Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Anora’ Wins Big at Producers and Directors Guild Awards

      by

      The film that takes those two major industry prizes almost always goes on to win the best-picture Oscar.This tumultuous Oscar season has a certified front-runner.On Saturday night in Los Angeles, more than a month after “Anora” lost every award it was nominated for at the Golden Globes, the Sean Baker-directed comedy took top honors at awards shows held by the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America. The later victory is especially telling: Since 2009, when both the PGA and the academy expanded their number of best-film nominees from five, the PGA winner has gone on to claim the best-picture Oscar all but three times.The ceremonies were held opposite each other in Beverly Hills and Baker had to race from the DGAs, which wrapped first, to the PGAs. While accepting his award at the earlier ceremony, he appeared gobsmacked.“My impostor syndrome is skyrocketing right now,” Baker said, “as well as my cortisol levels.”The victories capped a good weekend for “Anora,” which also won the top prize at the Critics Choice Awards on Friday night. And though Baker may be battling impostor syndrome, 18 of the last 20 DGA winners also went on to take the best-director Oscar, which puts him in good company.Other winners at both shows included “Shogun,” and “Hacks,” which won drama-series and comedy-series awards, respectively. “Nickel Boys” director RaMell Ross took the DGA award for first-time theatrical filmmaker.“Emilia Pérez,” which led the Oscar field with 13 nominations but has been battered by controversy involving old tweets made by its star Karla Sofía Gascón, failed to take a prize at either ceremony.Here is the list of PGA winners:FilmFeature Film“Anora”Animated Feature“The Wild Robot”Documentary“Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story”TelevisionEpisodic Drama“Shogun”Episodic Comedy“Hacks”Limited or Anthology Series“Baby Reindeer”Television Movie or Streamed Movie“The Greatest Night in Pop”Nonfiction Television“STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces”Live, Variety, Sketch, Stand-up or Talk Show“Saturday Night Live”Game or Competition Show“The Traitors”Sports Program“Simone Biles Rising”Children’s Program“Sesame Street”Short-Form Program“Succession: Controlling the Narrative”And here is the list of DGA winners. For the complete list, go to dga.org.FilmFeatureSean Baker, “Anora”Read our review.First-Time FeatureRaMell Ross, “Nickel Boys”Read our review.DocumentaryBrendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, “Porcelain War”TelevisionDrama Series“Shogun,” Frederick E.O. ToyeRead our review.Comedy Series“Hacks,” Lucia AnielloTelevision Movies and Limited Series“Ripley,” Steven Zaillian More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      What to Know About the Karla Sofía Gascón and ‘Emilia Pérez’ Controversies

      by

      The actress’s old social media posts have threatened to derail the film’s Oscar campaign, but backlash has been building for months for other reasons.When “Emilia Pérez” premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival last May, the reaction from critics in attendance and the jury was overwhelmingly positive.The French-produced, Spanish-language musical about a Mexican cartel boss who transitions into a woman and attempts to become a paragon of virtue won the jury prize (essentially third place) and its stars — Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz — shared the best actress award.Netflix, the powerful global streaming company that has had a best picture Oscar in its sights but out of its grasp since the 2019 ceremony, acquired the unconventional picture by the French director Jacques Audiard and launched an imposing awards campaign. Widely embraced by the film industry, “Emilia Pérez” received 13 Oscar nominations last month — leading this year’s pack and falling one short of tying the record.One of those nominations belongs to Gascón, who plays the titular character and became the first openly trans actor nominated for an Academy Award. In recent weeks, she has become engulfed in controversy that has threatened to derail the awards hopes for both her and the film. But since “Emilia Pérez” debuted in select theaters and then on Netflix late last year, there has been plenty of backlash on multiple fronts that has marred its pathway to Oscar glory. Here are the broad strokes of the controversies.Karla Sofía Gascón’s Resurfaced Social Media PostsLast week, the journalist Sarah Hagi unearthed offensive statements that Gascón posted in Spanish on X over the last few years. The disparaging comments touched on topics like George Floyd, Islam, and even the 2021 Oscar ceremony.Gascón has since apologized, deleted her X account and given a lengthy interview on CNN en Español that she booked without Netflix’s involvement or authorization. She has also stayed active on Instagram, defending herself against criticism.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      What an Instagram Reel Has in Common With a 4-Hour Documentary

      by

      Here is what I see when I scroll through Instagram Reels on my phone. A woman wakes up in bed, goes to the kitchen and pours coffee, inviting me to follow along with her morning routine. One swipe, and someone is making a “viral kale pasta Caesar salad.” Another swipe reveals a demonstration of “peel-and-stick stair treads,” which I can purchase on Amazon at the link in her bio. A man feeds a puppy a lemon wedge; it is not pleased. One of my own colleagues appears, explaining why we should start taking bird flu seriously.Here’s an ad for a serum for aging skin. Here’s an ad for a nifty battery-powered sconce. Here’s someone teaching me French slang, and someone else auditioning for a Broadway show. Another morning routine, another coffee. A cat steals salami off the kitchen counter.At some point, I must have indicated to the app that these intrigued me — that’s how “the algorithm” works. But with the possible exception of bird flu they are thoroughly ordinary versions of things I’ve already seen a hundred times.Everyone’s social video feed is different, an infinite number of variations molded around each individual user. Yours might be much more sprightly or eccentric than mine. But all of our feeds are at their core tremendously banal: They’re just windows into what people do with themselves all day, repeated over and over again. And we watch, because, for some reason, we love watching humans be humans.I STARTED THINKING ABOUT REELS at a screening of a Frederick Wiseman documentary the other day. (I do not think this is a sentence that has ever been written before.) It was “Aspen” (1991), which is among the 33 newly restored films and a handful of more recent ones in the series “Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution” at Lincoln Center through March 5, in an extensive retrospective that joins simultaneous retrospectives in Paris and Los Angeles.“Aspen” peeks into daily life at the Colorado ski resort town among the wealthy, mostly white, mostly older denizens who have homes there, as well as others, mostly people of color, who live in far more modest housing. Structured as a series of scenes without any single protagonist, it seems at first like a neutral portrait. But the longer you follow it, the more you realize it’s actually about the racial, religious and economic lines along which social groups divide in a barely-post-Reagan America.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      Critics Choice Awards Winners 2025: See the Full List

      by

      “Anora” scored big in the final minutes of the ceremony, while Demi Moore and Adrien Brody collected the top acting honors at the 30th annual Critics Choice Awards.See all the arrival photos from the 2025 Critics Choice Awards red carpet.“Anora” put some points — or, make that one big point — on the board at the Critics Choice Awards on Friday night, taking the top trophy for best picture just a month after it was totally shut out at the Golden Globes.Sean Baker, who directed the film, about an exotic dancer’s star-crossed romance with a Russian heir, used his acceptance speech to exhort the audience to support more independent movies released in theaters.“They’re going through some hard times,” Mr. Baker said. “We lost a thousand theaters during Covid — we lose them almost daily. That’s where we love to see films. Let’s see films in our local theaters, OK?”The Critics Choice ceremony, initially scheduled for Jan. 12, was postponed for several weeks because of the Los Angeles wildfires. This put the show, which was held in the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., in an unusual position: Voting had already concluded on Jan. 10, meaning the weeks that followed — marked by major events including the announcement of the Oscar nominations and a controversy over inflammatory tweets that engulfed “Emilia Pérez” and its star Karla Sofía Gascón — had no impact on the results.Ms. Gascón, who is under fire for posts that denigrated Muslims, George Floyd and the Oscars, was a no-show at the ceremony, though her co-star Zoe Saldaña, who won the supporting actress trophy, and the film’s director, Jacques Audiard, who accepted the foreign language film award, were both in attendance. “Emilia Pérez” also picked up a third trophy, for best original song.Ms. Gascón ultimately lost the best actress award to Demi Moore (“The Substance”), who won her second major televised prize after triumphing at the Golden Globes last month. The best actor award went to the “Brutalist” star Adrien Brody, furthering a comeback for the 51-year-old Mr. Brody, who has struggled to match his early success in the 2002 film “The Pianist,” for which he won the Oscar.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Critics Choice Awards 2025’s Unforgettable Looks: Ariana Grande, Demi Moore, and More

      by

      The question of what celebrities will wear to an awards show always looms large before any ceremony. But it took on new significance ahead of the 30th Critics Choice Awards in Santa Monica, Calif., on Friday: After postponing the event twice because of the Los Angeles wildfires, organizers announced that a red-carpet preshow would not be part of the televised broadcast.How might that decision influence the fashion choices of the television and movie stars in attendance? Would they be riskier? More relaxed?As people started arriving, it soon became clear that absence of TV cameras on the carpet hadn’t stopped most from taking big style swings. For myriad reasons — most of them good — these 14 looks were among the most memorable from the Critics Choice Awards.Nicole Kidman: Most Humphrey Bogart!Daniel Cole/ReutersInstead of a gown, the “Lioness” and “Babygirl” actress went with a broad-shouldered Saint Laurent suit jacket, high-waist pants and a polka-dot tie, an ensemble that evoked the men’s wear of Old Hollywood.Ariana Grande: Most Jellyfish!Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      How a Family’s Life Is Upended in ‘I’m Still Here’

      by

      The film’s director, Walter Salles, narrates a sequence from his film, which is nominated for best picture. Its star, Fernanda Torres is nominated for best actress.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.A relaxing time at home turns menacing in this scene from the Brazilian drama “I’m Still Here.”The sequence begins with Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a former congressman, playing a game with his wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres). But they are interrupted by the military police, who have arrived to take Rubens in for what they say is a deposition, one from which Rubens won’t return.What was lighthearted becomes dark, both emotionally and visually, as the police begin closing curtains in the house. The joy is drained from the room, and uncertainty and fear permeate the moment, all while the adults try to make it appear, for the couple’s children, that everything is normal.The film, primarily set in Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, is based on a 2015 memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the son of Rubens. Narrating this sequence, the director Walter Salles discussed switching the camera from a static position to hand-held at the moment the officers enter the scene. He said, “the camera relays the instability of the situation, pulsing with the characters.”During the tense sequence, one of the couple’s daughters, Nalu (Barbara Luz), enters the house and goes upstairs to talk to her father as he is getting dressed to leave the home for what Nalu doesn’t know will be the last time. Salles called it “a vital scene,” and said that it was “staged as the real Nalu told me it happened.”Toward the end of the sequence, we see Eunice in close-up as she stands in the doorway to see Rubens off. Salles said that it is “the first of the only two close-ups in the entire film. We saved it for the last glance between Rubens and Eunice.”Read the “I’m Still Here” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Paint Me a Road Out of Here’: Faith Ringgold’s Gift to Prisoners

      by

      In this documentary, the artist depicts what a more just and beautiful world might look like.In 1971, the artist Faith Ringgold received a grant to make a painting for a public institution in New York City. She decided to ask the prisoners in the Women’s House of Detention on Rikers Island what they wanted to see in a painting. “I want to see a road leading out of here,” one incarcerated woman told her.Ringgold took that idea and ran with it. She didn’t paint a literal road. Instead, her canvas — entitled “For the Women’s House” and installed at the prison in January 1972 — is divided into eight sections. In each, women are depicted performing jobs traditionally held by men at the time: bus driver, construction worker, basketball player, president. The road is implied: Seeing women in positions and roles they don’t always occupy can open up the viewer’s world. She might be in a prison for now, but there’s a place for her worth aspiring to beyond these walls.This was Ringgold’s imagination at work, always depicting what a more just and beautiful world might look like, particularly for the people whom the powerful prefer to ignore. Ringgold and “For the Women’s House” both appear in the documentary “Paint Me a Road Out of Here” (in theaters), directed by Catherine Gund, and hearing and seeing her talk is reason enough to see the film. Ringgold died in 2024 at 93, and is widely considered one of the most important American artists of the 20th century, a native New Yorker who was unflagging in her activism and commitments to dismantle racism wherever it surfaced. As a Black woman and an artist, she insisted on coupling political meaning with her work, which is suffused with curiosity and joy.“Paint Me a Road Out Of Here” is not a biographical film about Ringgold, even though you’ll learn a lot about her biography from it. The film has bigger aspirations, connecting art, prisons, activism and an expansive life. One major subject in the film is the artist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, an executive producer of the film whose prison reform work often draws on her own experiences while incarcerated. Shortly after her own arrest, for example, Baxter went into labor — 43 hours while shackled to a bed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More