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In the self-absorbed action movie “The Martial Artist,” the director Shaz Khan stars as rising Pakistani American mixed martial arts fighter Ibby “The Prince” Bakran, an unconventional pugilist whose bouts are live streamed from remote locales like Death Valley in eastern California. Impressed by Ibby, the head of a mixed martial arts league (Gregory Sporleder) … Read more

Jay (Jonathan Groff) and Naveen (Karan Soni) experience their first meet-cute while worshiping at the same Hindu temple, united by their shared culture: Naveen is Indian, and Jay is white with adoptive Indian parents. Early on, the film “A Nice Indian Boy” hints at this swift romantic pace when Naveen’s mother, Megha (Zarna Garg, a … Read more

But still, the theatricality of a filibuster — amplified in an age when we can all watch it on whatever device is handy — gives the idiosyncratic maneuver some extra oomph. It’s a demonstration of something remarkable about the American system of government. In the film, the CBS newsman notes that among the observers in … Read more

Val Kilmer doesn’t even need to appear onscreen as Iceman in “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) for the audience to feel his presence. Early on, Tom Cruise’s “Maverick” Mitchell is texting with his old rival, Iceman, but even though he’s just represented by words on a screen, you know exactly who that is, the joy of … Read more

Occasionally, amid the cycles of nostalgic clip-sharing that periodically occur online, you might happen upon the Berries and Cream video. The viral Starburst commercial, involving a briefcase-toting pilgrimesque lad, is a concise distillation of the particular brand of mid-to-late-aughts humor that dominated the early internet: quaintly absurd, silly, and above all, random. When, early on … Read more

In June 1995 a pop confection hit thousands of movie screens. It seemed to embody what both boosters and critics have identified as that decade’s end-of-history nonchalance. It was, of all things, a Batman movie. And holding it together, the sturdy straight man surrounded by abject goofiness, was Val Kilmer, the actor who died at … Read more

In “Familiar Touch,” Kathleen Chalfant plays a woman whose inner life alternately burns bright and suddenly dims. Her character, Ruth, has an inviting smile and natural physical grace, though at times she falters midstep. A former cook and a cookbook author now in her 80s, she lives alone in a pleasant modern home cluttered with … Read more

Typically on movie sets, only big stars get those fancy, oversized trailers for dressing rooms. But on “The Friend” an unknown was a really big star. Even bigger than his fellow actor Naomi Watts. Quite literally: The newcomer, Bing, is the Harlequin Great Dane at the center of “The Friend,” the new film based on … Read more

Val Kilmer, who died at 65 on Tuesday, donned Batman’s cape, starred as a gunslinger, flew supersonic fighter jets in “Top Gun” and held the screen as a bumbling singer in a slapstick comedy about the Cold War. Kilmer was a leading man in Hollywood during the 1980s and ’90s, then exited stage left for … Read more

“Most actors recognize there’s something different in Val than meets the eye,” Mr. Stone said in a 2007 interview for a segment of the television series “Biography.” David Mamet, the playwright and screenwriter who directed Mr. Kilmer in the political thriller “Spartan” (2004), added, “What Val has as an actor is something that the really, … Read more