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      The Year of the Mega Sleeve

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      Raglan, fluted, leg o’ mutton, bishop, puffed, balloon — whatever you want to call them, we wore them.When Holly Waddington, the costume designer for “Poor Things,” Yorgos Lanthimos’s much heralded phantasmagorical film about a young women’s psychological and sexual awakening that opened on Friday, began thinking about what her heroine would wear, she said she was thinking “skinny arms and these kind of straight skirts with the big bustle.”The film, which is based on a 1992 book by Alasdair Gray and stars Emma Stone, is set in an unidentified time period that is sort of like the 1880s — if the 1880s took place in an alternate dimension in which time folded in on itself, so the past was also the future. In part, that’s why Ms. Waddington was drawn to a silhouette that was slim on top and exaggerated at the bottom.Also, it’s “quite phallic,” she said, “and that felt right.” Mr. Lanthimos had other ideas.“He said, ‘It’s about the sleeve,’” Ms. Waddington recalled. And so, indeed, it is.Ms. Stone amid a sea of ruffled sleevage.Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight PicturesPuffed, ruffled and ruched to bulbous extremes, the sleeves worn by Ms. Stone’s character, Bella Baxter, are impossible to ignore. About 15.5-inches wide, they bounce across the screen in every scene like giant hot air balloons or supersize mammaries, bigger than her head, absurd and weirdly alluring, dainty and dominant. They are “vast,” Ms. Waddington said. “Huge.”But monumental as they are, they are also utterly on trend. “There’s something in the air,” Ms. Waddington said. “Yorgos was very tuned into that.” It’s not the marketing tsunami that was Barbie pink; it’s merely one of those cosmic moments when fashion and culture collide.Forget the power shoulder: 2023 was the year of the power sleeve. No matter the exact style — puffed, bishop, fluted, belled, leg o’ mutton, statement, mega, dramatic — all that really mattered was that it was big. Off screen as well as on.We have, said Daniel Roseberry, the creative director of Schiaparelli, “hit peak sleeve.”Sleeves, Sleeves, EverywhereStyle watchers began talking about a sleeve sweep at the end of 2022. “Forget what you knew about the statement sleeve,” the influential Italian boutique Luisa Via Roma proclaimed on its website. “This season, the style is more dramatic and bolder than ever.” The fall ready-to-wear shows were filled with sleeves — brushing the floor at Balenciaga and Rodarte; bowling ball-size at Thom Browne; rounded and sculptural at Schiaparelli.By Oscar time, sleeve mania had migrated onto the red carpet thanks to Florence Pugh, who wore a palatial puff-sleeve Valentino taffeta robe atop shorts; Jessie Buckley, in a Shakespearean-sleeve black-lace gown by Rodarte; and Mindy Kaling, whose white Vera Wang dress had detachable gauntlets-cum-sleeves.Puffed up: Clockwise from top left, Florence Pugh in Valentino; Kendall Jenner in Marc Jacobs; Jessie Buckley in Rodarte; and Michelle Yeoh in Lagerfeld. Nina Westervelt and Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAt the Met Gala in May, Kendall Jenner wore a sequined Marc Jacobs look in which the designer seemed to have taken all the fabric from what would have been the pants and transferred it to the sleeves. (Also joining the statement sleeve set: Michelle Yeoh, Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne.)Then Vogue put Carey Mulligan on its November cover in a peachy gown from the Louis Vuitton 2024 resort collection that had such complicated sleeves it looked as if she’d stuck her arms elbow-deep into two giant cream puffs. And then came “Poor Things” with what Ms. Waddington called its “commitment to sleeves.”Little wonder that in January, the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology will kick off its 2024 programming with “Statement Sleeves,” an exhibition of almost 80 pieces from the permanent collection that will focus on how sleeves serve as “signifiers of status, taste and personality,” according to a news release. And though they cycle in and out of fashion, so it has always been.Arms and the WomanBig sleeves have been a part of dress for almost as long as there has been dress. Colleen Hill, the curator of costume and accessories at FIT, who is behind the museum’s sleeves show, said the world’s oldest woven garment — a V-neck linen shirt from the fourth millennium B.C., now in the collection of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London — includes knife-pleated sleeves. During the Renaissance, sleeves were often the most elaborate part of a dress, as well as detachable; grooms often gave sleeves to their new brides.Sleeves became even more prominent in the Elizabethan, Victorian and Edwardian eras. By the 1830s there were so many different sleeve shapes and names, Ms. Hill said, that a woman’s sewing guide from the period stated, in effect, “we’re not going to give you all the styles of sleeves because it is impossible.”Carey Mulligan got big sleeves for her Vogue cover in November. VogueMs. Waddington said that when she was researching these periods for “Poor Things,” she went into fashion archives and discovered sleeves so extreme they were almost unbelievable. “This is the thing that fascinates me about historical dress,” she said. “The shapes are wild.” What looks like science fiction, she added, actually comes from “a 19th-century pattern.”Sleeves got big again in the 1940s thanks to designers like Adrian, the Hollywood couturier whose giant ruffled sleeves were a favorite of a young Joan Crawford and a precursor to the equally giant shoulder pads of World War II. And sleeves made a famous return in the 1980s, thanks in part to Princess Diana and the enormous fairy-tale-on-steroids sleeves of her wedding gown.It’s probably not an accident that the episodes of “The Crown” that focus on Diana, including the recreation of her wedding dress, have coincided with the return of big sleeves. Simon Porte Jacquemus specifically name-checked Diana as the inspiration for his fall 2023 show, which featured inflated sleeves. He said he was obsessed with her “dramatic round puffy sleeves.”“It shaped her silhouette in a sensuous way, but still with a poetic and naïve ’80s touch,” he said.What’s in a Sleeve?At first it may have seemed that pandemic lockdowns and the ascension of comfort clothing would kill the big sleeve. But the way that altered reality shrank our interactions to the size of a computer monitor may actually have turbocharged the trend.“We’re so often seen onscreen these days from the waist up, and sleeves are a way to stand out,” Ms. Hill said.Ms. Waddington said much the same, noting that the torso “is what the camera sees most of the time, so the information needs to be happening between the waist and the head.” And how much better when it is conveyed at volume. Or, rather, in volumes.Indeed, Mr. Roseberry said, sleeves “draw the attention upward to the face and the person wearing the garment.”Maximalist sleeves at Thom Browne. Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesSleeves like a giant circle at Schiaparelli.SchiaparelliSleeves to the floor at Rodarte.Kessler StudioNo matter what, Mr. Lanthimos said, “they really make an impression.” Sleeves are inclusive: They can be worn by myriad bodies in myriad ways and exist at myriad prices. They are theatrical. (Forget talking with your hands; talking with your arms is much more effective.) And they can be resonant of sexuality, safety and strength.That makes sleeves the rare design element that is equally showy and swaddling. Simone Rocha, whose balloon sleeves walk a fine line between childlike and sensuous and have become something of a design signature, said she was drawn to the way “the proportion sculpts around the body almost like a cocoon, creating a sense of security.” Also: big, puffy sleeves are old-fashioned and contemporary at the same time, speaking to history and, she said, “the pragmatic feeling of a work-wear bomber.”Whatever the association, however, the result is universal: “In an upside-down world, emphasizing your physicality in space, taking up room, is a way of asserting yourself,” Mr. Roseberry said. “Of giving yourself importance.”Ms. Waddington agreed. “I think that they’re about empowerment,” she said. Which is, in the end, the hero’s journey of “Poor Things,” and the heart of its emotional appeal.“I feel like I’d quite like to wear big sleeves now,” Ms. Waddington said. More

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      Ryan O’Neal, Who Became a Star With ‘Love Story,’ Dies at 82

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      He was a familiar face on TV before his breakout performance opposite Ali MacGraw in the 1970 blockbuster movie. But it was overshadowed by years of personal problems.Ryan O’Neal, who became an instant movie star in the hit film “Love Story,” the highest-grossing movie of 1970, but who was later known as much for the troubles of his personal life as for his acting in his later career, died on Friday. He was 82. His son Patrick confirmed the death in a post on Instagram. It did not give the cause or say where he died.Mr. O’Neal was a familiar face on both big and small screens for a half-century, but he was never as famous as he was after “Love Story.”He was 29 years old at the time and had spent a decade on television but had made only two other movies when he was chosen to star in Arthur Hiller’s sentimental romance, written by Erich Segal, who turned his screenplay into a best-selling novel. Mr. O’Neal’s performance in “Love Story” as Oliver Barrett IV, a wealthy, golden-haired Harvard hockey player married to a dying woman played by Ali MacGraw, garnered him the only Academy Award nomination of his career.He had played the town rich boy, Rodney Harrington, for five years on the prime-time soap opera “Peyton Place.” But in 1970 Hollywood was not that interested in television actors, and he had been far from the first choice to star in “Love Story.”“Jon Voight turned the part down. Beau Bridges was supposed to do it,” he told a reporter in 1971. “When my name came up through Ali, they all said ‘No.’ Ali said, ‘Please meet him.’”“So we met in one of those conference rooms where everybody sits half a mile away from everybody else,” he continued. “Weeks later, they asked me to test. Then I didn’t hear anything until they finally called and said, ‘Will you give us an extension of a week to make up our minds?’”In the end, Ms. MacGraw persuaded Paramount to cast Mr. O’Neal. He was hired for $25,000 (a little more than $200,000 in today’s currency), and his movie career was ignited.Before he became a movie star, Mr. O’Neal played the town rich boy, Rodney Harrington, for five years on the prime-time soap opera “Peyton Place.”Bettmann/Getty ImagesIt never burned quite as brightly again, although he maintained a high profile throughout the 1970s, appearing in films like “Barry Lyndon” (1975), Stanley Kubrick’s elegantly photographed adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel about a poor 18th-century Irish boy who rises into English society and then falls from those heights; and “A Bridge Too Far” (1977), Richard Attenborough’s epic tale of World War II heroism.He also demonstrated his knack for comedy in three films directed by Peter Bogdanovich. He co-starred with Barbra Streisand in “What’s Up, Doc?” (1972), a screwball comedy inspired by the 1938 Cary Grant-Katharine Hepburn movie “Bringing Up Baby”; with Burt Reynolds in “Nickelodeon” (1976), a valentine to the early days of moviemaking based on the reminiscences of Raoul Walsh and other directors; and, with his 9-year-old daughter, Tatum, in the best known of the three films he made with Mr. Bogdanovich, “Paper Moon” (1973).In “Paper Moon,” set in the Midwest during the Depression, Mr. O’Neal played a small-time swindler hornswoggled by a cigarette-smoking orphan who just might be his illegitimate daughter. Tatum O’Neal won an Academy Award for that performance — she remains the youngest person ever to win one of the four acting Oscars — and for a while it appeared that Mr. O’Neal would become the patriarch of an acting dynasty.When Tatum starred as a Little League pitcher in “The Bad News Bears” (1976), she became the highest-paid child star in history, with a salary of $350,000 (the equivalent of about $1.9 million today) and a percentage of the net profits. Her younger brother Griffin seemed poised for stardom as well when it was announced that he would appear with his father in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1979 remake of “The Champ,” the 1931 tear-jerker about a washed-up former boxer and his son.Mr. O’Neal’s Oscar-winning co-star in Peter Bogdanovich’s period comedy “Paper Moon” (1973) was Tatum O’Neal, his daughter.Everett CollectionBut Mr. Zeffirelli ended up making the film with Jon Voight and Ricky Schroder instead, and Griffin O’Neal’s career never got off the ground. He did have one starring role, in the 1982 film “The Escape Artist,” but that film was not a success. When he was next in the public eye, five years later, it was not for his acting but for his involvement in a boating accident that killed his friend Gian-Carlo Coppola, the son of the director Francis Ford Coppola. He was convicted of negligent operation of a boat but acquitted of manslaughter.The O’Neal family would go on to have many more problems with the law, with drugs and with one another.Mr. O’Neal, who was well known in Hollywood for his temper — when he was 18, he spent 51 days in jail for a brawl at a New Year’s Eve party — was charged with assaulting his son Griffin in 2007. Those charges were dropped, but a year later he and Redmond O’Neal, his son with the actress Farrah Fawcett, were arrested on a drug charge. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to undergo counseling, while Redmond entered rehabilitation but continued to struggle with addiction.Tatum O’Neal had her own highly publicized drug problems and was estranged for many years from her father, who she said physically abused her when she was a child.Mr. O’Neal’s fame was beginning to slip by 1978, when Paramount offered him $3 million to star in “Oliver’s Story,” a sequel to “Love Story.” He accepted, even though his distaste for the project was clear.“There’s something cheap about sequels,” he told a reporter, “and this one’s a complete rip-off.” When the movie was released, the critics agreed.Mr. O’Neal with Farrah Fawcett in 1981. They began their highly publicized on-again, off-again relationship when she was still married to the actor Lee Majors.Steve Sands/Associated PressHis days as an A-list star were soon over, although he continued to work steadily in the 1980s and ’90s. His more memorable movies in this period included “Partners” (1982), in which he played a heterosexual police detective who goes under cover with a gay partner, played by John Hurt; “Irreconcilable Differences” (1984), as a successful Hollywood director whose 10-year-old daughter, played by Drew Barrymore, sues him for divorce; and “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” (1987), a crime drama written and directed by Norman Mailer. He also co-starred with Ms. Fawcett in the short-lived 1991 television series “Good Sports.”Most of Mr. O’Neal’s later work was on television, including a recurring role on the series “Bones.”Patrick Ryan O’Neal was born in Los Angeles on April 20, 1941, the elder son of Charles O’Neal, a screenwriter, and Patricia Callaghan O’Neal, an actress. At 17 he joined his nomadic parents in Germany and got his first taste of show business as a stunt man on the television series “Tales of the Vikings.”He never took an acting lesson, but his striking good looks, as well as the anger that seemed to boil just below the surface, helped win him roles on television not long after he returned to Los Angeles.Mr. O’Neal in 2015. The last major role he played, four years earlier, was himself, on the reality show “Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals.”Ryan Stone for The New York TimesHis marriages to the actresses Joanna Moore and Leigh Taylor-Young ended in divorce. Ms. Taylor-Young, his co-star on “Peyton Place,” told an interviewer that their marriage never recovered from the success of “Love Story,” which she said brought “a type of life which is not suitable for Ryan’s personality.”Mr. O’Neal was romantically linked with many actresses, but it was his on-again, off-again relationship with Ms. Fawcett, which began when she was still married to the actor Lee Majors, that garnered the most attention. The couple never married but were together for almost 20 years before they separated in 1997. They later reconciled and were living together when Ms. Fawcett died of cancer in 2009. In 2012 he published a book about their relationship, “Both of Us: My Life With Farrah.”Besides his daughter, Tatum, and his son Patrick, a sportscaster, complete information on his survivors was not immediately available.In 2012, Mr. O’Neal revealed that he was being treated for prostate cancer. That diagnosis came 11 years after he contracted chronic myelogenous leukemia, which eventually went into remission. The last major role Mr. O’Neal played was himself. In the summer of 2011, he and his daughter starred in a reality show, “Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals,” on Oprah Winfrey’s cable channel, OWN. The series left the impression that the two had ended their long estrangement, but Mr. O’Neal later told an interviewer that it painted a false picture.“We’re further apart now than we were when we started the show,” he said.Peter Keepnews More

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      Stream These Ryan O’Neal Movies

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      The actor became one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, and proved himself equally adept at drama, comedy and action.Ryan O’Neal’s death Friday at the age of 82 followed decades in which the actor was better known for his personal life (and struggles) than for his work. But few stars shone brighter in the 1970s, when O’Neal — originally known for his role on the prime-time soap opera “Peyton Place” — became one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, and proved himself equally adept at drama, comedy and action. Here are a few of his finest films from that period, and where to stream them.‘Love Story’ (1970)Rent or buy it on major streaming platforms.Television-to-film crossovers were rare in the 1970s, and O’Neal only landed the role of Oliver Barrett IV, a Harvard blue-blood who falls in love with a working-class Radcliffe girl, after several bigger names had passed, and at the insistence of the screenwriter Erich Segal and O’Neal’s co-star, Ali McGraw. It’s easy to see why she fought for him; their chemistry is sweet but potent, and carries this lightweight story of young romance and terminal illness above its corny, weepy components. It became the highest-grossing movie of 1970. Critics were mostly unimpressed but The Times’s Vincent Canby praised O’Neal as “an intense, sensitive young man whose handsomeness has a sort of crookedness to it.” That’s an apt summary of not only O’Neal’s performance here, but also his entire appeal.‘What’s Up, Doc’ (1972) / ‘The Main Event’ (1979)Stream “What’s Up Doc” on Max. Rent or buy “The Main Event” on major streaming platforms.Barbra Streisand, left, with O’Neal in “What’s Up, Doc?”Warner Bros.After the smashing success of “Love Story,” O’Neal teamed up with the director Peter Bogdanovich (himself white-hot off the success of “The Last Picture Show”) for the first of three memorable collaborations. “What’s Up, Doc?” paired O’Neal with Barbra Streisand in a rollicking homage to the screwball comedies of the ’30s and ’40s — specifically the Cary Grant-Katharine Hepburn team-up “Bringing Up Baby,” from which Bogdanovich lifted the central dynamic of, in his words, “an uptight professor and a screwy girl.” It was the perfect vehicle to showcase O’Neal’s range; his turn as the musicologist Dr. Howard Bannister was 180 degrees from Oliver Barrett IV, a study in frenetic farce that somehow never crosses the line from cartoony to caricature. His chemistry with Streisand was so potent that they reunited seven years later for the boxing rom-com “The Main Event,” and while its director Howard Zieff proved to be no Bogdanovich, the reunion affirmed that O’Neal’s skills as a light screen comedian were all but unmatched in the era.‘Paper Moon’ (1973) / ‘Nickelodeon’ (1976)Stream “Paper Moon” on Max. Rent or buy “Nickelodeon” on major streaming platforms.O’Neal with Tatum O’Neal, right, in “Paper Moon.”Paramount PicturesIn the meantime, Bogdanovich and O’Neal followed “What’s Up, Doc?” with this adaptation of the novel “Addie Pray,” about a con man crossing Kansas selling Bibles to widows, with his precocious maybe-daughter in tow. Bogdanovich cast O’Neal’s real-life offspring Tatum in the latter role, masterfully capitalizing on their built-in rhythms and spiky relationship; they’re wonderful together, and it’s a joy to watch O’Neal’s gleefully amoral swindler begin to begrudgingly care for the smart-mouthed kid. (Tatum would win the Academy Award for best supporting actress for the role — at 10 years old, the youngest winner of a competitive Oscar to date.) Three years later, Bogdanovich and O’Neal teamed up for the last time to make “Nickelodeon,” an affectionate valentine to the earliest years of Hollywood, inspired by Bogdanovich’s interviews with the legends of the silent era. It was not as well-received as their earlier pictures, but it remains a delightful mash-up of film history and slapstick comedy, with a charmingly seat-of-his-pants turn by O’Neal as an incompetent lawyer who stumbles into a career as a screenwriter and film director.‘Barry Lyndon’ (1975)Rent or buy it on major platforms.O’Neal in “Barry Lyndon.”Warner Bros.Some cynics were skeptical of Stanley Kubrick’s decision to cast the decidedly 20th-century O’Neal in the title role of his adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s 18th-century-set novel. But Kubrick, as usual, saw something more in O’Neal — or perhaps he saw the link between his “Paper Moon” con man and the title character, a social-climbing rogue who uses his good looks to marry into considerable money. The actor’s razor-sharp comic timing was rarely so elegantly deployed, and he clearly relished the opportunity to turn his matinee-idol image on its head, deftly conveying a character ultimately undone by his own moral rot.‘A Bridge Too Far’ (1977)Rent or buy it on most major platforms.For his dramatization of the failed Operation Market Garden during World War II, the director Richard Attenborough gathered an eye-popping, all-star cast that included James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Elliott Gould, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford and Liv Ullman. That’s not an easy group to make an impression in, but O’Neal pulls it off. As Gen. James M. Gavin, one of the leaders of the American faction of the Allied operation, O’Neal takes a direct approach to the material, eschewing the theatrics of many castmates and honing in on Gavin’s straight-shooting style and somewhat cynical worldview.‘Tough Guys Don’t Dance’ (1987)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.As the ’70s rolled into the ’80s, O’Neal’s commercial successes grew more rare, and he found himself fronting fewer big movies — so he made his leading roles count. One of the strangest was this bleakly funny riff on hard-boiled crime noir, written and directed by Norman Mailer (adapting his own novel). “Tough Guys” is notorious in some circles for an out-of-context moment that went quite viral (a take that O’Neal reportedly begged Mailer not to use), but that grand, oddly melodramatic moment is indicative of the wild tonal ride that is “Tough Guys,” which feels like the bastard child of David Lynch, Douglas Sirk, Dashiell Hammett, and Mailer in the midst of a particularly rough hangover. O’Neal ends up being the steadying force of this unorthodox stew, and his grounded performance frequently keeps the picture from floating off into the ether.‘Zero Effect’ (1998)Rent or buy it on major platforms.In the ’90s and through to the end of his life, O’Neal’s acting was increasingly consigned to television work and small supporting roles. But he turned out to be a fine character actor as well, and one of the best films of that period is this clever, melancholy mash-up of comedy, drama and mystery from the writer-director Jake Kasdan. Bill Pullman plays Daryl Zero, “the world’s most private detective,” a brilliant but reclusive Sherlock Holmes type; Ben Stiller is the Watson to his Holmes. O’Neal turns up as Gregory Stark, a millionaire who hires Zero to find the key to his safe deposit box. As is customary for such characters, there’s more to this man than meets the eye, and O’Neal bracingly does what only the best actors can do: he projects furtiveness, while seeming to have nothing to hide. That duality and complexity was part of what made him such a special and distinctive screen presence for so long. More

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      Watch Emma Stone Do a Carefree Dance in ‘Poor Things’

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      The director Yorgos Lanthimos narrates this sequence that puts the star and Mark Ruffalo awkwardly on the dance floor.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.How do you go about choreographing a dance sequence for a character who has never danced before? That was the challenge in this moment from “Poor Things,” which stars Emma Stone as a woman with the mind of a baby who, moment by moment, begins to find her footing.In this scene, Bella Baxter (Stone) is at dinner with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), her beau of sorts. As she hears the beat of the music and sees others dancing, Bella’s body begins to instinctively move. Suddenly, she’s on the dance floor herself, doing moves she seems to be inventing that are both oddball and intriguing.“The dance, because she’s doing it for the first time, just felt like it should be something quite primitive, slightly babylike,” the film’s director, Yorgos Lanthimos, said in an interview.He collaborated with the choreographer Constanza Macras, with whom he also worked on “The Favourite,” to create the right mix of synergy and chaos in the movement.Lanthimos said that he and the cinematographer Robbie Ryan used a wide-angle lens on a camera mounted on a large metal dolly as they followed the stars. Not only did the movements need to be choreographed, but the cast also had to dance around the roving camera in a way that ensured nobody got hurt.Read the “Poor Things” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      5 Children’s Movies to Stream Now

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      This month’s picks embrace the holiday season, including an installment of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” franchise and a remake of “The Velveteen Rabbit.”‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever’Watch it on Disney+.The latest release in Jeff Kinney’s mega-successful “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” franchise of books, movies and merchandise (Tote bags! Board games! Stress balls!) is this animated holiday tale in which a middle schooler, Greg Heffley (voiced by Wesley Kimmel from “The Mandalorian”), gets trapped in his house with his family when a blizzard blows into town. Just before he got snowed in, Greg and his BFF, Rowley (Spencer Howell), accidentally damaged a snowplow after sending a giant snowball rolling down a hill. Greg and Rowley flee the scene, and Greg spends his time cooped up worrying that he’ll be caught by the authorities and won’t get the video game he covets for Christmas. Luke Cormican (“Teen Titans Go!”) directed this animated film, and Kinney wrote the screenplay. There’s enough humor, tension and relatable family dynamics to keep both longtime “Wimpy Kid” fans and little ones who are new to the series entertained.‘Merry Little Batman’Watch it on Amazon Prime.The director Mike Roth (“Regular Show”) brings a slight punk rock aesthetic to this animated tale of a young Damian Wayne (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), the 8-year-old son of Batman and Talia al Ghul, who longs to become a superhero like his father. In this iteration of the DC legend, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Luke Wilson) is a bearded, flannel-wearing, overprotective hipster dad who rid Gotham of all crime before his son was born. When Batman gets a mysterious call about an emergency on Christmas Eve, his trusty aide, Alfred (James Cromwell), helps him suit up, and little Damian is all alone at home (yes, there are plenty of nods to “Home Alone”). Soon it’s time for Damian to stop goofing around, so he puts on his golden utility belt and goes out to fight crime like his father taught him to. He meets villains like the Joker (David Hornsby) and Bane (Chris Sullivan), and learns that, as his dad tells him, being a superhero takes “focus, responsibility and sacrifice.” The rollicking energy and comedy make this film, produced by Warner Bros. Animation, a superhero holiday movie that kids — and their bearded hipster parents — should have fun watching.‘Dashing Through the Snow’Watch it on Disney+.This one may not go down in history as a holiday classic, but it has enough over-the-top goofiness to entertain school-age kids while you bake a pie or do some work over the winter break. Eddie Garrick (Chris Bridges, known as Ludacris) is a Scrooge of a dad. He can’t stand carolers, and he’d much rather celebrate Juneteenth or Arbor Day than Christmas, a.k.a. “the chicken wing of holidays.” Eddie is a social worker in Atlanta whose family was burgled by a mall Santa when he was a kid — hence his hatred for the holiday. He’s now reluctantly separated from his wife, Allison (Teyonah Parris, “The Marvels” and “Candyman”), so he’s spending Christmas Eve with his adorable daughter, Charlotte (Madison Skye Validum), who just loves Santa. This being a pretty silly, predictable tale, you will not be on pins and needles waiting to see if Garrick comes to embrace the holiday spirit, but Bridges is compelling enough to hold your attention. The comedian Lil Rel Howery is Nick/Santa, a character who may be another burglar or derelict but who also may be the real St. Nick. Oscar Nuñez plays a villainous politician, and Mary Lynn Rajskub, Marcus Lewis and Ravi Patel are his goons. Tim Story (“Barbershop,” “Think Like a Man”) directs this film from a script by Scott Rosenberg (“Venom”).‘The Velveteen Rabbit’Watch it on AppleTV+.This special, which combines live action and animation, brings Margery Williams’s classic 1922 story to a new generation. A shy, lonely boy named William (Phoenix Laroche) becomes even more timid when his family moves to a new town where he knows no one. William gets a stuffed Velveteen Rabbit for Christmas, and the two become fast friends. One night when William goes to sleep, the rabbit (voiced by Alex Lawther, “Andor”) comes alive and meets the other toys in the playroom, including Wise Horse, voiced by the Oscar-nominated actress Helena Bonham Carter. William’s real world is live action; the rabbit’s is stop-motion animation. When William and the rabbit interact, it’s an illustrated realm that brings their worlds together. Long before “Toy Story,” Williams’s tale depicted the deep bond between children and their most cherished toys, revealing truths about friendship and love. It’s all very sweet and a bit earnest, which means it’s perfect holiday-season viewing. Tom Bidwell (“My Mad Fat Diary”) wrote the script, and Jennifer Perrott and Rick Thiele directed.‘A Christmas Mystery’Watch it on Max.The small, fictional town of Pleasant Bay, Ore., is scandalized when Santa’s magical golden sleigh bells — the community’s prized possession — go missing. A young boy found the bells a century before, and ever since, they have been on display in the local museum. The citizens believe that the bells bring peace and luck to the town. Because George (Drew Powell) has a history of theft and is a janitor at the museum, he is accused of stealing the town treasure. He has a son, Kenny (Santino Barnard), whose best friend, Violet (Violet McGraw, “M3gan”), recruits friends to help her find the actual thief and get George home for Christmas; after all, it was her father (Eddie Cibrian), the town sheriff, who arrested George. There’s a “Goonies” vibe happening, with the kids on a quest to solve a mystery since the adults don’t have a clue. If George isn’t the culprit, maybe it’s the museum director, Mr. Martin (Oscar Nuñez from “Dashing Through the Snow”) or the shifty Mayor Donovan (Beau Bridges). The story, writing and performances are a bit hokey, but that shouldn’t stop youngsters from rooting for Violet and her friends to save the day. More

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      A Beloved Comedian’s Film on Domestic Abuse Draws Italians, in Droves

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      Paola Cortellesi’s directorial debut is kindling discussions about domestic violence and women’s rights. It’s also become one of Italy’s highest-grossing films.A movie centered on domestic abuse isn’t an obvious crowd-pleaser, even when directed by and starring one of Italy’s most popular performers.Yet exactly such a film, “C’è ancora domani” (“There’s Still Tomorrow”), the directorial debut from the comedian Paola Cortellesi, immediately shot to No. 1 at the national box office after opening in theaters in late October, and this week became one of the country’s 10 highest-grossing films ever.“Certainly, I’m surprised,” Cortellesi said during an interview in a bar in her leafy Rome neighborhood, though she added, “It’s a good film, and I am satisfied with what I did.” She attributed the movie’s widespread popularity to “having touched a raw nerve in the country.”The film — which manages to be both heart-wrenching and uplifting — arrived at a time when domestic violence, femicide and women’s rights have dominated public discourse since the death last month of a 22-year-old student, Giulia Cecchettin, in a case in which her former boyfriend is being investigated over her murder.“There’s Still Tomorrow” is set in 1946, in a Rome still struggling with poverty and the fallout from World War II. Cortellesi, 50, who co-wrote the screenplay, said she had been mulling over the film’s themes — disparity, domestic violence and women’s rights — “for a long time.”“I wanted to make a contemporary movie set in the past, because I think that unfortunately many things have remained the same,” Cortellesi said. “Naturally there have been advances, rights have changed, laws have changed, but not completely — that is, proportionately, not in the mentality.”The film captures the quotidian struggles of the protagonist, Delia, whose husband abuses her in a world where women’s roles are undervalued and their opinions scornfully ignored. It is loosely inspired by the tales Cortellesi’s grandmothers told her as a child about what it was like to be a woman during that time.Cortellesi, second from right, in a scene from “C’è ancora domani” (“There’s Still Tomorrow”).Claudio IannoneThe movie is in black and white — as the filmmaker said she always imagined her grandmothers’ old stories to be — a choice that is a deliberate nod to the neorealist film tradition that blossomed in Italy in the wake of World War II. Cinema buffs will also notice that for the first eight minutes the film is shot with a 4:3 aspect ratio, which dominated early cinema and television, but then the screen widens, as the opening credits roll to “Calvin,” a 1998 song by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.Chiara Tognolotti, a professor of History of Italian Cinema at the University of Pisa, noted that Cortellesi was following a common theme of early Italian cinema by portraying “women who try to change their existences, to overturn the typical script a woman was supposed to stick to.”The film explores the tension between the “patriarchal structure that informs Italian society” and a desire to recognize the importance of women’s societal role, “which in fact already exists,” but isn’t always acknowledged, Tognolotti said.Cortellesi attributed the movie’s unexpected widespread popularity to “having touched a raw nerve in the country.”Stephanie Gengotti for The New York TimesCortellesi has been entertaining Italian audiences for decades. She honed her writing and acting chops as a comedian on radio and television, where she used her talent for mimicry and an euphonious voice to impersonate famous singers — mostly Italian, but also Cher, Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez.Her stage and television repertoire includes several monologues that use comedy to tackle difficult issues like chauvinism and domestic abuse.She began working in cinema alongside some of Italy’s most popular comics as well as leading men, winning a shelf-full of acting awards. When she started writing screenplays about a decade ago, her stories often focused on issues of social justice involving women, “maybe joking about them,” but also making a point, she said.Moving into the director’s chair felt like a natural progression: After writing several scripts that were made into films by others, she decided that she wanted to bring her vision to life in addition to her words. “I thought that maybe the time had come to tell my story in my way,” she said. Producers who had worked with Cortellesi in the past agreed and decided to back her. “It was the right time,” she said.They could also count on her appeal to audiences.“I think we shouldn’t undervalue Cortellesi’s star power,” said Tognolotti, the cinema history professor. “She’s very popular through television, through her films,” which “appeal to a vast public” through the variety of roles she has played. “That’s one of the reasons this film has been so successful.”The film, Cortellesi’s directorial debut, immediately shot to No. 1 at the Italian box office.Luisa CarcavaleBeyond the box office boom, “There’s Still Tomorrow” has taken off in other ways that Cortellesi could not have imagined.It was shown in the Italian Senate to mark the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Nov. 25. That week, more than 55,000 teenage students watched the film at cinemas throughout Italy, followed by a live-streamed question-and-answer session with the director and some of the cast. And secondary-school teachers have written Cortellesi to say that they have brought their classes to see the film so that they could discuss the issues it raises.Elena Biaggioni, the vice president of D.i. Re, a national anti-violence network run by women’s organizations, said that by reaching large audiences, the film was contributing to nationwide cultural awareness about domestic violence, adding to efforts spearheaded by women’s groups, the news media and parliamentary commissions that have looked into femicide. “I hope it’s a propelling force,” Biaggioni said.Cortellesi said she hadn’t set out to make a propaganda film. But she wants Italy’s younger generations, including her daughter, who is 10, to know about the history of women’s rights in Italy. “She has to know that these rights have to be defended, and that they can be put at risk,” she said.She deliberately wrote the role of the abusive husband as a loser — “frightening, but also foolish, because he’s an idiot” — so that he wouldn’t be anyone whom young men might look up to. “There couldn’t be even the slightest risk that boys would want to emulate him,” she said. “When they see him, they have to say, ‘I want to be anything but,’ because he has no appeal.”In the immediate future, Cortellesi is touring with the film, in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. “I want it to have a long life,” she said.She has also found that she has a taste for directing. “I’m not giving it up,” she said. More

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      The Creepiest Moment Onscreen This Year Occurred in a Comedy

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      “The Curse” has been described as cringe, but look closely and you’ll see it plays with the classic tropes of horror like jump scares.There’s telling a bad joke. There’s bombing. And then there’s what happens to Nathan Fielder’s character, Asher Siegel, at the end of the fourth episode of “The Curse,” near the halfway point of a series that goes to disorienting extremes.Siegel and his wife, Whitney (Emma Stone, in a remarkable comic performance), are making an HGTV show about eco-friendly renovations. After a focus group takes issue with Asher’s sense of humor in the show’s pilot, he finds himself in a comedy class where an instructor assigns an exercise: Get laughs without saying a word.In the episode, which premiered last weekend on Showtime and Paramount+, the camera swirls around a circle of students mugging for chuckles until it focuses on Asher, looking nervous in anticipation of his turn. You feel for him. In his finest performance to date, Fielder plays a guy who prides himself on being funny but deep down has doubts. Suddenly, in a quick flourish, he grabs his ears and flaps them while emitting a piercing squeak that could be described as unholy. No one laughs. But this face is more than unfunny. It’s unsettling, almost feral, working like a jump scare more than a punchline. It’s a gesture gone so wrong, it’s destined to become a meme.The year began with hit movies like “M3gan” and “Cocaine Bear” that pushed horror into camp comedy. It’s ending with a nervy television series that moves in reverse. It’s been called cringe comedy, and there are funny moments, but they set up something darker and dread-filled, potentially supernatural. Fielder has always toyed with genre, elevating prank comedy and using reality television to make unexpectedly moving drama. He’s leaning on the tools of horror here. With “The Curse,” the jangly sound design, manipulative cinematography and periodic bursts of oddball monstrousness offer a few of the creepiest moments of the year.While the plot is involved, with several threads, its engine is a classic horror trope: Is this supernatural-seeming thing of the title for real?Action commonly takes place through windows in “The Curse.”John Paul Lopez/A24, Paramount+ and Showtime“Rosemary’s Baby” and “Get Out,” among other movies, both invite the viewer to ask this question along with their paranoid protagonists.Asher possibly enters the realm of the fantastical after balking at the criticism that his plan to “consciously rejuvenate distressed homes” is gentrification. “We don’t believe the G word has to be a game of winners and losers,” he tells a journalist. Rattled by this exchange and concerned about his image, he summons his camera crew to film his giving a $100 bill to a small Black girl. Then when the camera stops rolling, he asks for it back. She responds by saying she is putting a curse on him, which he initially brushes off but gradually becomes obsessed with. Whether Asher is actually cursed hovers over the entire 10 episodes until a twist in the final episode that should polarize the audience.In “Psycho,” Alfred Hitchcock proves that the easiest way to make us empathize with a killer is to keep the camera on him. Even when Norman Bates is trying to cover up a murder, audience members will eventually, if managed right, find themselves gravitating to his side. Fielder has always been preoccupied with this emotional power, the distorting impact of the camera, not only on its subjects but on viewers, too. It’s easy to sympathize with Asher’s struggles as he navigates a skeptical press, his troubled new marriage and a bullying father-in-law as well as his craven producer, played by Benny Safdie. “The Curse” keeps complicating this identification, subverting and questioning it.In Episode 3, Asher’s stern face is cast in a shadow at an auction as he buys a home he didn’t realize is housing the girl who cursed him. A scene in which he uses a drill to open her door is played for terror, focused on her cowering inside. The rumbling power tool and the fear on her face cast this as a classic home invasion scene with Asher as the terrifying intruder. His stated good intentions are repeatedly mocked in the ominous way his scenes are shot.This draws attention to the Siegels as privileged outsiders casually entering and destroying a new neighborhood in the guise of liberal do-gooder assistance. The focus doesn’t just hit the theme of gentrification, but also, in a subplot involving an Indigenous artist, the genocide and exploitation that built this country.Fielder in “The Curse.” By filming frequently from outside windows and doors, the show creates an alienating effect, as if we’re only seeing part of the picture.Richard Foreman Jr./A24, Paramount+ and ShowtimeIt’s heavy stuff but not always on the surface. “The Curse” has many long, mundane set pieces that double as metaphors. Take the physical comedy of Asher helping Whitney to take off her sweater as they fall over each other. They try to recreate the funny moment for the cameras. But it doesn’t work, so they try again, emphasizing more strain and resistance. It’s a sharp satire of how people fake struggle for clout and approval.The show is full of goofy humor about tragic subjects, a cartoon about oppression, a Holocaust joke. The main plot is just the old story of vain fools trying to make a show, but grim subtext comes through in the formal qualities of the show.For instance, shots are commonly filmed through a window from the outside looking in. Instead of bringing us into a vehicle where Fielder and Stone are talking, the camera is placed beyond the closed car window, in traffic. Most of a scene in a hospital room is viewed through the door or window. So much of “The Curse” takes place outside planes of glass that the mirrored glare is a signature of its aesthetic.This has an alienating effect, giving the sense that we’re only seeing part of the picture, a distorted one at that. But there’s also something creepily voyeuristic about the shot, a cool detachment, the sense that everyone is under a microscope. It evokes the most famous shot in all of horror: The classic slasher point of view, used most famously in “Halloween,” where we share the perspective of the serial killer looking through a home’s window.But there’s something about a peeping-tom perspective that adds authenticity. It comes off as less staged and slick than most television and thus more real. Does that make it more fake or less? Fielder has always loved exploring this question. “The Curse,” his most scripted show yet, is continually shifting between comedy and horror as well as naturalism and the fantastical. The lines are much blurrier than we think, but on this show, that’s where the action is.After his monstrous face in class, Asher looks humiliated. But also taken aback, as if he revealed more than he wanted or knew was there. More