision of Tokyo in recent memory. Their client is Masaru Watanabe (Miura Tomokazu), a yakuza boss charged with the murder of Su Chaiwit (Hirayama Motokazu), head honcho of a rival Southeast Asian crime outfit. Despite being the only other person in the room at the time of Su’s death, Watanabe insists he’s innocent and is prepared to pay Qin and Tang one billion yen ($9 million) to prove it.

Studious Qin and socially inept Tang aren’t the only gumshoes on the case. Drifting in and out of the frame are sneering local police hotshot Tanaka (Asano Tadanobu), Thai crime-buster Jack “Rabid Dog” Jaa (“Ong Bak” star Tony Jaa, mugging shamelessly) and garishly attired Japanese freelance investigator Hiroshi Noda (Satoshi Tsumabuki, reprising his entertaining “Detective Chinatown 2” character).

It’s a bright and bouncy affair at first, with a fabulous all-in brawl at Tokyo airport involving male and female flight crew, and a terrific “revolving corpses” routine at a hospital morgue among early highlights of a story that can’t sit still for a minute. The tried-and-true contrast of Qin’s brilliant deductions and Tang’s sledgehammer sleuthing produce plenty of laughs but the story loses focus when Su Chawit’s loyal secretary, Anna Kobayashi (Masami Nagasawa), is kidnapped by young criminal degenerate Akita Murata (Shota Sometani).

During the frantic search for the imperiled woman, Cheng and his co-writers spend more time setting up potential prequel, sequel and spin-off movie threads than dealing with the case at hand. Much of the side-tracking concerns the emergence of a shadowy SPECTRE-like crime cartel known as “Q.” Given the loaded meaning of that particular letter in today’s political and social climate, this moniker could just as easily be a bonus or a burden for future installments, the next of which is clearly flagged to take place in London. When the serious business of unmasking Su Chawit’s killer finally gets back on track in a courtroom-set final act, the story again suffers markedly by taking an unconvincing turn into tearjerker territory.

For all its narrative and structural shortcomings, Cheng’s film is always visually arresting and frequently very funny as it switches tone and tack at the drop of a hat. Filmed entirely and splendidly with Imax cameras by DP Jie Du (“The Wasted Times”), “Chinatown Detective 3” is at its best in sequences such as a mad chase in the middle of a cosplay street parade, and a set piece involving a double-decker bus, mountains of cash and a swarm of frenzied pedestrians in Tokyo’s famous Shibuya Crossing. All that’s missing from Tang’s hilarious fight with a sumo wrestler is the detective saying “nyuk, nyuk” in homage to Curly Howard.

Costume designer Stanley Cheung must have had a ball creating a runway show’s worth of colorful outfits including wonderfully gaudy drag ensembles donned by Wang, Liu, Tsumabuki and Jaa. Likewise, composers Hu Xiaou and Nathan Wang, whose hectic and eclectic score ranges from face-melting guitar solos to moody piano and crashing percussion, sometimes in the same musical phrase.

For a comedy that’s frequently vulgar but never too gross, it’s notable that respect is always shown for Japanese people, customs and culture, unlike some insensitive comic scenes in the previous New York-set chapter. In light of the historically complex and often strained relationship between China and Japan, it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest there’s a measure of soft diplomacy tucked beneath the film’s raucous, unruly and goofy exterior.

https://variety.com/2021/film/reviews/detective-chinatown-3-review-1234916941/

For a criminal who revealed his agenda in exhaustively detailed black-and-white — via his famous essay “Industrial Society and the Future,” published in The Washington Post months ahead of his 1996 capture — Ted Kaczynski remains a somewhat unreadable figure. The domestic terrorist better known as the Unabomber killed three people and injured two dozen more in a national bombing campaign aimed at protesting man’s environmental destruction and technological dependence. Yet his manifesto shed little light on who he actually was, or how a mild-mannered math professor from Chicago grew into an eccentric, isolated survivalist and, eventually, FBI most-wanted material. That makes him a subject both fascinating and oddly resistant to dramatization, though that hasn’t stopped writers and filmmakers from trying over the years.

The latest such effort, Tony Stone’s growlingly moody “Ted K,” is a biopic that effectively honors its subject with its opaque severity. There’s little attempt here to “crack” Kaczynski or psychologize him, even though the script is drawn heavily from his own extensive writings. A vivid, committed performance by Sharlto Copley does make the man of a million headlines seem appreciably human, but not approachably so. This is a distant, impressionistic character study that seeks to immerse its audience in a generally nervous state of mind — both that of Kaczynski himself, as his ambitions and exploits escalate to a point of anonymous celebrity, and of a public at his selective mercy. Quite what we gain from the experience is uncertain, with most viewers likely to leave the film understanding little more of the Unabomber than they did two hours before. Still, “Ted K” is impressive and oppressive in equal measure.

A slow introductory crawl fills in the Wikipedia-level facts about Kaczynski for the uninformed, while also playing up the authenticity of the film to follow. It was shot, we are told, on the very patch of Montana land where Kaczynski’s spartan 10- by 12-foot cabin once stood, and incorporates firsthand perspective from the 25,000 pages of journaling found inside it. Stone hardly needs to brag. “Ted K” projects stony, disquieting conviction from its aggressive first set piece, which introduces Kaczynski spying on a wealthy family, his contempt tangible as they rowdily mess around on high-end snowmobiles outside their mountain lodge. Once they’ve left the premises, he breaks in, hacking through the walls with an ax before laying waste to the offending vehicles. An eerie electro-orchestral score by British experimental musician Blanck Mass (aka Benjamin John Power) is cranked to ear-stinging levels as the carnage continues.

This passage of home-invasion horror may be of little consequence compared to the crimes Kaczynski later commits, but it arrestingly captures his grievances in miniature. “Ted K” isn’t wholly unsympathetic to its subject’s cause, even if this opening salvo offers a frightening taste of the crazed excess with which he takes action. But the filmmaking gives weight to his pained concern for the environment, and his positively feverish sensitivity to noise pollution. The sound design is discordant, distorted, even anxiety-inducing. DP Nathan Corbin offers multiple serene tableaux of the verdant Montana landscape being wrecked by industry, as ruthlessly as Kaczynski hacks up those snowmobiles. Stone’s film doesn’t need to warm or soften its subject’s persona to underline the essential tragedy of the man: that he had something of a point, and the worst possible way of making it.

Rather than tracing a dutiful biographical arc, Stone’s script (co-written with Gaddy Davis and John Rosenthal) is composed of scattered vignettes from the last decade or so of Kaczynski’s life as a free man. Some are speculatively intimate, capturing his solitary daily routine in the woods, with no electricity and only a radio as a link to the modern world. Others procedurally mark the planning and execution of his bombings, though they maintain the cool temperature and austere observational tack of the more everyday scenes. The filmmakers can afford this unemotive reserve, since Copley’s strange, highly-strung work anchors proceedings with all the jittery intensity they need. In the South African star’s most interesting and expansive showcase since his debut in “District 9,” callused body language contrasts with the reedy, unconfident vocal tics of a man who rarely speaks to anyone but himself.

The backstory of Kaczynski’s evolution into a woody recluse is only glancingly filled in, often via anguished, one-sided phone conversations with his brother David, who is kept as inaudible as any direct line into the past. A scattering of fantasy scenes with the devoted woman of Kaczynski’s dreams are a miscalculation that feel imported from a more conventional, explicatory draft of this project. Likewise, we hardly need the blunt musical cue of Bobby Vinton’s “Mister Lonely” to tell us what a sad, sexless life we’re observing. At its best, “Ted K” reveals itself in sound, mood and texture, akin to the most prickly minimalism of Gus van Sant or Antonio Campos. It sidesteps any popular Unabomber mythos and remains reluctant to forge any of its own. Ted Kaczynski isn’t just a regular guy, that much Stone’s film makes clear. But he’s just a guy all the same.

https://variety.com/2021/film/festivals/ted-k-review-1234922757/

There may be films that resemble in certain details “Death of a Virgin, and the Sin of Not Living,” though nothing readily comes to mind, and even were there something to compare it to, it wouldn’t lessen the way it burrows inside until you find yourself flooded by the fragility of life, with all its beauty and sorrow. That novice director George Peter Barbari was even able to get this made given financing difficulties is nearly miraculous, and while debuting during a pandemic isn’t ideal, somehow the heightened awareness of how easy it is to be pushed off course makes the film’s poetics even more effective. “Death” is, of course, about everything that leads up to our demise, and the hurried paths that take us there, told through a basic story of four teenage boys in northern Lebanon losing their virginity to a prostitute.

Barbari takes that well-worn premise and does something extraordinary, using long takes and a fluid camera to alight on each character, including incidental figures, and via succinct inner monologues we learn who that person is and who they’ll become. Whether they will find love, achieve their dreams, when they will die and how. “The sin of not living” is made palpable through this gallery of lives of quiet desperation, each one a wellspring of promise so easily interrupted in its course. The monologues are almost matter-of-fact and swift (this isn’t Eugene O’Neill’s “Strange Interlude”), directed at the speakers themselves as much as the audience, and their brevity, like the brevity of our time on earth, hits hard.

Etienne (Etienne Assal) and his buddy Adnan (Adnan Khabbaz) hang out watching porn before joining a couple of friends to hook up with a prostitute who Adnan’s uncle had taken him to the week before. The framing keeps tightly on these two, following them as they leave home, sticking close even when we hear Etienne’s over-protective mother (Maria Doueihi) asking the usual maternal questions before a son heads out. As the boys exit though, the camera finds the mother and we get the first inner monologue: Her husband was killed in a plane crash, and she’s still trying to find herself without him. “I wish he had loved me a little less,” she says in the first of many lines, spoken by various characters, whose raw honesty and plangency root themselves in our consciousness.

The camera, impressively wielded by Karim Ghorayeb, moves on to Etienne’s sister Windy (Windy Ishak), whose voiceover reveals she’d had an abortion eight months earlier. Constant exercise won’t change her displeasure with her body, and despite yearning to leave this small seaside town she’ll never have the guts to do it. “I will die at 87,” she states, which on the surface sounds like a good life until you consider decades of dissatisfaction and corrosive self-criticism. Describing all this makes it sound as if “Death” is one protracted disquisition on miserabilism, which would be a terrible mischaracterization. The film has pathos but isn’t pathetic, and while it has a particular preoccupation with mortality sometimes found in sensitive youth, Barbari nevertheless gives it genuine resonance.

Outside the guys meet up with friends Jean Paul (Jean Paul Franjieh) and Dankoura (Elie Saad). The former is the blustery type, disguising his insecurity and lack of intelligence behind a macho volatility. After over a year together with his girlfriend he’s still only kissed her lightly twice, a common situation (including for Christian teens like these) in this conservative society where warped preoccupations with virginity and the eternal mother-whore dichotomy create the deep-rooted conditions making this journey to a prostitute an acceptable rite of passage.

They get a ride from acquaintances (one of whom reveals in his soliloquy that in two years he’ll sleep with a man and feel free for the first time in his life), then take a bus to a hotel, where the madam (Souraya Baghdadi) eventually calls down sex worker Christelle (Feyrouz AbouHassan). Etienne is the first up: We’ve already heard Etienne’s inner monologue, we know better who he is, what his life will be like, but now we see how this transaction, so humiliating in its power dynamics, will scar him forever.

The scene is painful to watch, not because it’s explicit — concentrating largely on their faces in bed — but because we’re inescapably confronted with Christelle’s violation, knowing it’s one of many before and after. Arabic speakers will notice that she speaks with a Syrian accent (the information isn’t explicitly stated), adding a further level of extratextual meaning given how so many Syrian refugees in Lebanon are treated as lesser beings. Christelle’s already in her tragedy, and Etienne is just entering his; there isn’t an equivalency here, which would be obscene, but there is sensitivity to each, and the gift of non-religious grace that recognizes the vulnerability of our souls.

It doesn’t lessen the overall impact to say there are several first-film weaknesses — for example, stopping the frame on a still image of Jean Paul is perhaps meant to reset the rhythm but it’s glaringly out of place. The director’s achievement, together with his team, is greater than that. With originality and compassion, he’s brought us face to face with our fragile humanity, just like an E.A. Robinson poem; destiny is cruel, but maybe it’s possible to avoid the sin of not living.

https://variety.com/2021/film/reviews/death-of-a-virgin-and-the-sin-of-not-living-review-1234921610/

Already devastated by her husband’s execution, Mina (played by co-director Maryam Moghaddam) discovers that the man she loves was put to death for a crime he didn’t commit in “Ballad of a White Cow.” That would seem to be injustice enough for one person to bear, but in conservative Iranian culture, now that Mina’s a widow, she has less power than ever before: Fired from her job, evicted from her apartment and pressured toward marrying her pushy brother-in-law (Pourya Rahimiam), Mina faces limited options when it comes to caring for her deaf-mute daughter Bita (Avin Poor Raoufi).

If all of this sounds like a recipe for a thoroughly depressing spiral toward the bottom, à la “Bicycle Thieves” and its neorealist ilk, think again. Sure, “Ballad” can be brutal, but Moghaddam and co-helmer Behtash Sanaeeha (who first collaborated on “Risk of Acid Rain”) also see it as a story of resilience in a society that puts enormous limits on women. In some ways, “Ballad” feels engineered to put a maximum number of obstacles in Mina’s path, but as executed, the movie doesn’t feel the slightest bit didactic, despite its unusually stiff style.

Nearly every shot in this film is film is locked down and squared off, staring either straight at or directly perpendicular to its characters, like a Wes Anderson movie, minus all the wallpaper and whimsy. You could count on one hand the number of times DP Amin Jafari’s camera moves, and yet, this restraint reads as solemn noninterference. The co-directors seem determined to avoid the semblance of sentimentality or emotional manipulation. The duo are clearly fans of populist cinema, judging by the importance movies play to their characters (Bita is named for a popular 1972 local hit, and loves cinema infinitely more than school), but they’ve taken a more formalist approach to their own work: precise compositions, few if any closeups, no music.

But amid such austerity (which can be taxing at times), the humanism shines through, centered in Moghaddam’s dignified performance, one that shifts depending on whether the character is being observed in public or private. It’s as if the film is saying that being a woman in Iran demands a certain level of performance: She’s allowed to grieve — and it’s a wrenching scene, even captured at a distance — when she learns of the mistake that would have exonerated her husband, had the truth come to light before his execution.

In most other situations, Maryam is obliged to dial down her emotions, to make herself practically invisible (as she does at her factory job, all but disappearing among the milk cartons) and to mask her beauty. In the rare scenes when she applies lipstick or removes her headscarf, the gesture conveys determination, even if it’s being done for a man’s benefit. She cries twice in the film, and in both cases, it’s a balancing act of composure and weakness. We meet the character en route to the prison where her husband Babak is soon to be hanged, and the movie is modest enough to pull back from their farewell visit, allowing the cell door to swing shut on this private moment.

Later, we’ll learn that both Maryam and Babak believed he was guilty, which explains why they didn’t challenge the sentence. Turns out, it was the witnesses who were unreliable, but guiltier than that is the system that might allow such a miscarriage. That burden falls especially heavily on the shoulders of the movie’s other main character, Reza (Alireza Sanifar), who served as one of the judges in Babak’s trial. “Ballad” doesn’t reveal this connection right away, but it’s an essential detail to mention here, since the movie is quite sly in the way it handles which characters know certain things and when.

Shortly after Mina receives the news of her husband’s innocence — along with the promise that she will be compensated “the full price of an adult male” — Reza pays her a visit. Rather than begging her forgiveness for passing a faulty sentence, he poses as an old friend of Babak’s, writing a generous check for a nonexistent debt. In the weeks to come, these two characters will grow closer, and had this been a Hollywood romance, Reza’s lie of omission would serve as the secret that threatens their relationship (which it does, in a less contrived way).

But Reza isn’t the only one who chooses to hold information back: Mina’s landlady objects to the fact she let “an unrelated man” into her house — meaning Reza — forcing the widow and her daughter to vacate the apartment. But Mina never tells Reza he’s responsible for this latest setback. The judge thinks he’s doing Mina a favor by offering her to lease his own apartment at a vastly discounted price, when in fact, he’s the cause of her eviction. In Reza’s case, his dishonesty is a sign of weakness, whereas with Mina, her discretion represents a kind of strength — one that grows increasingly impressive as the film unfolds.

Moghaddam and Sanaeeha (who co-wrote the script with Mehrdad Kouroshnia) find multiple opportunities to show non-Iranian audiences how local customs limit a woman’s options. Religion is clearly responsible for much of what they find objectionable — as when Reza’s peers insists that his mistake must have been “God’s will” — and yet, they never come out and criticize it outright. The Quran actually provides the metaphor of the film’s title, as well as its opening vision: The Surah of the Cow refers to a sacrifice Moses demanded for a man’s death, represented here by an innocent, computer-generated white cow ready for slaughter.

This image appears twice in “Ballad,” a rare glimpse into Maryam’s head, but an important clue as to the fantasy — which involves a symbolic glass of warm milk — that closes the film. From a Western perspective, audiences want to see things work out for Maryam, but by the logic of Iranian custom itself, the film asks a tougher question: In an eye-for-an-eye society, what kind of compensation is fair for her loss? Blood money doesn’t cut it, especially when Barak’s father and brother want a share. But what about blood?

https://variety.com/2021/film/reviews/ballad-of-a-white-cow-review-1234922616/

“Promising Young Woman” swept the evening at the Hollywood Critics Association Awards. In addition to taking home the top prize, HCA awarded Carey Mulligan for her performance as revenge-driven Cassie and director Emerald Fennell for her screenplay.

Other winners included Delroy Lindo for Best Actor in “Da 5 Bloods” and Yuh-Jung Youn who won Best Supporting Actress for “Minari.”

“While 2020 was a year of many difficulties for many around the world, we are forever grateful to the filmmakers, storytellers, and studios who went above and beyond to find new ways to release their films to audiences,” HCA founder Scott Menzel said.

Taking cues from the Golden Globe Awards, “Nomadland” earned awards for best cinematography and best female director. Other highlights included Delroy Lindo winning best actor for “Da 5 Bloods,” and “Class Action Park” and “All In: The Fight for Democracy” tying for best documentary.

“Even though cinemas were closed for most of the year, 2020 was a groundbreaking year for film in many ways,” co-chair Ashley Menzel said about the range of nominees. “We are looking forward to seeing more inclusivity on-screen, hopefully not just in awards films, but in movies in general.”

The fourth annual ceremony streamed on the HCA Facebook page and YouTube channel this evening. Since its inception in 2016, the organization’s mission is to uplift underrepresented voices in the industry.

“The films that the members of the Hollywood Critics Association nominated were amongst some of the most diverse and inclusive stories that we’ve seen on-screen in quite some time,” Menzel noted. “Our mission has always been to highlight all voices and I believe it is reflective in our winners tonight.”

See the full list of winners below.

Best Picture: “Promising Young Woman”

Best Actor: Delroy Lindo (“Da 5 Bloods”)

Best Actress: Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”)

Best Supporting Actor: Paul Raci (“Sound of Metal”)

Best Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn (“Minari”)

Best Male Director: Darius Marder (“Sound of Metal”)

Best Female Director: Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”)

Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Kemp Powers (“One Night in Miami”)

Best First Feature: Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”)

Best Cast Ensemble: “Da 5 Bloods”

Best Animated or VFX Performance: Ben Schwartz (“Sonic the Hedgehog”)

Best Action: “Birds of Prey”

Best Animated Film: “Wolfwalkers”

Best Blockbuster: “Birds of Prey”

Best Comedy or Musical: “Palm Springs”

Best Documentary: (tie) “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” “Class Action Park”

Best Horror: “The Invisible Man”

Best Indie: “Minari”

Best International Film: “La Llorona”

Best Short Film: “The Heart Still Hums”

Best Cinematography: Joshua James Richards (“Nomadland”)

Best Score: Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross (“Soul”)

Best Original Song: Husavik (My Hometown) (“Eurovision Song Contest”)

Best Visual Effects: Jonathan Dearing (“The Invisible Man”)

Best Stunts: “Birds of Prey”

Best Hair & Make-Up: Matiki Anoff, Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neal, Larry M. Cherry, Sian Richards, Deidra Dixon and Jamika Wilson (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”)

Best Production Design: Donald Graham Burt (“Mank”)

Best Film Editing: Alan Baumgarten (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”)

Best Costume Design: “The Personal History of David Copperfield”

Honorary Awards:

Breakthrough Performance Actor: Paul Raci

Breakthrough Performance Actress: Cristin Milioti

Acting Achievement: Aubrey Plaza

Filmmaking Achievement: Steve McQueen

Artisan Achievement: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Star on the Rise: Jo Ellen Pellman

Filmmaker on the Rise: Emerald Fennell

Artisan on the Rise: Emile Mosseri

Standout Performance by an Actor or Actress 23 or Under Award: Sidney Flanigan

Game-Changer Award: Nicole Beharie

Inspire Award – Lin Manuel Miranda

Timeless Award: Dante Spinotti

Spotlight Award: Kiera Allen

Impact Award: “Judas and The Black Messiah”

Valiant Award: Zack Snyder

Trailblazer Award: Dwayne Johnson

https://variety.com/2021/awards/awards/hollywood-critics-association-awards-2021-winners-1234923204/

TV commercial casting director Merrill Jonas died Thursday at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, Calif. after a long illness. She was 96.

Starting out as an actress, Jonas rose to head of the casting department at Ogilvy and Mather in New York, where she led a six-person team that cast more than 100 commercials. The celebrity talent included Patricia Neal, Karl Malden, Anna-Maria Alberghetti, Arthur Ashe, Sonny & Cher and Ravi Shankar.

While working as director of the commercial department at talent agency CMA in New York, she cast talent including Jackie Gleason, Rod Serling, Florence Henderson and Mel Brooks.

Her agency Celebrity Casting Associates made deals for NBC’s Frank Blair, Phyllis Newman, Peter Duchin, Pete Rose and Dan Pastorini.

As an actress and on-camera spokeswoman, Jonas appeared in commercials during the 1950s and 1960s for products including Anacin, M&Ms, Tide, Lipton Tea and many others.

She also appeared in TV series including CBS TV’s “Suspense,” CBS TV’s Dupont Show of the Month – “Body and Soul” and ABC’s “Naked City.”

Raised in Boston, she joined the U.S. Women Marines during WWII and then started out on CBS Radio’s music quiz show “Grand Slam.”

In the 1950s, Jonas worked in public relations, joining Radio Free Europe and traveling to Europe for the Crusade for Freedom project launched by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. She represented Radio Free Europe to TV writers, producers, directors and talent on “The Perry Como Show,” “Today,” “Home” starring Arlene Francis, “Tonight,” “What’s My Line,” “Armstrong Circle Theatre,” Jack Paar, Ed Sullivan, Arthur Godfrey, Steve Allen, “Studio One,” “Monitor,” Art Linkletter and “To Tell the Truth.”

She is survived by a daughter and son, Gail Carol Glaser and Garrett Neal Glaser, and a grandson, Bennett Joseph Fischer.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/people-news/merrill-jonas-dead-commercial-casting-1234923260/

Tony Hendra — the British humorist best known as the “This is Spinal Tap” manager who blunderingly shrunk Stonehenge — died Thursday of Lou Gehrig’s disease in Yonkers, NY.

He was 79, and had battled the illness, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, since 2019.

“A brilliant satirist,” the iconic 1984 mockumentary’s director, Rob Reiner, tweeted in memorializing Hendra’s death.

Hendra got his start in the early 1960s as a member of the Cambridge University Footlights review, appearing on stage with future Monty Python stars John Cleese and Graham Chapman.

He moved to the U.S. in 1964 and — with his comedy partner Nick Ullett — opened for the legendary Lenny Bruce in Greenwich Village.

Hendra was most prolific as a comedy writer. He penned skits for the popular U.K. comedy series “That Was The Week That Was,” and for Hugh Hefner’s “Playboy After Dark,” then started working at National Lampoon magazine.

There he became a member of an underground satire scene that included John Belushi and Christopher Guest — who cast him as Ian Faith in “This is Spinal Tap.”

Hendra’s ridiculously small Stonehenge stage set earned some of the movie’s best laughs — as did this entendre-laden line, delivered while holding a cricket bat:

“Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful.”

Another big laugh came when the cricket bat-wielding Hendra brushed off a cancelled Boston gig, Reiner noted.

“A brilliant satirist who when learning that the band’s Boston gig had been canceled, told them not to worry [because] Boston wasn’t a big college town,” Reiner’s tweet read.

Hendra published a religious memoir in 2004, titled “Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul,” which prompted his estranged daughter, Jessica, to accuse him of molesting her. He denied the accusations.

With Post wires

https://nypost.com/2021/03/05/tony-hendra-who-shrunk-spinal-taps-stonehenge-dead-at-79/