CALENDAR
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Snake wrangler
keeps cast safeA herpetologist and
serpent wrangler kept
the creatures in check
on the set of “Them
That Follow.” E5Q&A with new
academy chief
David Rubin, the
newly elected
president of the film
academy, discusses
challenges ahead. E3What’s on TV........E13
Comics...............E14-15109 1 MediaMORE REVIEWS
KENNETH TURAN‘Brian Banks’ PAGE E6
Aldis Hodge excels in real-life drama about a falsely accused athlete‘This Changes Everything’PAGE E10
A powerful exposé about the inequalities for women in Hollywood‘Angels Are Made of Light’PAGE E10
James Longley’s moving doc looks at the plight of an Afghan schoolJUSTIN CHANG‘One Child Nation’PAGE E4
Personal stories bring to life the brutality of China’s infamous edictADDITIONAL REVIEWS‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’PAGE E7
A spooky preteen book series jumps to big screen with chills intact‘The Art of Racing in the Rain’PAGE E10
In most soulful dog tale yet, Kevin Costner voices a golden retriever‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’PAGE E12
Isabela Moner is a comedic delight as the plucky teenage explorer‘After the Wedding’ and other films.PAGES E6-E7
If you want to quickly under-
stand the enduring appeal and im-
pact of Dora the Explorer — who
gets the live-action treatment in
this weekend’s “Dora and the Lost
City of Gold” — director James
Bobin has a story for you.
“My daughter knows Spanish
because of Dora,” he told The
Times during a press day for the
film. “When she was little, I remem-
ber saying to her once, ‘What’s your
favorite animal?’ And she said,
‘Ardilla.’ And I went, ‘A deer?’ and
got a picture from a book of a deer.
And she goes, ‘No, no, no, no,
ardilla’ and pointed out the win-
dow [because] ‘ardilla’ in Spanish is
squirrel.”
In fact, Dora has taught lan-
guages to millions of preschoolers
worldwide since her debut in 2000.
In the Latin American countries
where the show airs, along with
many of the other 100-plus coun-
tries that broadcast the show, she
teaches children English. Her show
has been dubbed into 30 languages,
she’s had two successful spinoff
cartoons and now, almost 20 years
later, she’s finally getting her own
big-screen adventure.
Isabela Moner, who plays a
teenage Dora in the film, says she
grew up watching the character ev-
ery morning before school.
“Michael and I talked about
this,” said Eva Longoria, who plays
Dora’s mother alongside Michael
Peña as Dora’s father. “Even
though we weren’t kids when she
premiered, she’s been in our zeit-
geist. Like, I don’t remember a time
that there wasn’t Dora. She feels
older than me.”
The live-action adaptation from
Nickelodeon Studios provides a
rare opportunity for mainstream
Latinx representation in Holly-
wood. Even more unusual: a film in
which five leads (including Dora’s
cousin Diego, played by Jeff
Wahlberg) are of Latino descent.
In fact, even Dora’s pet monkey,
Boots, and cartoon nemesis,
Swiper, are played by Latinx actors
Danny Trejo and Benicio Del Toro,
respectively.
“It’s super rare,” said Eugenio
Derbez, who plays an explorer in
the film as well as serving as an exe-
cutive producer. “Honestly, when I
was young and trying to cross over, I
said ‘I don’t know if I’m going to
make it.’ I was sure I was going to
just always be part of the cast butEVA LONGORIA,left, Isabela Moner and Michael Peña play a family of adventurers in the new film “Dora and the Lost City of Gold.”
Christina HouseLos Angeles TimesGOLDEN TICKET
Could ‘Dora’ be the ‘Black Panther’ for Latinx films and actors?
[SeeDora, E12]By Sonaiya Kelley
AT THE MOVIES
Far be it from me to offer mar-
keting tips, but it’s a shame that
“The Kitchen,” a mixed bag of a
movie about brutal mob warfare,
doesn’t feature the tagline “Too
many crooks.” That’s more or less
the problem facing Kathy Brennan,
Ruby O’Carroll and Claire Walsh,
three long-suffering New York
women who band together and take
over their husbands’ rickety crimi-
nal empire: too many crooks and,
frankly, too many men wasting
time, money and firepower, placing
their egos over the demands of a
REVIEW
More sizzle than steak in ‘Kitchen’
Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany
Haddish and Elisabeth
Moss pop as mobsters, but
the narrative isn’t meaty.
JUSTIN CHANG
FILM CRITIC
ELISABETHMoss has an oddly affecting relationship with Domhnall Gleeson in “The Kitchen.”Alison Cohen Rosa
[See‘Kitchen,’E11]On a recent spring after-
noon, an endless blue sky
over a deserted beach
seemed to offer a snapshot of
Southern California’s idyllic
promise. But look past the
waving palm trees and the
picture changed.
There, on the horizon, a
flotilla of oil tankers dragged
a gloomy thumbprint across
an otherwise postcard-
worthy view, and high winds
made life difficult for a TV
crew on a bluff above the
shore.
On a concrete bench
overlooking the coast, a
rumpled man in ill-fitting
khakis (played by James Ur-
baniak)counseled a dark-
haired young woman (Sonya
Cassidy) fighting to keep
hair and grit out of her eyes
as cameras close around
them. “The abyss isn’t
death,” he told her. “It’s just
a fable that God made up to
keep us away from the
truth.” With that, he walked
away, and in the silence that
followed it was hard to tell
whether this supposed psy-
chic’s words should be taken
as profound or nonsensical.
Welcome to Long Beach,
and to the weird, rewarding
contradictions of AMC’s
“Lodge 49,” a series that re-
turns for its second season
Monday but remains tough
to describe.
“I really don’t know, other
than it is about the dichoto-
my of the life we all live,” said
Wyatt Russell, who plays
protagonist Sean “Dud”
Dudley, ex-surfer and for-
merly aimless “knight” of the
Ancient and Benevolent Or-
der of the Lynx. On the sofa
between us, Snowball, Rus-
sell’s fluffy mini-husky, vied
for our attention. “Every day
you’re going to experience
greatness, you’re going to
experience joy and you’re go-
ing to experience pain in
some way, shape or form.”
With his long hair, blond
beard and slacker’s bearing,
Dud drew comparisons to
The Dude, of “Big Lebowski”
fame, upon the show’s de-
but. But that doesn’t do jus-
tice to the more earthy ec-
centricities of “Lodge 49.”
“My best pitch is, it’s a
great show if you don’t own a
television,” Russell added
with a grin. “It’ll be your fa-
vorite show on TV if you
don’t own a TV.”Long
Beach
vibe is
key to
‘Lodge’
The AMC series, ‘the
least aspirational show
on TV,’ employs a
laid-back approach.
[See‘Lodge 49,’ E2]By Chris Barton