Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Cold Plunges and Cuddling With Cats: Photographing the ‘Great Performers’

      by

      What do celebrities do in their downtime? A new project by The New York Times Magazine captures the awards season’s buzziest actors in their element.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.The photographer James Nachtwey showed up at Bradley Cooper’s farmhouse in Pennsylvania one freezing morning in January, armed with a coat and a camera.“Let’s take a walk,” an affable Mr. Cooper suggested, leading Mr. Nachtwey through his 33-acre property until they arrived at an ice-crusted stream.After sharing that he practiced mindfulness by taking cold plunges — immersing himself in freezing water for minutes at a time — Mr. Cooper proceeded to strip down to his black briefs and dive in, flipping over onto his back and closing his eyes.“I thought I’d have 30 seconds to take the picture,” Mr. Nachtwey said in a recent phone conversation from his home in New Hampshire. “But he stayed in for at least 10 minutes.”The resulting photo of Mr. Cooper, which appears on the cover of this month’s Great Performers issue of The New York Times Magazine, is one of 12 portraits of this award season’s buzziest actors. Mr. Nachtwey captured the images over a three-week period in January in Los Angeles, New York, Pennsylvania and Atlanta.Among them: Mark Ruffalo training his own camera on street pigeons, Paul Giamatti curled up on a couch with cats at his favorite used bookstore and Emma Stone wandering through steamy Manhattan streets.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 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      How ‘Madame Web’ Actress Isabela Merced Keeps Herself Off Her Phone

      by

      The “Madame Web” actress unwinds with the help of Sudoku, Legos and the occasional psychology video on YouTube.There is busy, and then there is Isabela Merced.On an afternoon last month in Los Angeles, the actress — who had just returned from Vancouver, where she was learning to ride horses for a role in Season 2 of HBO’s postapocalyptic survival drama “The Last of Us” — was preparing to meet Vice President Kamala Harris that night, while also doing this interview and, as an alarm that went off in the middle of the phone call revealed, laundry.“It’s a work in progress: I know how to get on the horse and not panic, and that’s about it,” said Merced, 22, who made her Broadway debut in “Evita” when she was 10 and is now known for her roles in “Transformers: The Last Knight” and “Dora and the Lost City of Gold.”“The Last of Us” is one of half a dozen film and TV projects she has lined up for the next few years, among them “Madame Web,” the newly released Spider-Man spinoff in which she plays Anya Corazon, better known as Spider-Girl in the Marvel Comics.Also on her film slate: the lead role in the long-awaited adaptation of John Green’s young adult novel “Turtles All the Way Down”; a starring role in “Alien: Romulus” (due out in August); and Hawkgirl in “Superman: Legacy.”How does she balance it all?“I’m going to have to practice meditation a little bit more than I have,” she said.In a conversation from her family’s home, where she lives with her mother and her younger brother, Merced shared how sound baths keep her centered, the secret to her mother’s “unmatched” chicken estofado, and why she always has Legos on hand. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.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

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Movies

      The Documentary Aleksei Navalny Knew We’d Watch After His Death

      by

      The Oscar-winning film followed the dissident after an attempt on his life. It played like a thriller at the time; today it feels even more chilling.In the opening moments of “Navalny,” the Oscar-winning 2022 documentary about the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, the director Daniel Roher asks his subject a dark question.“If you are killed — if this does happen — what message do you leave behind to the Russian people?” the voice asks from behind the camera.Navalny’s ice-blue eyes narrow just a little, and he sighs. “Oh, come on, Daniel,” he says in heavily accented English. “No. No way. It’s like you’re making a movie for the case of my death.” He pauses, then continues. “I’m ready to answer your question, but please let it be another movie, Movie No. 2. Let’s make a thriller out of this movie.”“And in the case I would be killed,” he concludes with a wry smile, “let’s make a boring movie of memory.”On Friday, according to Russian authorities, Navalny, one of President Vladimir V. Putin’s harshest critics, died in a federal penitentiary in the Arctic Circle. The official story released Friday morning was that he had lost consciousness while taking a walk in the yard. Navalny’s chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, publicly doubted the reports, writing on X, “If this is true, then it’s not ‘Navalny died,’ but ‘Putin killed Navalny,’ and only that. But I don’t trust them one penny.”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

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      What Exactly Is Jennifer Lopez’s “This Is Me … Now: A Love Story?”

      by

      Yes, Ben Affleck is in it, as are many of J. Lo’s famous friends. Here’s what to know about “This Is Me … Now: A Love Story.”At one point during “This is Me … Now: A Love Story,” a character observes that watching Jennifer Lopez’s love life is like bingeing “Vanderpump Rules” — eventually you stop judging the people you’re seeing and start judging yourself. But in the case of this self-financed multimedia project, you might also question what exactly it is that you have watched. Is it a movie, a collection of music videos, a simple vanity project? Is it a therapy session, or a new genre entirely — the therapy musical? Lopez, who co-wrote and produced this 65-minute spectacle, which is now available on Amazon Prime Video, tries to keep you guessing. You might have a few questions. We have some answers.Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck embrace, mostly, at the premier of “This Is Me … Now.”Mario Anzuoni/ReutersHow much of Ben Affleck is in there?Ben Affleck flits in and out of this like a little-seen hummingbird.He bookends the story as a lost love, a character called the Biker, but he’s a barely glimpsed mystery. Could that be his jawline? Is that his chest? It’s definitely his voice we hear telling a sleeping Lopez, “You know how much I love you?” Going incognito to play cable-news pundit Rex Stone, Affleck dons a bad blonde wig, a prosthetic nose and a Trumpian spray tan. He also adopts a folksy accent that recalls Gary Busey, and a delivery that’s part Tucker Carlson and part Keith Olbermann (a man Affleck once memorably mocked on “Saturday Night Live”). But instead of ranting about politics, ol’ Rexy is concerned with the state of love and connection in the world — a topic of great interest to Lopez’s character, who is simply called the Artist. He’s the anchor of her love, but she’s barely tuning in.It might have served the project better to have less of Affleck on the screen and more of him on the page. After all, this is the guy who co-wrote “Good Will Hunting” — one of the best of all therapy movies. Did the real-life Affleck try to encourage his wife to open up, the way Robin Williams’s therapist, Sean, wanted his patient to do? Did he urge her to think a little more deeply about love and vulnerability? It’s hard to guess from his mid-credits monologue.Can we play Name That Ex?Yes, we can.Marriage might be a sacred union that should only be entered into with the utmost care, as Jane Fonda’s character told Lopez’s in “Monster-in-Law,” but that didn’t stop either Fonda in that film or Lopez in real life from giving it a try four times.In the past, Lopez has used her position as a movie producer to comment on her own marital history. In 2002’s “Marry Me,” for instance, she played an artist who had been married three times. In this new project, she has a whirlwind rom-com sequence, set to the song “Can’t Get Enough,” in which she cycles through three weddings with three interchangeable husbands (played by Tony Bellissimo, Derek Hough and Trevor Jackson). Could this game of musical grooms be a commentary on her past marriages to Ojani Noa (1997-1998), Cris Judd (2001-2003) and Marc Anthony (2004-2014)?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 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Which Oscar Snubs Still Make You Mad? We Want to Know.

      by

      Greta Gerwig wasn’t the first omission to tick us off. Are you still stewing over “Pulp Fiction” losing to “Forrest Gump” or Marilyn Monroe never getting a nod? Tell us more.As the film editor overseeing movies coverage for The New York Times, I follow Oscar races for a living, so I knew that Greta Gerwig wasn’t a shoo-in for a best director nomination for “Barbie.” Still, when she was snubbed, I was surprised, then somewhat miffed, then truly annoyed as I thought more about it. She brought vision, artistry and both humor and gravitas to what could have been a forgettable summer confection. How could the academy not see this?Of course, as it turned out, I wasn’t alone in my outrage; thank you, Hillary Clinton. If the reaction seemed especially outsized, so has everything about “Barbie,” from the box office haul to the number of think pieces (guilty). And when you throw the Oscars, essentially the Super Bowl of Culture, into the mix, the response is bound to be big.But the truth is that this is only partly about “Barbie.” Most of us have strong opinions about what performances and films are and are not worthy of an Academy Award. We love to get mad when the Oscars mess up. And looking back on movie history, I know they have messed up. So. Many. Times.That got me to wondering: What snubs are you still mad about? It could be a performance, film, director, song, score — you get the idea — that wasn’t nominated. It could be one that was nominated but lost on the big night. Fill out the form below, and we may feature your response in an upcoming story. We will not publish or share your contact information outside the Times newsroom, and we will not publish any part of your submission without contacting you first. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Martin Scorsese Narrates a Scene From ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

      by

      The director narrates a “circular ballet” sequence where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Ernest Burkhart, is taken in for questioning.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.To tell the sweeping story of the Osage murders of the 1920s in “Killers of the Flower Moon” (nominated for 10 Oscars, including best picture), the director Martin Scorsese opted mostly not to sweep the camera along with the narrative.“Dealing with the landscape and the period, I tended to have more stable images,” he said during a video interview, “images that were almost like old photographs in a way.”But one key moment called for a change. As investigators go to Oklahoma to look into the Osage murders and disappearances, they drill down to a group of individuals they think are involved. And in this scene, the lawmen converge to arrest one person they believe they can get information from, Ernest Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.As Ernest sits in a pool hall/barbershop, investigators descend on the space to surround him.“Since the characters are all circling around each other in the movie, and since the circle gets tighter and tighter, my drawing for the shot was simply a circle with an arrow. That was it,” Scorsese said.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

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      8 Documentaries About True Love and Relationships

      by

      These movies go beyond examining a relationship to reveal the glories, discontents and more about romance.Romance and love are oddly tricky to capture authentically in a documentary. So much of what fosters real connection — as opposed to, say, “Bachelor”-style performative love — happens away from cameras. Plus, every love story is a bit of an experiment, and the observer effect applies: being filmed tends to change the results.But you can capture something about romance in a documentary. I don’t mean the kind that ends in disaster and a true crime documentary. I mean the movies that reveal something to us about the highs and lows, the glories and discontents, and above all something ineffable about love itself, transcending just romance.You probably have your own favorites, and your list might include one of mine: “Fire of Love” (2022, Disney+), Sara Dosa’s swooner about the volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. United in love of one another and, perhaps just as much, love of volcanoes, they perished together in a volcanic explosion in 1991. Their shared interest was a fundamental part of their lives, which made me think of several documentaries about artistic couples, like Daniel Hymanson’s heartbreaking “So Late So Soon” (2021, rent on major platforms) and Zachary Heinzerling’s acclaimed “Cutie and the Boxer” (2013, Vudu), both of which delve into complex relationships that weave together creativity and partnership.Other documentaries tap into the power of love to sustain us across tragedy and hardship. I think of this year’s Oscar-nominated “The Eternal Memory” (Paramount+), directed by Maite Alberdi, about a couple navigating one partner’s deteriorating memory. Or Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s “Flee” (2021, Hulu), in which, on the verge of marriage, an Afghan refugee tells his story of traumatic displacement; his soon-to-be husband has become the only place of safety he can find, but he’s still reticent to trust any home at all. Or there’s “Time” (2020, Prime Video), Garrett Bradley’s gutting film about Fox Rich’s fight to free her husband, Rob, from a 60-year prison sentence. (This was a co-production of The New York Times.)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