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N.B.A. Professionals on the Huge Display: Can These Stars Act?

N.B.A. Pros on the Big Screen: Can These Stars Act?

Does every N.B.A. superstar really want to be in movies? You might think so, judging by the long and checkered history of players going Hollywood (not to mention the amount of flopping in today’s game). As the newly released “Space Jam: A New Legacy” takes the booming subgenre of films built on hoops talent into the era of remakes, here’s a guide to the best and worst performances by pro basketball players, starting in the 1970s.

1979

Rent it on most major platforms.

If we are to believe this goofy 1979 movie — and why not? — basketball at the height of disco meant players doing the splits to celebrate buckets, coaching by astrology and Dr. J as the coolest man alive. Much of his mellow performance is shot in slow motion, adding to its swagger. In one scene, he seduces a woman by taking her to a playground and dunking in street clothes by himself in street clothes. In another, he enters a game by hot-air balloon, wearing a glittery silver uniform, backed by funky soul music. If John Travolta had a sports counterpart, this was it.

1979

Rent it on most major platforms.

In this easygoing drama about a coach (played by Gabe Kaplan at the height of his “Welcome Back, Kotter” fame) who builds an underdog college program, the Knick star Bernard King delivers an understated, lived-in performance as a pool hustler with a silky jump shot. He keeps up with an ensemble of actors without outshining them too much on the court. Compared with the hectic video-game aesthetic of “Space Jam,” this character-driven movie feels refreshingly human.

1980

Rent it on most major platforms.

There is no more famous jock cameo than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar playing himself pretending to be an ordinary commercial airplane pilot. The idea that the seven-foot superstar could disguise himself even after being challenged on it by a young fan is one of the countless jokes in this classic comedy. But when his frustration is supposed to turn into anger, Abdul-Jabbar can’t transcend his coolly unflappable stoicism.

In the greatest basketball movie of all time, this five-time all-star makes a brief but electric appearance as a guy enraged after getting hustled out of money, clearing the courts by swinging a knife around in ineffectual rage. It’s so convincing that you would never know he became famous for basketball, not acting.

1994

Stream it on Hulu and Paramount+.

This unsung morality tale about a Bobby Knight-like college coach (Nick Nolte, crusty as ever) tempted into corruption is filled with performances by famous players (Shaquille O’Neal, Larry Bird) and coaches (Rick Pitino, Knight). They all capably play versions on themselves, but the revelation here is the Boston Celtic great Bob Cousy, who transforms into a morally ambivalent athletic director. It’s a startlingly assured performance from a Hall of Famer from the early years of the N.B.A.

Shaq is the most charismatic big man in history, funny in cameos and as a talking head, but as the star of his own movie, his track record is more like his foul shooting. The year before he would make one of the most forgettable DC superhero movies (“Steel”), he delivered this much-mocked performance as a rapping genie in this schmaltzy fantasy. Trying to grant the wishes of a blandly likable white kid with divorced parents, he lumbers through, shouting his lines, mugging and even burping for laughs.

1997

Rent it on most major platforms.

Despite winning three Razzie Awards for this Jean-Claude Van Damme flop, Dennis Rodman is actually a plausible action star. He convincingly kickboxes, looks good in flamboyant get-ups (lots of hair die and leather) and wryly delivers corny lines riffing on his persona. (“You’re crazier than my hairstylist.”) All of this movie’s camp humor comes from the glint in his eye, which he needs when delivering one of many basketball references, despite the fact that he’s not supposed to be a player but rather an extremely tall arms dealer.

Making your major movie debut opposite Denzel Washington must be as daunting as entering the pros and guarding LeBron James in your first game. Exuding innocence and quiet charisma, Ray Allen, in the meaty role of Coney Island basketball prodigy Jesus Shuttlesworth, accounts himself well, even if you never forget he’s moonlighting. He’s persuasive as a diffident, paralyzed high school star with buried anger at his father. It’s a role player of a performance that executes the game plan skillfully, occasionally with panache.

1998

Rent it on most major platforms.

At 7 foot 7 inches, the Romanian center Gheorghe Muresan was the tallest player in the history of the N.B.A. That was enough for a solid pro career, even if his skills, especially early on, were unrefined. But for amateurs, acting can be tougher than sports. In this Billy Crystal buddy movie, he’s stuck in a slump. It can be hard to understand him (English is not his first language), and in his reaction shots, he might hold another record: least expressive star in the history of comedy.

When it comes to movies starring Brooklyn Nets, “Uncle Drew,” featuring Kyrie Irving, is flashier and funnier. But there’s nothing in it as impressive as Kevin Durant pretending to be awful at basketball in this rigorously wholesome “Freaky Friday”-like movie in which he accidentally trades talents with a clumsy high school kid. A common trope for this genre (“Space Jam” also includes a plot point with N.B.A. stars losing their skills), Durant really commits to being bad, adjusting his form in subtle and consistent ways. It’s a cringey delight to watch this perfectionist trip making a crossover, airball a dunk and miss his patented midrange shot, over and over again.

2018

Rent it on most major platforms.

You know that old guy on the playground who everyone underestimates because he looks slow and out of shape, but then dominates the game through wily moves and sneaky change of pace. Kyrie Irving’s performance is an affectionate ode to this figure, right down to the sweatpants. Most current stars moonlighting in movies perform versions of themselves, so it’s a bold move for Irving to try a completely different character, doing a nice job shifting his posture to a hunch and affecting a weary voice. And if he seemed a little stiff, it’s not easy to act underneath such an elaborate makeup job.

2019

Stream it on Netflix.

On-court personality usually doesn’t translate to the screen, but this is a notable exception. Playing an amped-up version of himself, Kevin Garnett was as intense and ferocious getting in Adam Sandler’s face as he was with Patrick Ewing.

1996

Michael Jordan has enough star power to light up a commercial or a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, but his wooden acting needed the animation of Bugs Bunny to make the original Tune Squad a powerhouse.

2021

Stream it on HBO Max.

Who’s better: M.J. or LeBron? This endless sports-talk debate over the greatest ever usually focuses on stats amassed and rings won, but now we have another metric to argue over: Who is the best — or more precisely, least terrible — lead actor? It’s close, but James gets the edge, showing more range playing opposite cartoons, pretending to be the overbearing sports dad along with the goofy big-kid corporate hero, even tapping into sloppy sentiment that Jordan reserves for meme-able Hall of Fame inductions.

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Now Sparks Can Confuse Followers on the Massive Display screen

Now Sparks Can Confuse Fans on the Big Screen

Sparks is a band unlike any other. Ron and Russell Mael — the brothers who have made up the eccentric, unclassifiable duo for more than 50 years — have played a pivotal, if unheralded, role in multiple musical movements, from glam rock to new wave to synth-pop.

Their witty, hyper-literate songs, along with the singer Russell’s good looks and keyboardist Ron’s deadpan, glowering stage presence, made Sparks icons of a sort in Europe, but never more than a cult band in the United States. With 25 albums to their name, they have often followed up their biggest moments with radical shifts in style that thrilled loyal fans but baffled more casual listeners.

In 2017, the music-obsessed director Edgar Wright, fresh off the success of “Baby Driver,” went to see Sparks perform in Los Angeles. For years, he had been telling his friends that someone needed to make a documentary about the group, and as he looked at the audience, which ranged from teenagers to graying 60-somethings, and the weird mix of celebrities in attendance, he insistently repeated the idea to his friend, the filmmaker Phil Lord — who told him to make the movie himself.

“I thought, if not me, then who would do it?” Wright said in a recent video conversation.

Four years later, “The Sparks Brothers” is reaching theaters, an exhaustive, proudly overstuffed two-hour-20-minute celebration of a group described in the film as “successful, underrated, hugely influential and overlooked at the same time.” In addition to interviews with the enigmatic Maels, Wright conducted 80 interviews, talking with Sparks fans like Beck, Flea, members of Duran Duran, Mike Myers and Neil Gaiman, as well as collaborators and associates.

One theme in the documentary is the Maels’ lifelong interest in film, and their multiple near-misses in trying to bring their music to the big screen, including a proposed collaboration with the French comedian Jacques Tati and a project with Tim Burton. So it’s ironic that just weeks after “The Sparks Brothers” arrives, they have another movie release: “Annette,” a musical written by the Maels, directed by Leos Carax, and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. The story of a comedian and opera singer who give birth to a daughter with a “unique gift,” it will open the Cannes Film Festival in July.

“Even before we had a band, the merging of music and movies just seemed so perfect,” Ron, 75, said, adding, “To be sitting on a movie set in Brussels and watching Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard singing something you wrote — it’s surreal, way beyond what we expected.” (Carax was unavailable for comment.)

Wright presented his idea to the Maels that night he saw them onstage, but they expressed some trepidation, for the same reasons they had turned down previous offers for a documentary.

“We always say that we don’t like looking back because we think it kind of paralyzes you,” said Russell, 72, encapsulating the constant creative forward motion that has defined the band’s oddly incomparable history. “The proposition of doing a documentary is kind of the opposite of that, and in our minds we thought, is it like an obituary in some sense?”

During a video call, Russell added that the endurance of the Maels’ partnership also seemed potentially problematic. “Sparks’ story isn’t the standard fare of a lot of music documentaries,” he said. “There’s no drug casualties, we don’t have that conflict of other bands with brothers in the band — so are there enough dramatic elements to make it interesting?”

To Wright, on the contrary, their perseverance was exactly the point. “That’s the inspiring part,” he said. “Every other band story is about people squandering their talent, and at a certain point you lose sympathy. The fact that Sparks have lasted so long is partly because they’re always close to success but never mainstream. They’ve managed to exist in this sweet spot where they can keep going, but they never have to sell out.”

Join Times theater reporter Michael Paulson in conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda, catch a performance from Shakespeare in the Park and more as we explore signs of hope in a changed city. For a year, the “Offstage” series has followed theater through a shutdown. Now we’re looking at its rebound.

To the surprise of many, the Maels were born not in Britain, but in Southern California, and were even star athletes in high school. They started playing in groups while attending the University of California, Los Angeles, inspired by the spiky spirit of the Who and the Kinks and by French New Wave cinema. Their band, Halfnelson, was championed by Todd Rundgren, but their 1971 debut album flopped. (Closing a circle, Sparks and Rundgren released the new song “Your Fandango” earlier this year.) They moved to England in 1973, after taking on the name Sparks.

That was the start of a crazy roller coaster career (including an appearance in the 1977 disaster movie flop “Rollercoaster”). The dramatic “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us” reached No. 2 on the British charts in 1974. After hooking up with pioneering disco producer Giorgio Moroder, “The Number One Song in Heaven” (1979) was not only a huge club record, but also created a blueprint for dance-based electro-pop of acts like the Human League and New Order.

Sparks’ theatrical presentation, from their album covers to their stage production, added to the allure. “What really stuck with me,” Wright said, “is these two performers who were staring down the camera at you, in sharp contrast to a lot of acts who would smile — it was quite unnerving.”

Their most notorious signature is Ron’s mustache, alternately compared with that of Adolf Hitler or Charlie Chaplin. In Paul McCartney’s 1980 music video for “Coming Up,” in which he dresses as an array of rock stars from Buddy Holly to Frank Zappa, he appears behind a keyboard with Ron’s unmistakable scowl and facial hair.

Teaming up with Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s, who was dating Russell at the time, Sparks had a genuine MTV hit in 1983 with “Cool Places.” By the time the lush, pulsing “When Do I Get to Sing ‘My Way’” was the top airplay record of 1994 in Germany, they were being accused of copying the artists they had inspired.

But most of these hits were followed with rapid musical left turns, as if the group was eager to shed any expectations that might come with popular success. In “The Sparks Brothers,” Ron says, “we think it’s important to do something that’s polarizing.”

Sometimes the results are gloriously weird (in “My Baby’s Taking Me Home,” the lyrics consist of the title phrase repeated more than 100 times), and sometimes they’re more confrontational: When a label executive suggested they make an album of music to dance to, they responded with a record titled “Music You Can Dance To” (the label dropped them), and when the idea of a project with the band Franz Ferdinand surfaced, the first song they sent to the other group was called “Collaborations Don’t Work.” (The resulting 2015 album, “FFS,” was a major critical success.)

Both Maels, though, deny that there’s anything willfully destructive in their musical choices. “Within pop music, within three-minute songs, the exciting thing is to see how you can reshape the formula and still come up with something provocative that hasn’t been done,” Russell said. “You’re always searching for that new thing you can impose on the givens of pop music — that’s when the change becomes something exciting, and not just because we want to say we’re chameleons all the time.”

The portrait that emerges in “The Sparks Brothers” is of musicians fully dedicated to their work — even in the years when Sparks didn’t have a record deal, the Maels continued to write and record with almost monastic discipline. “I don’t think it’s especially praiseworthy that even in those periods when things around us were kind of dire, we were working on the music,” Ron said. “There isn’t an alternative; that kind of work ethic is all that there is. At this point, we have an excuse and we could say we’re too old, but that’s a part of our DNA.”

Wright said this example of artistic commitment beyond the pursuit of commercial success is the true intention of the film. “I hope that for people with creative ambitions, the lesson that comes out is to stay true to your beliefs, because really it’s about the persistence of vision,” he said. “Especially in this climate when musicians are having the hardest time they’ve ever had, I hope the documentary shows a way to do it.”

Meanwhile, the Mael brothers have not slowed down. Last year, their album “A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip” became their fourth British Top 10 entry, and they plan to tour the United States, Europe and Japan in early 2022, alongside the release of a new album. They have a “very brash” sequel to “Annette” they will be pitching during the Cannes festival, and still hope to make an animated film of their 2010 radio musical, “The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman.”

The experience of “The Sparks Brothers” has given the perpetually evolving Sparks a different attitude about revisiting their life’s work.

“We’ve always said that we dispose of everything immediately after the moment,” Ron said. “But with this specific representation, we have to admit that perhaps some of those judgments were wrong. This way of presenting our legacy is the one way we want to be remembered.”

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Summer season Motion pictures 2021: Right here’s What’s Coming to the Massive (and Small) Display screen

Summer Movies 2021: Here’s What’s Coming to the Big (and Small) Screen

Here is a list of noteworthy films scheduled this summer. Release dates and platform are subject to change and reflect the latest information as of deadline.

CHANGING THE GAME (on Hulu) This documentary profiles three transgender athletes and their high school sports careers, with a particular focus on Mack Beggs, a transgender man who as a teenager wanted to compete in boys’ wrestling but, because of a rule in Texas, could only wrestle against girls.

ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE (in theaters) The biases of surveillance — by the eye, by police body cameras and in the composite photography of the eugenics proponent Francis Galton, for example — are the subject of this haunting, wide-ranging essay film from the Baltimore experimental director Theo Anthony (“Rat Film”). It won a special jury prize at Sundance.

THE ANCIENT WOODS (in theaters) The biologist and filmmaker Mindaugas Survila investigates the floral and faunal mysteries of a mostly untouched forest in Lithuania. Film Forum says the movie, poised between nature documentary and folklore, is suitable for children “whose attention spans have not been destroyed by technology.”

BAD TALES (in virtual cinemas) This Italian feature, winner of best screenplay at the Berlin International Film Festival last year, pulls back the facade of family life in a seemingly idyllic Rome suburb.

THE CARNIVORES (in theaters and on demand) The illness of a dog triggers the unraveling of a couple (Lindsay Burdge and Tallie Medel). The trailer promises ample servings of the dark and the grotesque.

CITY OF ALI (in virtual cinemas) Other documentaries have captured the highlights of Muhammad Ali’s career, but “City of Ali” deals specifically with his life in Louisville, Ky., where he was born and raised.

THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT (in theaters and on HBO Max) Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) return for what’s either the third or the eighth “Conjuring” movie. (Spinoffs like “Annabelle” and “The Nun” only sort of count.) This one involves the case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor), who was convicted of manslaughter but who some believe was possessed. Michael Chaves (who directed another spinoff, “The Curse of La Llorona”) assumes the helm from the “Conjuring” director James Wan.

THE REAL THING (in virtual cinemas) Koji Fukada (the Cannes prizewinner “Harmonium”) directed this four-hour feature, based on a manga and condensed from a 10-episode series, about a toy seller who rescues a woman from being hit by a train and gets a whirlwind of adventure as his reward.

SLOW MACHINE (in virtual cinemas) In a fractured narrative, Stephanie Hayes plays an actress who has a series of bizarre encounters with a man who identifies himself as a New York City police intelligence specialist. The movie was shown in an experimental section of last year’s New York Film Festival.

SPIRIT UNTAMED (in theaters) The daughter (voiced by Isabela Merced) of a legendary horse rider (voiced by Eiza González) hops into her mother’s saddle in this computer-animated feature. Julianne Moore, Jake Gyllenhaal and Andre Braugher round out the vocal cast.

UNDINE (in theaters and on demand) Interweaving mythology and the history of modern Berlin, the German director Christian Petzold reunites the stars of his acclaimed “Transit” for a love story of sorts between a recently spurned tour guide (Paula Beer) and a diver (Franz Rogowski) who repairs bridges. What the film means is as slippery as the protagonists, who get soaked when a fish tank explodes during their meet-cute and are continually drawn to water.

THE AMUSEMENT PARK (on Shudder) In one of the stranger collaborations in cinema history, George A. Romero, just a few years removed from “Night of the Living Dead,” accepted an assignment from the Lutheran Service Society of Western Pennsylvania to make a film about the mistreatment of the elderly. True to form, he turned it into a horror movie. Made in the early 1970s and rarely shown until the recent arrival of a restored version in 2020, it will be widely available for the first time.

AWAKE (on Netflix) A cataclysm knocks out Earth’s power grids and gives the world’s population insomnia; the collective exhaustion leads to “Purge”-like conditions. Gina Rodriguez plays a former soldier whose daughter is somehow immune to the sleeplessness, but harnessing the cure isn’t as simple as giving everyone valerian tea. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Frances Fisher co-star.

TRAGIC JUNGLE (on Netflix) Yulene Olaizola directed this 1920s-set magical-realist feature, shown at the Venice and New York film festivals last year. It centers on a fleeing woman (Indira Andrewin) who finds herself in the company of gum workers in the Mayan rainforest.

THE WOMAN WHO RAN (in theaters) In the latest film from the prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo, a character played by Hong’s frequent star Kim Min-hee visits with three friends. There is also an argument with a neighbor about whether it’s all right to feed stray cats.

ASIA (in theaters) Shira Haas of “Unorthodox” plays a Russian immigrant in Israel who faces challenges both with her health and her mother (Alena Yiv). Ruthy Pribar directed, and it won the top prize from the body that gives out Israel’s equivalent of the Academy Awards.

CENSOR (in theaters) Shown at Sundance, this stylized British horror film is set in the 1980s, when what became known as “video nasties” — violent, cheaply made movies available on cassette — were all the rage. Niamh Algar plays a censor who does her utmost to protect the public (but maybe wasn’t so great at protecting her sister years earlier). Prano Bailey-Bond directed.

DOMINO: BATTLE OF THE BONES (in theaters) No, it’s not a sequel to Tony Scott’s 2005 movie “Domino,” in which Keira Knightley played a bounty hunter, or one to Brian De Palma’s recent film of the same title. Rather, it’s the story of how a man and his stepgrandson compete in a domino tournament. Baron Davis, the former N.B.A. star, directed and co-wrote.

HOLLER (in theaters and on demand) Jessica Barden plays a promising Ohio student who begins working in scrap-metal yards to keep her family together. Nicole Riegel directed; Pamela Adlon and Gus Halper co-star.

IN THE HEIGHTS (in theaters and on HBO Max) Expected to have been a huge hit in the summer of 2020, now destined to be a return-to-the-movies toe-tapper in 2021, this film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s best-musical Tony winner — the one before “Hamilton,” that is — stars Anthony Ramos (a.k.a. Philip Hamilton) as Usnavi, the bodega owner Miranda played on Broadway. Stephanie Beatriz (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) and Miranda also appear. Jon M. Chu, who showed his skill with screen musicals in two of the better “Step Up” movies, directed from a screenplay by the musical’s book writer, Quiara Alegría Hudes.

THE MISFITS (in theaters) Pierce Brosnan, two decades from his turn in the “Thomas Crown Affair” remake, plays another thief who joins forces with a group to steal gold bars that a businessman (Tim Roth) uses to finance terrorists. Renny Harlin directed.

PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY (in theaters) James Corden returns as the voice of Beatrix Potter’s famous hare, although Glenn Kenny of The Times wrote that the first film, from 2018, dispensed “with the sweetness and light and lyricism of the books.” Here, Peter ventures out of the garden to make trouble.

SKATER GIRL (on Netflix) Rachel Saanchita Gupta plays a teenager in northwestern India who discovers skateboarding and begins to dream of competing at a championship level.

SUBLET (in theaters) John Benjamin Hickey plays a grieving travel journalist (for The New York Times, no less) who rediscovers his zest for life in Tel Aviv. Eytan Fox directed.

WISH DRAGON (on Netflix) Jimmy Wong provides the voice of a college student and John Cho the voice of a wish-granting dragon in this animated feature, which is set in Shanghai and counts Jackie Chan among its producers.

REVOLUTION RENT (on HBO Max) How does “La Bohème” transplanted to Alphabet City play when it’s transplanted to Cuba? This documentary follows Andy Señor Jr., the son of Cuban exiles, as he works to put on an American-produced staging of “Rent” in that country. Señor directed with Victor Patrick Alvarez.

AN UNKNOWN COMPELLING FORCE (on demand) This documentary delves into the murky matter of what killed nine hikers in the Ural Mountains in 1959. (A study published earlier this year said it was quite possibly an avalanche.)

THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD (in theaters) “Samuel L. Jackson is the hit man. Ryan Reynolds is the bodyguard. What more do you want me to say?” A.O. Scott wrote of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” in 2017. Well, Salma Hayek played the hit man’s wife in that movie, too, and now they’re all back for a sequel. Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman also star.

A CRIME ON THE BAYOU (in theaters) Nancy Buirski (“The Rape of Recy Taylor”) directs this documentary about Gary Duncan, who was convicted of simple battery in Louisiana after trying to stop a skirmish near an integrated school. The Supreme Court ultimately found that he had a right to a jury trial.

FATHERHOOD (on Netflix) Kevin Hart plays a widower adjusting to life as a single father in this drama directed by Paul Weitz. It’s adapted from a book by Matthew Logelin.

LUCA (on Disney+) In Pixar’s latest, two sea monsters disguise themselves as boys to experience the wonders of the Italian Riviera on land. Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer voice the two main characters; Enrico Casarosa (the Pixar short “La Luna”) directed.

RISE AGAIN: TULSA AND THE RED SUMMER (on National Geographic and Hulu) This documentary from Dawn Porter (“John Lewis: Good Trouble”) looks at the 1921 massacre in Tulsa when white residents destroyed what was known as “Black Wall Street.”

RITA MORENO: JUST A GIRL WHO DECIDED TO GO FOR IT (in theaters) The EGOT-winning actress revisits her career, recounting her experiences with discrimination in Hollywood, her breakthrough role in “West Side Story” and more. Mariem Pérez Riera directed.

SIBERIA (in theaters and on demand) The idea of Abel Ferrara directing Willem Dafoe as a bartender in Siberia will be irresistible to fans of a certain brand of uncompromising cinema. In an interview, Ferrara described it as “an odyssey movie.”

THE SPARKS BROTHERS (in theaters) Edgar Wright directed what feels like the definitive portrait of the band Sparks, a.k.a. the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, who straddle an almost imperceptibly thin line between the comic and the earnest and whose most consistent trait over 50 years has been their interest in reinventing their sound. Their first movie musical, “Annette” (Aug. 6), also comes out this summer.

SUMMER OF 85 (in theaters) François Ozon directed this tale of young summer romance, which was selected for the canceled Cannes Film Festival last year. A boy (Félix Lefebvre) is saved from a boating accident and then taught worldly ways by his rescuer (Benjamin Voisin).

SWEAT (in theaters) Another selection from the Cannes-that-wasn’t, this Polish feature from Magnus von Horn stars Magdalena Kolesnik as a “fitness influencer” who faces the burdens of being extremely online.

SWEET THING (in theaters) Alexandre Rockwell, a mainstay of American independent filmmaking in the 1990s with films like “In the Soup,” directs his children in a coming-of-age film about a long and fantastical day.

TRUMAN & TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The documentarian Lisa Immordino Vreeland puts Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams in an artistic dialogue with each other. Jim Parsons reads Capote’s words in voice-over and Zachary Quinto reads Williams’s.

12 MIGHTY ORPHANS (in theaters) Luke Wilson, Vinessa Shaw and Martin Sheen star in this true story of a how an orphanage’s football team went to compete for championships in Texas during the Great Depression.

SISTERS ON TRACK (on Netflix) Three sisters — Tai, Rainn and Brooke Sheppard — raised in tough circumstances in Brooklyn won medals in the Junior Olympics and were declared “SportsKids of the Year” for 2016 by the children’s edition of Sports Illustrated. This documentary tells their story, on the track and off.

AGAINST THE CURRENT (in theaters) No, it’s not a “Great Gatsby” spinoff. It’s a documentary about Veiga Gretarsdottir, a transgender kayaker who sets out to circumnavigate Iceland in the more difficult counterclockwise direction.

F9 (in theaters) Just when Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) thought they had settled into a quiet family life, Dom’s brother (John Cena) — who is every bit the driver Dom is, and also an assassin — turns up to settle scores. Justin Lin directed.

FALSE POSITIVE (on Hulu) Ilana Glazer and Justin Theroux play a couple trying to get pregnant who discover that their doctor (Pierce Brosnan) has a dark side.

I CARRY YOU WITH ME (in theaters) The documentarian Heidi Ewing (“Detropia”) turns to dramatized filmmaking, though not entirely (to say more would be a spoiler), with this story of the love between two Mexican men (Armando Espitia and Christian Vázquez) and how their bond endures after one, with his eye on working as a chef, crosses into the United States.

THE ICE ROAD (on Netflix) Liam Neeson plays a badass big-rig driver trying to rescue entombed miners in the frozen reaches of Canada.

KENNY SCHARF: WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (in theaters and on demand) Malia Scharf, with Max Basch, directed this look at her father, who emerged from the East Village art world of the 1980s.

WEREWOLVES WITHIN (in theaters) Holed up in a snowstorm, the residents of a small town must contend with lycanthropy. Josh Ruben directed; Milana Vayntrub and Sam Richardson star.

WOLFGANG (on Disney+) Not Amadeus Mozart, but Puck. David Gelb (“Jiro Dreams of Sushi”) directed this portrait of the celebrity chef’s career.

AMERICA: THE MOTION PICTURE (on Netflix) With the voice of Channing Tatum as a “chainsaw-wielding” George Washington, this irreverent animated feature makes a travesty of key figures of the American Revolution. Jason Mantzoukas and Olivia Munn also supply voices. Matt Thompson directed.

LYDIA LUNCH — THE WAR IS NEVER OVER (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The New York underground filmmaker Beth B directed this portrait of another figure from the scene, the No Wave singer Lydia Lunch.

ZOLA (in theaters) A tale originally told in a viral 148-tweet thread (and then in a Rolling Stone article about the thread) is now a major motion picture, directed by Janicza Bravo (“Lemon”) and written by Bravo and the playwright Jeremy O. Harris (“Slave Play”). Taylour Paige stars as a waitress and occasional stripper who is taken on a wild trip to Florida by another stripper (Riley Keough). Colman Domingo also stars.

NO SUDDEN MOVE (on HBO Max) The pandemic hasn’t slowed down Steven Soderbergh. His latest feature is a crime thriller starring Don Cheadle as an ex-con who plots a convoluted scheme that goes awry. Benicio Del Toro, Ray Liotta, Jon Hamm and Amy Seimetz are among the many familiar faces populating Detroit in 1954, when the film is set.

BEING A HUMAN PERSON (in theaters) The Swedish commercial director turned deadpan filmmaker Roy Andersson is the subject of this documentary, which follows the making of his latest movie, “About Endlessness,” which opened in April.

FEAR STREET (on Netflix) R.L. Stine’s “Fear Street” books have become three feature films — set in 1994, 1978 and 1666, respectively — that will be released on a weekly basis starting July 2. Stine has said that the content won’t be toned down for children. Leigh Janiak directed all three movies, and cast members recur throughout.

FIRST DATE (in theaters and on demand) Tyson Brown plays a teenager who takes his dream girl (Shelby Duclos) on a misadventure-filled outing in a dilapidated Chrysler.

THE FOREVER PURGE (in theaters) In the “Purge” franchise, murder is made legal for one day a year. This fifth film in the series dares to ask, what if it were more than one day? Judging from the trailer, you should also count on commentary on United States-Mexico border politics.

SUMMER OF SOUL (… OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED) (in theaters and on Hulu) In his first feature documentary as director, Questlove assembles joyous archival footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts that developed a reputation as the Black Woodstock. The film features electrifying performances from Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Ray Barretto and more.

TILL DEATH (in theaters and on demand) The “Jennifer’s Body” star Megan Fox plays a woman who wakes up handcuffed to her husband’s corpse in this thriller.

THE TOMORROW WAR (on Amazon). Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski and J.K. Simmons are all tapped for a war effort against aliens that won’t happen until 30 years in the future. Time travel makes this possible.

BLACK WIDOW (in theaters and on Disney+) The Marvel universe continues to swallow promising actors by casting “Midsommar” and “Little Women” standout Florence Pugh as Yelena, who is brought together as a family with Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. The Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland (“Berlin Syndrome”) directed.

SUMMERTIME (in theaters) Carlos López Estrada (“Blindspotting”) directed this vibrant panorama of life in Los Angeles. It’s like a musical, but instead of bursting into song, the characters share their emotions in poetry, written by the cast members, who are poets.

THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT (in theaters) Julien Faraut, an archivist whose documentary “John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection” posed intriguing parallels between tennis and cinema, recounts how textile workers in Japan became an internationally celebrated volleyball team.

CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The dancer Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz direct a portrait of the choreographer as LeBlanc oversees a production of his 1989 work “D-Man in the Waters,” which addressed the AIDS epidemic in dance.

ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS (in theaters) Taylor Russell and Logan Miller, who played escapees in the first “Escape Room” (2019), find themselves ensnared again.

ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN (in theaters) Morgan Neville (“Won’t You Be My Neighbor”) directed this portrait of the “Kitchen Confidential” chef, who died in 2018.

SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY (in theaters and on HBO Max) In 1996, Michael Jordan joined the Looney Tunes on the basketball court. This time it’s LeBron James who assembles Bugs and the gang for a hybrid live-action/animated round of hoops, with a lot of other Warner Bros. intellectual property filling out the sidelines. Malcolm D. Lee directed.

AILEY (in theaters and on demand) Using archival footage and its subject’s words, the director Jamila Wignot’s documentary recounts the career of the dancer-choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931-89).

EYIMOFE (THIS IS MY DESIRE) (in theaters) The siblings Arie and Chuko Esiri directed this film set in Lagos, Nigeria, about two people separately trying to leave for Europe.

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: TRANSFORMANIA (in theaters) The transformation in this fourth feature of the animated franchise happens when a “monsterfication ray” turns humans into monsters and monsters into humans. But there’s a behind-the-scenes transformation, too: Dracula’s vocal cords aren’t supplied by Adam Sandler this time, but by Brian Hull.

THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER (on Netflix). In this summer’s addition to the tear-jerker sweepstakes, Felicity Jones plays a journalist who uncovers an affair from the 1960s between another journalist (Callum Turner) and a married woman (Shailene Woodley).

MANDIBLES (in theaters and on demand) The French absurdist and electronic musician Quentin Dupieux (“Deerskin”) serves up another deadpan oddity, about two friends trying to train a giant fly.

OLD (in theaters) It wouldn’t be an M. Night Shyamalan film if the premise weren’t shrouded in mystery, but judging from the Super Bowl trailer, it stars Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps (“Phantom Thread”) as parents vacationing with their family on a beach that magically turns their children … old.

SNAKE EYES: G.I. JOE ORIGINS (in theaters) Based on the line of action figures, this franchise adds to its collection by giving an origin story to Snake Eyes, played by Ray Park in earlier movies and now embodied — during his ninja-training phase — by Henry Golding.

RESORT TO LOVE (on Netflix). Christina Milian plays a singer who aspires to superstardom but is reduced to performing at her ex’s wedding.

ENEMIES OF THE STATE (in theaters and on demand) Executive produced by Errol Morris, this documentary, directed by Sonia Kennebeck, unravels the case of Matt DeHart, a hacktivist who sought refuge in Canada and claimed the F.B.I. had tortured him.

THE GREEN KNIGHT (in theaters) Dev Patel has a seat at the round table as Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur, in the director David Lowery’s quest to revive the Arthurian legend onscreen. Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton and Sarita Choudhury also star.

JUNGLE CRUISE (in theaters and on Disney+) In 1916, a British researcher (Emily Blunt) travels to South America and hires a roguish, Bogartian skipper (Dwayne Johnson) as her guide through the Amazon. It’s based on a ride at Disneyland, and indirectly on a long lineage of Hollywood adventure films. Edgar Ramírez, Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti co-star. Jaume Collet-Serra directed.

THE LAST MERCENARY (on Netflix) French authorities falsely allege that a young man has been trafficking arms and drugs. Unfortunately for them, his father is played by Jean-Claude Van Damme.

NINE DAYS (in theaters) Winston Duke plays an interrogator at a way station of sorts, where he interviews people — actually unborn souls — some of whom will earn the right to be born as humans. Zazie Beetz plays an interviewee who confounds him. Edson Oda wrote and directed.

SABAYA (in theaters and on demand) This documentary trails intrepid volunteer workers in Syria who extract women and girls held captive as sex slaves by the Islamic State.

STILLWATER Tom McCarthy (“Spotlight”) directed Matt Damon as an American oil-rig worker whose daughter (Abigail Breslin) is imprisoned for murder in Marseille, France. She says she is innocent; he scrambles to help her.

ANNETTE (in theaters) While Edgar Wright’s documentary about the band Sparks (June 18) covers the cinephile musicians’ history of movie projects that never came to fruition, this feature film gives them their chance: They wrote the screenplay, the songs and the score for this love story, and Leos Carax (“Holy Motors”) directed. Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard star.

EMA (in theaters) The Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín directs this story of a dancer (Mariana Di Girolamo) and a choreographer (Gael García Bernal) whose lives are thrown out of whack after they return the boy they adopted.

JOHN AND THE HOLE (in theaters and on demand) At the age of 13, John (Charlie Shotwell) gains a measure of adult independence by drugging his immediate family (Jennifer Ehle, Michael C. Hall and Taissa Farmiga) and imprisoning them in a bunker. Pascual Sisto directed this detached, chilly open-ended allegory.

THE MACALUSO SISTERS (in theaters) The Italian playwright and theater director Emma Dante directed this story of five orphan sisters in living in Palermo. She adapted it from her play.

THE SUICIDE SQUAD (in theaters and on HBO Max) If it doesn’t work the first time, add a definite article. Poised somewhere between a reboot of and a sequel to “Suicide Squad” (2016), the movie sets several DC characters, including Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, loose on a jungle island. James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) wrote and directed. With Idris Elba, John Cena, Sylvester Stallone and Viola Davis.

THE KISSING BOOTH 3 (on Netflix) This entry in the series finds Elle (Joey King) getting ready for college.

CODA (in theaters and on Apple TV+) A crowd-pleaser (and awards-grabber, with four prizes) at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the movie tells the story of a child of deaf adults (Emilia Jones) in a working-class Massachusetts fishing family. She wants to sing, a passion that is alien to her non-hearing parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur) and brother (Daniel Durant). Sian Heder directed this remake of a French film.

DAYS (in theaters) A highlight of last year’s New York Film Festival, the director Tsai Ming-liang’s feature follows two men — one in Taipei, then Hong Kong (the Tsai regular Lee Kang-sheng); the other in Bangkok (Anong Houngheuangsy) — who in the second half meet, and for a little while are not alone.

DON’T BREATHE 2 (in theaters) In the first “Don’t Breathe” (2016), Stephen Lang played a blind veteran whose dark secrets were among that home-invasion tale’s surprises. There’s more on those in this sequel. Rodo Sayagues directed, co-writing with Fede Alvarez, who directed the original.

FREE GUY (in theaters) Ryan Reynolds plays a bank teller who finds out, “Truman Show”-like, that he is actually a background character in a video game. Shawn Levy directed. Jodie Comer and Lil Rel Howery also star.

THE MEANING OF HITLER (in theaters and on demand) The documentarians Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker examine the rise of Nazi Germany and draw parallels with the rumblings of authoritarianism across the globe today.

THE LOST LEONARDO (in theaters) Andreas Koefoed’s documentary investigates the dealings that surround “Salvator Mundi,” the most expensive painting ever sold at auction, when in 2017 it was billed as a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Unsurprisingly, not everyone agrees.

RESPECT (in theaters) Find out what it means to her: Jennifer Hudson plays Aretha Franklin in this biopic of the Queen of Soul, directed by the theater vet Liesl Tommy. With Mary J. Blige as Dinah Washington, Audra McDonald as Franklin’s mother and Forest Whitaker as Franklin’s father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin.

CRYPTOZOO (in theaters and on demand) It’s really more of a cryptid zoo, a cryptid being an animal that is the subject of lore but does not actually exist, like the dream-eating creature that everyone is after in this movie. It’s an animated film, from the graphic novelist Dash Shaw. Lake Bell, Michael Cera, Louisa Krause and Thomas Jay Ryan provided some of the voices.

THE NIGHT HOUSE (in theaters) Rebecca Hall plays a widow who discovers that her husband had a … thing for women who looked quite a bit like her, one of whom is played by Stacy Martin. What was he up to? David Bruckner directed, with an appetite for jump scares.

PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE (in theaters) The techno-fitted animated canines of the children’s TV series make the leap to the big screen.

THE PROTÉGÉ (in theaters) This is the second movie of the summer in which Samuel L. Jackson plays a hit man (after “The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife”) — except that this one concerns the hit man’s daughter (Maggie Q), or at least the woman he raised like a daughter, a hit woman herself, who seeks revenge after he is murdered. Michael Keaton co-stars, also playing a killer. Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”) directed.

REMINISCENCE (in theaters and on HBO Max) Lisa Joy, a creator of “Westworld,” wrote and directed this thriller, which casts Hugh Jackman as a sleuth who digs up lost memories. Rebecca Ferguson plays his latest customer.

WILDLAND (in theaters) This dark Danish feature concerns a teenager (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) who, after her mother’s death, goes to live with an aunt (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and an extended clan filled with criminality and addiction.

THE BEATLES: GET BACK (in theaters) Peter Jackson, who used archival footage to bring World War I back to life in “They Shall Not Grow Old,” uses tens of hours of restored footage and audio — billed as previously unseen and unheard — to showcase the Beatles as they were in 1969.

CANDYMAN (in theaters) Even without anyone saying Candyman’s name to a mirror, a haunting teaser trailer with only shadow puppets, from last year, set the bar high for this remake, directed by Nia DaCosta (“Little Woods”) and co-written by, among others, Jordan Peele. Interestingly, it appears to retain the milieu of Chicago’s mostly defunct Cabrini-Green housing project, where much of the 1992 original took place. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Teyonah Parris star. Colman Domingo also appears.

HE’S ALL THAT (on Netflix) Mark Waters (“Mean Girls”) directed this gender-swapped remake of “She’s All That.” Addison Rae plays an influencer who gives a dork (Tanner Buchanan) an image makeover.

VACATION FRIENDS (on Hulu) A couple (Yvonne Orji and Lil Rel Howery) is mortified when some casual friends from a vacation (Meredith Hagner and John Cena) crash their wedding.

THE BIG SCARY “S” WORD (in theaters) Spoiler alert: The word is “socialism,” and Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are among the interviewees in this documentary about its history in the United States.

FAYA DAYI (in theaters) When the director Jessica Beshir’s experimental documentary, shot in Harar, Ethiopia, played at New Directors/New Films in the spring, Beatrice Loayza, writing in The Times, called it “dreamy and visually dazzling.” The film, she wrote, considers the toll that the economics of khat — a plant that is used as a drug — takes “on a rural community across generations.”

MOGUL MOWGLI (in theaters) Riz Ahmed plays a rapper whose body begins to fail him, but it’s not “Sound of Metal” redux. Rather, it’s a story of British-Pakistani identity, and the character’s denial of his heritage may even be responsible for his autoimmune condition. Bassam Tariq (the well-regarded documentary “These Birds Walk”) directed.

Listings compiled with the assistance of Gabe Cohn.

Categories
Health

Kids’s Display Time Has Soared within the Pandemic, Alarming Mother and father and Researchers

Children’s Screen Time Has Soared in the Pandemic, Alarming Parents and Researchers

Overall, children’s screen time had doubled year over year by May, according to Qustodio, a company that tracks usage on tens of thousands of devices used by children ages 4-15 worldwide. The data showed that usage increased over time: in the US, for example, children spent an average of 97 minutes a day on YouTube in March and April, compared with 57 minutes in February, and almost twice as much as a year earlier – with similar ones Trends in the UK and Spain. The company calls the monthly increase “The Covid Effect”.

Children turn to screens because they say they have no alternative activities or entertainment options – this is where they meet up with friends and go to school – while technology platforms take advantage of it by gaining loyalty through tactics like virtual money rewards or perks in “Limited Edition” seduce you for maintaining the daily “streak” of use.

“This was a gift for them – we gave them a captive audience: our children,” said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior, and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. The costs are borne by the families, said Dr. Christakis, since increased online use is linked to anxiety, depression, obesity and aggression – “and the dependence on the medium itself”.

Crucially, the research only shows associations, which means heavy internet use doesn’t necessarily cause these problems. What concerns the researchers, at least, is that the use of devices is a poor substitute for activities known to be central to health, social, and physical development, including physical games and other interactions with which Children learn to deal with challenging social situations.

Yet parents express a kind of hopelessness with their options. Adhering to the pre-pandemic rules doesn’t just seem impractical, it can feel downright mean to keep children away from an important source of socializing.

Updated

Jan. 15, 2021, 8:45 p.m. ET

“So I take it away and you do what? A puzzle? Learn to sew? Knit? I don’t know what the expectations are, ”said Paraskevi Briasouli, a corporate writer who is raising four children, ages 8, 6, 3, and 1 in a two-bedroom Manhattan apartment with her husband. Device time has replaced sport on weekday afternoons and is up 70 percent on weekends, she said.